Rabbi Matt Goldberg
Appearances
Health Chatter
Spirituality
Doctors and nurses and everyone, you know, have so much going on and are, of course, great at what they do and are so busy. And to have chaplains who are dedicated to this particular, you know, coming in, talking, laughing, singing, sitting with people in whatever they're feeling. Yeah. Is a great thing.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
their backgrounds about, Oh, you know what their, uh, parent always used to say or do. And it just comes back to this, uh, reminder that they're not alone, I think is really important.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
No, and I wouldn't tell you if it was just you, but not that much. I think you're absolutely right, which gets at, in some ways, the beauty of spirituality and in other ways, the... maybe the challenge is that we don't always know what, what will, what will do it, what will bring that connection and that meaning.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
You know, you mentioned earlier about walking in nature and, and, you know, some people know that, oh, when I'm, when I'm just with nobody else and I'm just among the trees or I'm, I see a beautiful sunrise or a great something in nature.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
I know that nature brings me deep spirituality, or if I hear beautiful music, I know that that music really makes me feel, but often, often we, we don't know it's, it's, Yeah. Elusive, maybe. I don't know if that's quite the right word, but there's beauty in that.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
There's beauty in the fact that it's not predictable all the time, that we can be moved by the words of someone at a funeral, by a particular memory, or by an experience going about our day. And so it's not, it's certainly not just you.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And, and I don't know why that is that some, some parts of spirituality again are predictable and we, we know that this is meaningful for us and other times, you know, we, we don't see it coming.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
Absolutely. I mean, I love, love, love, love the driving around this, this time of year and seeing the lights. It's, it's a, it's a shame. It's not a tradition that the Jewish people picked up on. Cause I just, I, it makes me really happy. I love this. Yeah.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
It's great. And you're right. You're right about the light. I think as you were talking about, you know, referencing, um, uh, the eulogy and the Shamash, um, It got me thinking about how there's something to this idea that I think I maybe said at the beginning when we started that a lot of my own spirituality and spiritual connection comes from being with people, being in community.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And I think that there's something about, you know, when we offer light, when we, you know, opt into community, we don't lose the light that we have. You know, like a shamash on a menorah or a chanukiah, we can offer light and we are not diminished. Yeah.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And I think that that's one of the, I don't know, I love that about being together with people that we can, you know, I can offer you something, whether again, it's song or words or, you know, let's go for a walk and see the lights or whatever else it is. And we can both then find spirituality. And I don't sacrifice my own by offering it to the community.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
Yes, yes. I mean, I don't know if it's kosher to quote just a little bit of scripture, but two very important verses to me, one from the Torah and one from later in the Bible. The first says, behold, God was between you and me all along, or God is between you and me forever. That's from Samuel in the Bible.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And I take that to mean that God, and I mean, again, we could do a whole show on what is God, but divinity, spirituality is found specifically between people, not isolated, not when I remove myself from the community, but specifically when I seek out relationship, right?
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And there's a verse we're going to read in the Torah portion coming up in a few weeks here that says, the Hebrew starts, God is speaking and saying, the Israelites should build this temple, the Mishkan, a place of prayer and sacrifice. They will build it and I will dwell among them, meaning among the people. So again, It's not saying build for me this temple and I will dwell there.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
Right, don't build it for yourself. And it's not saying God will dwell there in the temple you've built, but again, God will dwell among the people. So when we embark on a communal activity, whether it is building a physical space or whether it is getting together to process a terrible, jarring tragedy in our country or in our community,
Health Chatter
Spirituality
that is where we can find, again, connection, where we can find meaning, where we can perhaps find God, if that's what we're looking for. So I think that not only are you right, but I think that our tradition has shown, you know, people have been saying that and exploring that for thousands of years.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
that I'm, I'm constantly learning. So I'm, I'm finished my six years of rabbinical school and a lot. And I, did a lot of homework and wrote a lot of papers and a lot of reading, but I am not finished learning by any means. I had a teacher who thought that rabbinical school should be a 15 or 20 year program.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And so I don't know if he was just trying to get a rise out of us or if he meant it, but it worked if that's what he was doing. So I'm, you know, humbly and hopefully still answering your question. I'm not... totally sure I think that in you know reflecting on on my life up until now uh there's been both religion and spirituality, sometimes at the same time, and sometimes not.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
I see a lot of my religious practice, whether that's, you know, praying, you know, in Jewish tradition, many of us traditionally pray three times a day, or that's in observance of holidays and holidays. Keeping to the calendar, the Hebrew calendar, the religious calendar, there's religious practice that is not necessarily related to what I consider spirituality.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
But I'm not sure that that was always the case for me. I think that the idea of the existence of both religion and spirituality is newer, is newer. I've been trying to spend more time and through rabbinical school, tried to spend a lot of time really working on expressing what spirituality and what divinity is and how I experience divinity. divinity.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And I've come to realize that it's not just, it's not simply a part of being Jewish, that there's necessarily, that there's necessarily God or there's necessarily spirituality. And so I'm not sure if I'm, if I'm answering.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
