Lead with Loving Kindness and Build Community
with Rabbi Shira Stutman
What does it look like to prioritize loving kindness, support for others’ success, and rest with intention?
In this episode of How We Future, Lisa is talking with Rabbi Shira Stutman, a nationally recognized rabbi, author of The Jewish Way to a Good Life and host of the podcast Chutzpod!
Shira is the full-time rabbi of Aspen Jewish Congregation and the former Founding Rabbi of Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, a groundbreaking spiritual and cultural center in Washington, DC.
In this episode, Lisa and Shira discuss:
Chesed (loving-kindness) as a crucial practice in this time
Why allowing yourself to receive care can be harder than giving it
What community really looks like, and where you can learn to build it
How rest is a human-right
Lisa learns about "schepping nachas," which is experiencing true joy from someone else’s success. If you’re curious how ancient wisdom can be radically practical and how small moments of connection can create huge ripple effects, this episode is for you.
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Rabbi Shira Stutman: That's what a community is. They are a group of people who will show up for you when times are difficult and also in joyous moments as well. I always joke that you know you're in a community where you love everyone, even if you actually don't like everyone.
Lisa Kay Solomon: I'm Lisa Kay Solomon, and this is How We Future, where I talk to some of my favorite changemakers about shaping tomorrow, starting today.
This season on How We Future is all about big ideas. This week, we're talking about kindness with Rabbi Shira Stutman. Rabbi Shira is a lifelong community builder and author of The Jewish Way to a Good Life.
We explored the concept of chesed, or loving kindness, both as something we do for others and as something we can also receive. We dig into what it takes to build a community you care about, return to, and are changed by over time. We talk about how stepping out of constant productivity can help us remember what it feels like to be fully present. This episode is full of joy, celebration, and humor. It's about tradition and modern life, ancient wisdom and present-day experimentation, and what it might look like to live with more intention, more connection, and more care.
If you enjoy the conversation, leave a comment or rating. I'd love to hear from you. Let's get into it with Rabbi Shira Stutman.
Rabbi Shira, I am so excited to welcome you to the How We Future podcast. In many ways, I really think you are my spiritual muse for How We Future, because we met a few years ago, but it feels like we've known each other a lifetime.
The way I've seen you show up for your community, for your podcast listeners, the Chutzpod!, or the Chutzposse, as I heard, which is so fun, the Chutzposse, in your book, which we're going to talk about, in your sermons, and even in your one-on-one, is with such gratitude, appreciation, joy. How We Future is really steeped on what we call hope, hype, and gratitude. The hope part is infusing optimism, even in this moment, that we can make choices that can make the world better than it is today, even amid the hard stuff.
The hype is not about being a heister, but it's really about allowing our energy to come through, to be human, to be on full, enthusiastic, or even a fearful display, to be known. Gratitude is showing appreciation. When I think of those three words, Rabbi Shira, I think of you. Thank you for being here.
Rabbi Stutman: Oh, my God. First of all, I feel like we can be done now. That was such a beautiful introduction. I've been wanting to talk with you about the current moment, and also how we can turn to the future, I think, for years now. Thank you so much for having me.
Lisa: Oh, my gosh. Your bio is not totally complete with that. I'm going to add one more element that I'm so delighted that we share, and I even have a prop. Here we go.
Rabbi Stutman: Oh, two Philadelphians together.
Lisa: Two Philadelphians. For those friends that are just listening and not watching, I just pulled out a heaping cup of my Wawa Hazelnut, which if you are a fan of How We Future, you know I am an undying loyal fan of. I will say that we are having this conversation as part of Season 4 of How We Future, which is loosely themed on big ideas. This is a big idea, and again, appropriate that we're having you on, but I just want to share a little bit of the andness that I gather from your wisdom and the way you show up in the world.
