Stan chats with Rabbi Matt Goldberg about spirituality.Rabbi Goldberg graduated from Hebrew College and ordained in 2023. Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Matt received a B.A. in English with a Minor in American History from Dalhousie University. After high school he lived in Israel on the USCJ’s Nativ gap year program, where he first met his wife Elana.During rabbinical school he held internships at synagogues in Boston and Toronto, and was part of the 12th cohort of the iCenter’s Masters Concentration in Israel Education. Upon his graduation, Matt was awarded Hebrew College’s Cantor Rick Boyar Prize for Excellence in Hazzanut. His musical career began much earlier: from childhood piano lessons, to playing trumpet in his university stage band, he now writes original nigunim (wordless melodies) that are used in communities around the country. While in school, Matt completed a unit of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, IL, where he worked as a chaplain, visiting with patients and their families.Matt is passionate about making Jewish ritual accessible, and Jewish community welcoming. He has brought that passion to synagogues across North America as a bnei mitzvah tutor, youth group advisor, teacher, and prayer leader. Having spent a year commuting to and from Boston to finish school, Matt is thrilled to be in Minnesota full-time, and is excited to bring his leadership, teaching, and enthusiasm to Beth El as the Assistant Rabbi.Listen along as Rabbi Goldberg shares his experiences and thoughts on spirituality.Join the conversation at healthchatterpodcast.comBrought to you in support of Hue-MAN, who is Creating Healthy Communities through Innovative Partnerships.More about their work can be found at http://huemanpartnership.org/
Hello, everybody. Welcome to Health Chatter. Today's great episode is on spirituality, which is a very, very interesting subject for sure. We've got a great guest with us, Rabbi Matt Goldberg, and I'll get to him in a second. We've got great background researchers that really make all our shows just super, super successful. Maddy Levine-Wolfe,
Aaron Collins, Deandra Howard do our background research along with Sheridan Nygaard who does research and our marketing. And then Matthew Campbell is our production guru, gets all the logistics out to make sure that our shows get out to you, the listening audience. So thank you to you guys. You're second to none. And then of course, My partner in crime here is Clarence Jones.
Unfortunately, Clarence could not be with us today because ironically, he's speaking at a conference on aging, which when he told me that, he was chuckling in the background. He said, why would they contact me about aging? And I said, Clarence, you're aging. So anyway, but he sent me some questions that I'll be able to pose in a few moments. So thank you to all of you.
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So with that, we're going to get into a subject that actually I've been really thinking a lot about, frankly, for quite a while now as it relates to health. As everybody might know, we've done a variety of different topics in health, social-related health topics, chronic disease, infectious disease. et cetera. And, you know, I've been struck by the idea of spirituality.
And so we've invited my great rabbi from Bethel Synagogue in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, Rabbi Matt Goldberg, graduated from Hebrew College and was ordained as a rabbi and a cantor, both. So he can speak and sing. Imagine that. And he came to Beth-El just recently this summer. So it's great to have you.
He was originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, received his BA in English and a minor American history. He's done internships in Boston and Toronto and has done work in chaplaincy, which I think is an important topic as it relates to spirituality. And just really a wonderful man. And I really appreciate having you on our show. So thanks for being with us, Matt. Thank you.
So let's get this thing going here. So, you know, there's kind of this, I don't know if it's angst, but there's kind of a connection or what have you between spirituality on one hand and religious spirituality. on the other. Now, I could speak for myself. I'm a religious Jew. I mean, I practice Judaism. And on the other hand, I'm spiritual.
So it's kind of like I have these two facets as a human being. And so I'm wondering if you might be able to respond to that.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting because, you know, when I think about, you know, spirituality, you know, I've talked about this before. I get here, I take my dog for, you know, Murphy for a hike, many hikes. And, you know, and we go to these places. I might, I could almost dub them as kind of spiritual places. Okay, when we go to our high access, we're on our own and we're out in nature.
And both of us will kind of like, you know, sit on a bench or on a tree log or something and just take it in. Just take it in. And to me, that's a spiritual place. angle, I guess, you know?
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
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.
Yeah, so they kind of complement each other. Exactly. So I wonder if a person is first spiritual, first spiritual, and then maybe embraces religion as part of that spirituality. I don't know, or maybe the other way around.
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.
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.