What brought you to it, I guess? Why rabbinical school? It's a mix of a few things, and I haven't found a way to answer this in any short form. So someone give me a cutoff or something if I start rambling. But the first thing is that I'm the product of a Jewish community. I grew up in Vancouver, B.C., and so I came here as an international student and all of that. And
Health Chatter
Spirituality
I grew up in a Jewish community that was very loving, very supportive of me and my learning and my Jewish practice. My rabbi growing up, when I started leading prayer services and found that I loved doing that, he was very giving of the bima, of the pulpit. He let me experiment and lead services and try new music and things like that.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And so the first thing is credit to my parents for finding a Jewish community to raise me in and pushing me to go, even though I wanted to be at soccer practice or hockey practice or whatever it was and building a Jewish community around me. So the first part of the answer is that I grew up loving my Jewish life and my Jewish community.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
So I knew that Judaism and that community was going to be important to me, you know, wherever I went. Um, I didn't always know I was going to be a rabbi or that, you know, I wanted to pursue this, this clergy life. I kind of up and down when I was young, I thought, certainly I, I, I'm definitely going to do this. The rabbi life is, um, uh, is the life for me. Um,
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And then I got older and I thought, why would I want to take something I love so much and make it a job? And then I got even a little bit older and I realized I have this opportunity, you know, to make a living and support myself and my family doing something I feel so passionately about.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
I didn't know you did that. I did. You know what I did. But my plan was to be a baker. So after my first year of university, I did a year of university and hated it for for a few reasons. And so I left school. I had found a part time summer job the year before selling bread in a local bakery. It turned out I was really good at it.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
I will say, looking back, it's not that hard to sell delicious bread and cinnamon buns, but I thought I was, you know, God's gift to the business. And I ended up, I was telling my boss at the bakery, oh, I'm not going to go back to school, I don't think. And he said, well, you know, come work here full time. And so I did, and I ended up going back to school. I'm totally going on a tangent.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
The point is I went back to school. I ended up going to a different university. And while I was there, I got re-involved in the Jewish community. not only as a participant, but also as a leader. And this was one of the first opportunities I had had to not only do Jewish practice, but to facilitate it for others.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
I was living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the east coast of Canada, where there wasn't a... There's certainly a Jewish community, but not, you know, it's no... whatever. But kosher food isn't so readily available, etc. I had the opportunity a few times to facilitate and make accessible Jewish practice and Jewish learning and Jewish observance.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And so I think that that's where that was in my last couple of years where I realized, ah, I want the opportunity to make Jewish practice welcoming and accessible to make, to make, you know, again, religious observance, something that people can, can do. And that's when I, that's when I found that's my, that's the short.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
Yeah, yeah, I think it's a great question and I'll say it's a question that I... would love for us to talk more about, you know, in synagogue, for example, I can't speak much to other places of worship, but I would love for us to talk more about spirituality, both as a people and also our individual spirituality in the synagogue. And I don't think that they're exactly the same.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
You know, I'm going to sound like a broken record because my answers are going to be the same couple things that I've kept coming back to. The first is... excuse me, the first is, you know, that spirituality or divinity or community or comfort or meaning, whatever, is found between me and you.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And so when we get together, whether that's one-on-one or in bigger groups or bigger and breathe or pray or sing or run or whatever it might be, we can I don't know what the word, regulate, chill out, be productive, remember what's really important. And that's true also when these huge, terrible things are going on in our world. This is all the more so I'm focusing in my work on
Health Chatter
Spirituality
uh meeting with people trying to make myself available I've been setting up at coffee shops and restaurants all around Minneapolis trying to make sure that our community knows that I'm available to talk to process um to be a pastoral pastoral presence for people because again when we get stressed out or anxious about what's going on and we isolate ourselves it only gets worse yeah um Yeah.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
So I think that's, you know, it starts here. Everything that's going on in the world, what we can affect, what I can affect is how I meet each person in front of me. I'm trying to do that by reminding them that they're not alone and that we can, you know, have hopefully meaningful conversations or meaningful moments one-on-one.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
Mm hmm. spirituality can be connected that way. Right. I think so. And that's why, again, it's so important. Religion is just one, uh, as we heard from Aaron, thank you for, for bringing into this conversation. Religion is one way to provide that, that
Health Chatter
Spirituality
space that that safety of of being able to be vulnerable and say you know this is how this affected me or this is you know this is why this was or wasn't meaningful or how I'm feeling in this moment but but community is really the most important religion offers one way to find the community but there are there are many many others you know based on things we have in common are
Health Chatter
Spirituality
shared interests or values. And I think that's really the most important is to find that space where we can be vulnerable, where we can be seen and heard and where we can offer that same respect to other people.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