One is really honoring the ancient. I know you are just a huge lifelong learner and appreciator of Torah, both capital T and little t, and also modern pragmatism. How do we apply that in every day? The idea of tradition that we can learn and practice, spiritual and active, sacred, mundane, individual, communal, abstract, concrete. The idea of being absolute and connected. So much of your work is finding connections. I like all of them, but the idea of holding on to tremendous optimism and also being realistic about this moment.
Rabbi Stutman: Can I just say something, an appreciation for you, Lisa? I know we still haven't officially jumped in, but I've been on book tour now for a year. It is so clear the difference between someone who maybe read the book, maybe didn't, and wrote all the questions on ChatGPT, and someone who actually took the time to really be thoughtful. It's so clear that before this conversation even officially begins, that you have taken the time to really be thoughtful. I'm so here for it, and I'm so, so grateful. Thank you. No one's ever articulated my approach, my rabbinate in that way. I love it. It's the improv comedy approach to Judaism, yes and.
Lisa: Yes, and, all the things. That's what it is. I'm going to hold up this beautiful book that you wrote called The Jewish Way to a Good Life: Find Happiness, Build Community, and Embrace Lovingkindness. Oh my gosh. We're going to talk about all that. Did I just hear a rumor that this is coming out in paperback?
Rabbi Stutman: Yes, it is, which is hilarious because what listeners should know is that the book is a tiny, tiny book, to begin with. In fact, in one of my book talks, it's a lot of Jews who come to this book talk, this woman, she must've been 135 years old, she calls out from the audience as I'm talking, she goes, "It's not even a book. It's basically a pamphlet." I was like, "Thank you, Bernice." I didn't really know what her name was. I assumed it was Bernice. When they told me it was coming out in paperback, which I appreciate it because it means it's selling relatively well, I was like, "Is it going to fit in someone's back pocket?" Maybe. It is coming out in paperback in time for Hanukkah.
Lisa: Count me in for a whole lot of pre-orders. I think everyone should have it. I think it's important to say, interesting that you say that a lot of folks that come to your book talks are Jewish, the book is not just for folks who are practicing Judaism. I want to say that from the beginning.
Rabbi Stutman: Correct. In fact, it was not meant for Jews at all. Some of my book talks have been in secular arenas. When I speak in a secular place, it's not Jews who come. I happen to have done a few other book talks, which have been in Jewish environments, like a Jewish community center, which is majority Jews. The book itself, I was recruited to write the book by a self-help press. This press publishes a lot of books like the Marie Kondo-type of books, the Swedish art of this, and the Danish art of that.
They had one editor who wanted to publish the Jewish art of living a meaningful life. They were like, "Who can write this book?" It happened to be that this editor listened to the podcast that I do called Chutzpod!. They called me, and they were like, "We want you to write this book." I was like, "Great, game on." You're 100% right, Lisa. It is not technically made for Jews, it's meant-- well, it is meant for Jews, but it's really meant for human beings who want to try to figure out how to live a more meaningful life.
Lisa: It's so inviting. I really want to double down on the idea that's really throughout the whole book, which is it's an invitation. It doesn't mean an invitation to the whole party. You can take the bits that are meaningful to you. I want to talk about some of the chapters. Then, as we talk about the chapters, I also want to talk about how you're embodying it. We know when you write a book that came out a year ago, you probably stopped writing two years ago. Since that time, life has moved on. You have moved on. You're now the head of a beautiful congregation in Aspen.
I want to talk a little bit about some of the opening chapter around chesed, around loving kindness, because, again, another thing that this chapter in particular, but really all of them emphasize, is that the Jewish way or is really Jewish doing and being. It's not just practicing. It's not just in a synagogue or in your home, but it's really a way of showing up. I think this chapter really captures that stance towards these even micro choices you can make. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what chesed is and how it is as a philosophy.
Rabbi Stutman: I love talking about chesed. I could do it all day because chesed is a way of showing up in the world that, to a great extent, is not unique to Judaism, but basically, it is acts of loving kindness. It is love basically as a verb. It is often, but not always, to people who are either in your community or in the outer edges of your community. Meaning, it is people who you actually are coming in face-to-face contact with.