Yeah. So, you know, to a certain extent, I wonder if we're born with spirituality. a sense of appreciation of things around us, taking in a breath of fresh air. Those types of things, I think, are kind of innate. And we embrace that. We embrace that. And then religion... perhaps complements it for some, you know, or brings it to a different level or a different angle of it, you know, per se.
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
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.
Yeah. All right. So this is health chatter. Okay. So, you know, one of the things that has struck me, you know, I volunteer at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park here. And, you know, I see patients who are just come out of surgery. And inevitably, just about every time I go, there's some kind of a spiritual aspect.
Mm-hmm.
to their experience that they're going through, the surgery that they've come out of. There's kind of a spiritual aspect to their recovery. And for some, There's a religious connection as well. You know, it's just like, you know, I've seen, you know, patients that, you know, literally pray that, you know, they get better and get better soon.
Or people that are visiting will mention that this person that's in the hospital they're praying for, okay, And for some odd reason, I sense that that's part of the health of it all.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
Yeah. You know, I believe that spirituality, for sure, has a calming effect. And and you know, it's just like in the hustle bustle that we all are dealing with or the, or the angst that we're dealing with or, or the, Oh my God, the many things that are going on around us.
Um, spirituality gives us that, that moment where we, we could truly just calm down, take a deep breath and, and perhaps from a health perspective, um, give us a different view of what's going on that might be healthier and help us to get through things differently. And I think, I don't know, maybe there's research on this, that I think, you know, chaplaincy has a component of that.
You know, for a moment, You know, I've seen chaplains come in after someone's had, you know, knee surgery. And I really do sense that it helps them to forget what they're going through for even if it's a moment. Right. You know, and you know something? That to me is not bad medicine.
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.
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.
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.
Um, you know, I've seen chaplains help
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
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.
And, you know, it also takes your mind off of something, too. It's just like, you know, I've had discussions with patients on what their favorite food is.
you know because i'm telling them what they should eat you know going forward and they say well let's not have my favorite list of things to eat but let's then we go off of this tangent yeah and it really it's kind of nice because it takes the focus away from frankly the pain exactly yeah so i learned a lot a lot about people about their
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.
So, um, you know, I know that we're kind of connecting spirituality and religious aspects of all of this. And I think that they're interconnected and complementary, like we said. I want to bring up something that just happened this week, and you'll appreciate this. So Rabbi Goldberg was officiating at a funeral of a friend of mine on Monday. And
And I was there, and this person who passed away was a very good, dear friend who I'd known for a long, long time. And as we in Judaism are coming into Hanukkah, okay, which is starting tomorrow night, which when everybody in the listening audience hears this, Hanukkah will probably be over, but that's okay. You'll still get the drift of our conversation here. So
You mentioned something that really just hit me. You said that this person who passed away was like a shamash, okay? And for those in the listening audience, when you light a menorah for Hanukkah, there's one candle, there's eight candles, but then there's the ninth, what's called the shamash, which... In English, I think means the attendant or the helper or what have you.
That is used to light the other candles, okay? You can't light just the candles. You have to use this shamash, the attendant, to do that. And you mentioned in your eulogy that my friend was like that. He kind of lit other people up. And, you know, that moment in your eulogy was, you know, put aside the religious aspect of it. But visually, visually, that became really spiritual for me.
Really spiritual. That here's an individual that lit up the lives of many, many people throughout his life. And so there can be moments, I think, moments where you just hear something, you know, like I did when you presented this, that can do it for you as well. Do you sense that or hear that from other people, or is it just me? I don't know.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah. But I, I, all I can say is thank you for that because it was, it was really, for me, it was special spiritual. Now, there are other things that can get us going. We're talking about lights. You go in the neighborhoods now and you see holiday lights, Christmas lights, and you know what? That makes us happy. Happiness is kind of, I think, part of the spiritual aspects of it all. It's just like
it's kind of better than darkness. I mean, absolutely.
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.
Yeah.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah. Yeah. So another thing I want to talk about is, you know, we've kind of talked or focused on perhaps personal spirituality, but I think there's also communal spirituality, okay? And for instance, I remember distinctly when President Kennedy was assassinated.
I remember my parents saying to me that, okay, there's something that we, you know, as a family can do to feel better, okay, in this situation where there's this badness that's hit us all. And what did we do? We went to the synagogue.