I think that they are deeply related. They're deeply connected. I wonder if perhaps, religion is the most common or perhaps easiest way to access spirituality. So I think a person can have a relationship with divinity on their own. I like the language of seeking. I can be a seeker asking big questions about the in-touchness or interconnectedness of the world.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
I think you hit the nail on the head. Thank you for having me. I think that community meaning can be found between me and you is my takeaway and together.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And that's kind of how I see spirituality. And someone can do that seeking on their own. And I think that religion helps with that, offering a framework and a safe community to ask those questions.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
Yeah, absolutely. It's beautiful. And they can exist. I think that they help each other, spirituality and religion, but either one can exist. A person can be spiritual. I have congregants, community members, students who say they're spiritual, but not religious. And I think the other can exist as well. You know, we could do a whole
Health Chatter
Spirituality
a different podcast perhaps on Judaism specifically and how there are cultural Jews or, you know, people who, you know, celebrate the holidays, but maybe don't do the prayer and don't do the theology or the divinity and the spirituality. So they can exist, you know, I digress a little bit. They can exist separately, but I think that each is bolstered and made even more meaningful with the other.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
I like that. I think that's a really interesting idea. My understanding of or experience of spirituality is a lot more... based on connection to the world around me. And so it's, whereas my religious practice was largely learned about the holidays, about the liturgy, et cetera.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And so I hadn't thought much about that until you just said it, but I love that idea that there's almost like innate spirituality within us and That we can work to access and we can work to deepen and we can work to be able to express. But there's just opportunity or potential for spirituality just in the fact that we're alive.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And I think that perhaps the best thing religion does is offer a space to talk about spirituality because it's one of the... um to experience you know whatever we're thinking of when we say spirituality but to be able to uh express it and um you know talk to someone else about it whether it's a rabbi or someone you know someone sitting next to you and
Health Chatter
Spirituality
in synagogue or whatever place of worship, I think that the opportunity to practice expressing, oh, this was meaningful to me, oh, this didn't do anything for me, is how we can expand or grow our spiritual connection.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
Yeah. I think, I think you're right. I've seen that both in, in congregants and community members who have gone to visit, you know, connected to this job. And also when I was, I did a chaplaincy internship, I guess it could be called in Chicago as part of my schooling, my rabbinical educate rabbinic education.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And that was when I was, you know, every day going in and seeing not only Jewish patients and their families, but people of any or all faiths, some who had requested a chaplain, others who had not, just kind of doing rounds and checking in with them.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
The first thing that I just want to make clear, I guess, for my own what have you being on this podcast, is that spirituality and prayer is not a substitute for doctors and medical care and I think that there are people out there who perhaps get that confused, but I think that they work together. And it's important to say that that's just before we go further, that's my belief.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And we certainly can't substitute prayer or religion or what have you for real medicine and doctors and care teams in hospitals. That said, I agree with you that I've seen spirituality, religion, prayer be a big, big part of people's time in hospitals or going through medical treatment, whether it's surgery or something else. I think that there could be any number of reasons for that.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
I think a big one is that there's something that spirituality does to fight against isolation. And in that, kind of build community and bring people together. When I was working in the hospital doing chaplaincy, we would ask people, tell me about your support system. What support system do you have? And often that was, friends or family who were coming to visit.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And often it was God or their religious community or their prayer practice. And I think that there's something important about, particularly in this vulnerable moment in their lives, in the hospital or whatever it might be going through an illness, they can feel very isolating. And I wonder if spirituality, if prayer,
Health Chatter
Spirituality
can fight against that, can give a sense of, oh, I'm in this fight with someone, or I have a community and a connection that I may not be able to see in the room with me, but I know it's there.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
Right. Yeah, certainly. It's, you know, related to what you were saying, you know, also a moment ago. There's having someone to talk to, someone to, again, pray with or sing with. I keep coming back to prayer and music because those are big parts of my own spirituality and spiritual practice.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
But I think it can just be a distraction and help put people even just in a better mood, which, you know, if they're more willing, you know, I don't know if it's giving them a positive attitude. outlook or, or just being calmer, but then it can help them be more ready to listen to, to the rest of the care team, uh, more ready to receive, um, receive whatever care that they need.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
And, and it's all, it's all related. I think that it's important to, to see chaplains as a part of the care team, which doesn't, doesn't always happen, but, but, uh, my experience was very positive in the hospital I worked in, uh, in that way.
Health Chatter
Spirituality
people by getting them just to laugh right and how many of us have said from time to time that you know laughter is a great a great medicine and it really is it makes you feel good it is and to have people dedicated you know in in the the hospital uh um environment who are uh don't have five million other things to to be worrying about and keeping in mind um uh because you