Chesed can be anything from bringing a meal to someone who is sick or someone who has just had a baby. It can be dancing at a wedding. It can be attending a funeral. It can be any act of generosity from one human being to another. There are really two main reasons that I drill down on chesed in this book. The first is that often, in Judaism, what people think about when they think about doing Jewish is going to a synagogue, or lighting candles on a Friday night on the Sabbath.
Actually, what it means to do Jewish or to show up in a spiritual/religious way is also to care for other human beings on the planet, which is something we are sorely in need of in this moment. Is, how do we show up for other people, those who we already know and love, and actually those who we don't know at all, but we come into contact with on a daily basis? That's the first reason that I thought it was important to write about chesed very specifically.
The second reason is because what I've found in my 20-odd years as a rabbi is that often, it is much easier for people to offer chesed. Meaning, on Friday night, I will be bringing a meal of sushi Shabbat to a friend of mine who just needed surgery. When that meal train came around, I signed up to bring that meal immediately. I was like, "I can't wait to bring you Shabbat dinner." Just yesterday she texted me one week out from major surgery and said, "You know what, I'm doing fine. I don't need that meal anymore."
I said to her, "Oh, yes, you do." She said, "No, I'm really fine. I'm up at--" she has two small children, "I'm up and at them." I said, "You know what, will you do me the favor of allowing me to do this chesed for you?" What I'm finding is that people find it very easy to do chesed for others, but they actually don't find it very easy to accept acts of lovingkindness from people. With that in mind, I think a good 40% of the chapter is actually not about doing the work, but actually about receiving acts of chesed and allowing yourself to be a recipient.
Lisa: That's such an important part where you really identify the giver and receiver as two people that get value, and that ultimately it has ripple effects that you often don't even know. I want to share both a funny Philly story, but then also connected to my experience of being a Philly diaspora in Silicon Valley. My funny Philly experience is that I kicked off the podcast here in Philly with our dear friend, Rae Ringel. We talked about also these micro moments where you can really lean into someone or not. That's a little bit of what you're talking about.
At any moment, you can check in with someone, or you can do a small act of kindness. I talked about how I went to Wawa that morning, and I noticed that the cashier, Jim, was greeting everyone as if they were his best friend. It was incredible. "Wawa, how's it going?" Not just how's your day, but how did that game go? Really knowing what was happening in the people's lives. I mentioned it, and then it turns out that the manager of Wawa reached out to me weeks later to say, "We heard your amazing shout out to Jim."
Turns out Jim was with that Wawa for decades, had just retired days after, found a way to give it to them. She was like, "This is exactly how we try to hold our entire store." I went this morning, and Jim, in fact, was not there, but Tanya was at the register. She was on fire, so excited to help me out. We were immediately connected. I never thought of Wawa as a place of chesed, but there you go, checking it out.
I also want to share just on a more vulnerable moment that for a long time, living in Silicon Valley, which is a very exciting place to be, very intellectually rigorous and ambitious, I really struggled with finding community. That's the next one I want to talk about. I hadn't really connected the giving and receiving as connected to community the way that you're just talking about now.
I find that Silicon Valley, everyone is like a warrior. You're going for it. You're an individual. Even at Stanford, the symbol is the duck, the duck syndrome, where you're smooth upon, but paddling like mad underwater. That part about receiving chesed is such an important part of building connection and community. It took me a long time to get that.
Rabbi Stutman: Yes, right. Especially in places like Silicon Valley or Washington, DC, where I've done a lot of my rabbying, where you just have so many Type A people who are just used to forging ahead. They fight through whatever injury they have. The idea of taking help is just anathema. The idea of taking help is just anathema to them. I think in those spaces, it's even more important to be able to learn how to receive chesed. Over my years as a rabbi, I've had to learn all of these tricks to try to convince people that they should receive chesed.