There are a lot of people that went to churches or work wherever, where together we felt, I don't know what the word is, maybe more cocooned, more helped, where you sense as though spiritually together is better than alone. Okay, so for instance, I don't think walking Murphy, if that had happened back then, going on a hike would have done that for me. But being together with other people did.
So do you ever have that sense of communal spirituality, no matter where it might be?
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.
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?
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.
Yourself, not just for yourself.
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,
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.
And, you know, and I think that's in all religions. I really do. I really think there's comfort, health, if you will, You know, when you're sorrowful or you all are experiencing together some kind of pain. I think we get energy from one another in a healthful way, whereby I think after you're together, you feel better. better. I just sense that.
So let's talk about a little bit more on the health aspect a little bit. You know, when you're in a hospital situation, you see a lot of volunteers that help, okay, doing a variety of different things. One of our
what a person that we both know um he dresses up as a clown okay and and just you know goes to the pediatric units and actually some of the of the adult units as well it just clowns around it just makes people or um the connectedness between us with um animals we've had a show uh before uh about pets. And I see dogs being walked around in the hospital and they just make people feel better.
There is something special about that. There's something special about the connectedness that volunteers help or we help one another or animals. So I think communal wise, there are other angles to it. You don't have to get together as a whole grouping of people. You can get together in different ways. All right. You landed up being a rabbi, okay?
And you brought up an interesting concept at the front end of this thing, where it's one thing that you're innately born with that we alluded to, but then there's something that you learned, okay? So you learned, I mean, and so you, I think, dealt with the idea of religion on one hand, learning it, and combined with, if you will,
spirituality so how how did you find that distinction as you were getting educated or did you just kind of go with the flow um it's a it's a good question and um i think that you know i'll start by saying
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, no, I, I get that. So, so Maddie said, you know, why rabbinical school? if that hasn't been asked and we, I don't think I have. Uh, so, um,
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
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.
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.
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,
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.
And you didn't want to be you didn't want to go into being a baker.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
That's the spiel. So that, so, all right, here's the thing. You know, we have a rabbi on the show and, but everybody, I don't care. who you are, whether you're Gentile, Muslim, Jewish, we all have a sense of connectedness to spirituality. I believe that And maybe any of you can chime in on this. I think it's connected somehow or other to values, how we value certain things.
And we all are raised the way we're raised, okay? We make decisions as adults. young people and as adults differently, but it's still, you know, maybe the common denominator are the values that we bring, that we bring to ourselves based on the experiences that, that we have. And we make decisions that based using those values, how it affects our health. I think at least I hope that's the case.
You know, we all, come at it at different angles. It's like my dad used to say, that's what makes the world go round. It's really true. Aaron. Aaron's one of our great background researchers here and has been linked with this show for a long time. Just chime in. Give us a sense here. You've dealt with
You know, in shows, you know, she's dealt with some illness that she's had, some struggles, some great things that you've gone through. So tell me how your sense of, I guess, spirituality has helped guide you.
That's a good question because right now, at the moment, I don't consider myself a very spiritual or religious person at all. I grew up in a Catholic household and I think a lot of people my age get to be 24 after going to CCD every week and living in a Catholic house and family for so long and kind of move away from religion and spirituality because of
I think the best way to put it is pressures from the church. So my sense of spirituality is more how I am in touch with myself and the people around me. And so I kind of define it as community and in church and spirituality, people have community and my community is not in a church or a synagogue, but they're close knit.
groups of friends, or I have a very, very close community at the lifetime that I work out at. And I work at, um, people that I didn't know two years ago, and now we go get happy hour drinks, or, um, I have a couple of women who are very, very close. And, you know, the only time that we chat or talk is when we're at the gym, but I still consider them very close friends.
So my reflection on spirituality and religion might look a little bit different because of that, but I think it's still kind of a similar theme that what we've been talking about for the last 30, 40 minutes.
Yeah. You know, and I know you run and you exercise a lot and you know, and you know, and I, and you know, I go to the gym too and you know, I could look, I seriously, I could look at some of these people and I, To a certain extent, I think they're getting a spiritual high. Is that a fair statement, Erin?
I think so. When you get to that point in fitness where you're doing marathons or racing, it takes a lot of mental strength and toughness within yourself to complete those things. And I think that's the same thing that I said about the definition of spirituality is being in touch with yourself. So yeah, running a marathon, you better be pretty in touch with yourself to finish that.