For instance, yesterday, when I was texting with my friend, who is the CFO of a major national Jewish organization, I said to her, "Don't do it for you, do it for me because that will allow me to feel like I've done a mitzvah." She's like, "Okay, I'll do it for you." I'll say things to people like, "Do you want your children to be able to receive help one day?" They say, "Yes, well, I want my children." Don't do it for you; do it for them. Really, I've had to really manipulate my congregants over the years in order to be able to get them to receive any act of kindness or generosity. It's really crazy in a way, but that's what I've really done over the years with all of these warriors. With all of these warriors.
Lisa: I think you're also allowing them to connect the head and the heart because when you feel it, you're like, "Okay, I want more of that. I believe you now. I didn't believe you before. You said it was good for you, but now I felt it. I felt seen. I felt honored." One more piece about this that I started to do with my kids because being out there, again, as a nuclear warrior, and we've connected more in the family, I've had to figure out my own traditions.
On Friday nights, we would talk about, with my family, the idea of celebrating mensch moments. This idea of when were you mensch to someone, and importantly, when was someone mensch to you? Just noticing that you are not alone and that you can have choice, and even in the small things. We're a big Post-it family, so there's lots of signs happening like, good luck on your last exam, or you got this. Even those, it's just saying like, you're not alone. I got you. I got you. Whatever happens. I want to connect that.
As I said, these are 10 chapters, but they all feed on each other beautifully. The other chapter I love so, so much is the one on community. Shira, my gosh, are you a community builder. You do that in the way you show up for people and people gravitate you. I think it's worth noting that while you're at Aspen now, you built a beautiful community in Washington, DC, called Sixth & I, which is a very special community. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your definition of community, which is now a word that gets thrown around so much, and just how you think about it in ways that will help inspire others to be thinking about the kinds of communities that they should look out for or even build themselves.
Rabbi Stutman: I could talk about building community all day and all night, so thank you so much for asking. Of course, I was only one small part of building Sixth & I into what it is today, but yes, I was honored to get to be a part of it. Let me begin by talking a little bit about what Sixth & I is. Sixth & I, which is literally named as such because it is on the corner of Sixth Street and I Street in Northwest Washington, DC, is a combo arts and culture center and spiritual community, but mostly for people in their 20s and 30s.
Unlike many other churches or synagogues or mosques, there is no programming for children. There is no Hebrew school. There's no Sunday school. It really is for people in a certain age group. One of the things I learned very, very quickly is that a lot of these people actually didn't understand what it means to be part of a community. They understand what it means to be part of a friend group, which is to hang out with people you like. When you no longer like them, you move on to a different friend group.
They didn't understand what it means to be in a community, which is to actually feel a sense of responsibility and obligation for a group of people with whom you are better together. That's what a community is. They are a group of people who will show up for you when times are difficult and also in joyous moments as well. I always joke that you know you're in a community where you love everyone, even if you actually don't like everyone. You know you're in a community where often there is an ask to pay to be part of it, but if you can't pay to be part of it, you are not kicked out.
By the way, that's why no matter how much you want SoulCycle or Peloton to be a community, it is not a community because once you can't pay anymore, it's like goodbye. They won't let you stay in it anymore. A community is a place where there are rituals that will help you through your transitional or liminal moments, whatever they may be. A community doesn't have to be religious. There are many secular communities that can help you get married, or that can help you through a moment of having a baby, for instance, or of graduating from college or grad school.
A lot of these young people, they really didn't know how to be in a community, by which I mean they didn't know how to show up for other people. I would joke that a lot of my work at Sixth & I, half of the work was teaching about Judaism, but the other half of the work was teaching about how to show up for other people and how to be responsible for other people. That's why the chapter on community in my book is actually a step-by-step guide for how to build community.
There is one review, you can look it up online, of the book that actually is a pretty negative review of the book. One of the things the author says is she says, it's so offensive that I feel that people actually need a step-by-step guide for how to build community. My response to her is if she doesn't need it, God bless her, but if you read the research on loneliness in contemporary United States, actually people do need a step-by-step guide for how to be part of a community, how to build community.
If they can't find community in place A, how to go to place B, because it's really, really, really, hard. Especially in the Jewish community, which is a traumatized community and sometimes has a harder time letting new people in, you really need to understand how to build the muscle of community so that you can become part of one or build one and then stay part of one for as long as you want.
Lisa: Yes. I think that's such an important point that people make assumptions that you should know how to do certain things when it's just like, "Why would you?" If you pause and you think about it, and you certainly think about where we are now with our young people and what they've lived through in the last six-plus years, even longer. Of course, the pandemic isolated them in key developmental times, not getting the lived experience of what it felt like to be in community, even in their school for a long time.
Then you think about the polarized world, the social media, the pressure to perform and to be performative. How would they know? I think that your scaffolding is a gift. It reminds me, one of my most favorite books on change and even design is a book called Switch by Dan and Chip Heath. They don't call it a design book, but it's totally a design book. It's all about how to get people to move by appealing to their rational sense, appealing to their emotion, and that third part, which is what they call scripting the path. In that part, they say, this scaffolding, what often shows up as laziness or even refusal is confusion.
I just love that reframe because it's like, they're not trying to be an asshole. They're not trying to rebuff you. They're confused. When we're confused, we don't want to show up and be like, "I don't know how to do this." I love that step-by-step. It is so invaluable. In fact, I want to turn it into a visual graphic. I think it should be like an infographic. We could do that now. To give it to like hellos or to young people, or even we had an earlier podcast guest, Dana Cowin, who I adore Dana. She was the editor of Food & Wine for over 20 years.
She has now been working on something called progressive hedonism. She is trying to bring people together in community to save the planet. Her thought was, when she really paid attention, wow, the environment and climate feel so big, but what can I do? Oh, I can bring people together as a potluck and in community. She is writing how to have a progressive hedonist dinner party. This idea, let's not assume people know how to do a dinner party.
It's actually a lot of work. Let's actually teach them how. I love this. I just love this. I have a quote here where you say, "Community doesn't happen to you, community is something that you build and tend to, or it stagnates, withers, and sometimes dies." Even if you are part of a community or join one, you have to keep working at it. I think that's another part that's not said out enough.
Rabbi Stutman: 100%. Because we live in a capitalist society. People would just show up at synagogue and like, "Okay, I'm here. All right, do community with me."
Lisa: Community. [chuckles]
Rabbi Stutman: In the book, you'll see I say pretty explicitly, you have to show up multiple times. I had congregants who would come to me in tears. "I showed up. No one talked to me. I didn't meet the love of my life the first time I came to synagogue." I understand that's heartbreaking. Trust me, as the rabbi, I want you to meet the love of your life the first time you show up at synagogue. I do. I want you to meet your best friend. I want you to meet people you love. I want your kids to meet their best friends. I want to give my best sermon I've ever given the week that you show up. I want that too.
Okay, given that that's not going to happen, what do we do next? Yes, community is really, really messy. Especially in the current moment, community is super messy. We have actually no other option. I just don't think that every human being for themselves is a viable option for humanity. I don't think it's going to take. Instead, we need each other. We need interdependence. We need ritual. We need tradition. Obviously, a tradition brought into modernity and into the contemporary moment, not just for tradition's sake. We need each other. We just do. That's my pitch at the end of the day.
Lisa: Yes, particularly for the long-term. I think it may be short-term relief to not have to go, but long-term, not good. I think also your invitation is to lean into perhaps the discomfort of being a part of community that may have some differing opinions. In fact, that's vital to the resilience of it. To, again, reframe that that discomfort means that you are strengthening yourself in some ways. That the retreat to everyone has the same point of view may feel like, "Oh, okay, I get everyone here at the moment," but it actually exposes you more than you realize. I just think you do such a beautiful job of articulating the why behind that and the fact that it is communal. That is a strength and a future-forward move you can do.