Cause that's going to take a whole lot of strength on the inside of you more than it is physical to be able to complete that. So I think you're absolutely right with, with that theme. That is definitely a spiritual experience to do that kind of stuff.
You know, so I, you know, when you go to the gym, you know, just you see, an incredible array of people. You see big people, you see small people, you see people that are muscular, you see people that are fit, you see people that are not fit, you see people that are old, young, the whole nine yards, okay? And driven at different levels. Nobody's making a judgment about this one or that one.
Everybody's kind of doing their thing. So two days ago, I was working out, and there's a guy bicycling next to me, has his big knee brace on, on one leg, okay? And he's biking literally with one pedal with one leg, and he's letting his other leg kind of just hang there, okay? And I'm thinking, wow. You know, it's just like he's getting into it for him, In his own way.
And I really do think that there's, you know, there is something that feels good, maybe, and that's part of spirituality, right? When you're done with this stuff, or when you've accomplished something, right? A goal that you've set for yourself, like one push-up, you know, for somebody could be an incredible goal. Okay. Where, you know, 150 could be for the next one. Okay.
But no judgment, no judgment at all, which I think makes it, um, really interesting. So, um, Matt, you know, I, I, I guess I'd be remiss in, in not mentioning, um, maybe, uh, instead of just communal, um,
spirituality but you know maybe national spirituality or international spirituality and you know we have major issues let's just let's start with you know maybe international at the bigger level right now you know things that are going on in israel or things that are going on in in ukraine or things that are going on around the world that
Frankly, I suppose we could make a judgment that just don't feel right. Okay, so do you ever have a sense of how it is, you know, we can deal with maybe the idea of international spirituality? You know, I've always said, God, wouldn't it be great if we could all just chill out for one day? Let's just give it a try. You know, worldwide, chill out.
Let's reflect on the fact that we're humans and they'd go from there. But anyway, what's your thought on that?
Ooh, big question.
Yeah, it's tough.
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.
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
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.
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.
Yeah. And how you Maybe there's something spiritual in how we process things together. I really mean together. One-on-one with an individual or one-on-ten with a bunch of friends, but how we process. When we're forced into situations that we haven't been That we aren't comfortable with, you know, like processing wars. It's a tough one to do by yourself spiritually. So maybe conversationally.
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
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
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.
You know, being spiritual makes you feel good. At least hopefully. For me, eating a Snickers bar also makes me feel good. So there's something, you know, but if I did it by myself, that's okay. You know, I'm one-on-one with a Snickers bar and that feels really good. Okay. I'm not, by the way, you know, health chatter gang here. I'm not advocating everybody go out and eat Snickers bars.
But, you know, once in a while, it's good for your mental health. You know, so, you know, there are things that we do at the micro level that And there's things that we do at the macro level. I think kids are really good at this. I think they're really good. They know how to really focus in on things that really make them feel good, just building blocks or whatever the heck.
And then there's things that they do with a bunch of their friends running around. And you know what? To a certain extent as adults, if we could just bottle that
type of spiritual spirituality wouldn't that be wonderful wouldn't that be truly truly wonderful all right so where our aim for hell chatter today certainly wasn't to um have the end all on spirituality uh but it was certainly you know a conversation that um Hopefully you all can appreciate, especially as we get into these holidays, for all of us.
And by the way, there is something spiritual and meaningful in getting together with your families, getting together with your friends, no matter what holidays you might practice or whatever. what fun things you want to do together. There is something to it and don't discount it from a health perspective. Last comments, Rabbi Goldberg.
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.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really agree. Aaron, what do you think?
I couldn't have said it better myself. I was going to leave with something about community and connecting with others and especially coming into the holiday season for lots of different religions and spiritualities. Just a friendly reminder to find those close to you and lean on them for the next couple months.
Yeah, connect. Connect with one another for sure. So thank you for being with us. This has been very spiritual. and connected. And we greatly thank you. Thank you for your insights. Everybody, we have great shows coming up. Believe it or not, we have one coming up on prostate cancer. We're looking at cardiac rehab coming up. For those of you who know or have heard of Patty Wetterling's
She has committed to being on our show. So that'll be coming up probably in January. So great shows on Health Chatter. We hope you all enjoy them. So to everybody in our listening audience, keep health chatting away.