Rabbi Stutman: Yes. I'm not a scholar of any other faith tradition except for Judaism, but it is one of the cornerstones of Judaism, which is that arguably even more important than God in Judaism is community and is each other. Often, I will get emails from people who say, I want to become Jewish and I live in rural New Zealand or rural South Dakota, where there is not another Jew for 300 or 400 miles.
Can you become Jewish if you live there? You can, but I am not very quick to convert someone to Judaism who lives without another Jew and 400 or 500 miles, even in the age of the internet and Zoom and all the things. Because that's just not how Judaism works. It works best with other people. Sometimes it's super complicated, but we need each other in order to make Judaism flourish, but also, as I said, in order to make ourselves flourish as individuals.
Lisa: I'm curious, you're now at Aspen for maybe going on your third year or second full-time year. What are some things that you have done to help foster community while joining a community already in progress, and now you've joined? I would just love to hear about some of the choices to really deepen and strengthen it.
Rabbi Stutman: Yes. The Aspen Jewish Congregation is my first change management congregation. Up until now, every synagogue that I've worked at has been one that I've helped to start. It's actually a very different kind of work. The Venn diagram obviously of startup and change management overlaps a tiny bit, but much less than I thought it would when I started working at AJC. Of course, when you do change management work, the first thing you have to do is a lot of listening and a lot of relationship building, and a lot of just hearing the stories of the people who have been around.
This synagogue has been around for 50 years before I ever showed up, and it has been in a very specific kind of community. Before coming to Aspen, I had never lived outside a major, one of top five metropolitan areas in the United States. All of a sudden, I'm moving to a place where there are 7,000 people who live there year-round. I had a tremendous amount of learning to do. Luckily, I had a few years where I was commuting there back and forth to learn about the culture and the people who live there. That was part one, a lot of learning.
A lot of dipping my toe into making a change and then pulling it out and then maybe dipping two toes in and just listening, and very, very, very slow work. Then, of course, taking a risk every once in a while and just asking people to trust me. If we hate it, then we won't do it again. Once we had built some trust of the community, having some trust in me that actually I knew what I was doing a little bit in terms of building Jewish relevance and meaning and having some understanding of how to build communities of meaning where people could choose from the different ways, plural, to build a meaningful life.
Once there was some sort of trust, then what I really tried to do was lean into the area that we were in. We began to expand our community just by doing just simple things like having services outside. As you well know, Lisa, the Aspen area is known not just for its physical beauty, but also for its intellectual rigor. For the exquisite music that comes to that area every single summer and also during the year as well.
What we tried to do was engage all the different parts that make Aspen-- the word unique is quite overused in the 21st century, but I think one could argue that make Aspen actually unique. In bringing in all these different parts of what makes Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley, the Roaring Fork Valley, we were able to enlarge our community in really significant ways. People, to a certain extent, were there for it because they saw themselves in the community in ways that they hadn't before. It's been really deeply meaningful for me to get to watch the community grow in that way.
Lisa: Yes. Thank you for sharing all that. We often hear the change-manic cliché that change moves at the speed of trust, but that's exactly what it does. The fact that you were showing up and listening and not coming in with 100 ideas that you imported from Sixth & I or whatever you had that you were embedded in and lived with and listened. One of the just other things I love about you, Shira, just as a human, but also as a spiritual leader, is your commitment to learning and your commitment to being flexible and being willing to experiment, being willing to say what worked and what didn't.
I loved your articulation, which is how I've just seen it in my bits that I've been there around honoring what is unique about Aspen, having Shabbat at the mountaintop, leaning into the intellectual curiosity, your season of conversations, really bringing people together to learn together, which is another form of connecting. These are intentional choices. They may seem invisible or small, but they are big in everything. I just really applaud you for seeing the possibility there and taking the time to build the relationships in order to do it with and not for.
Rabbi Stutman: It's interesting, as I'm listening to you talk, it's like I never thought about how lucky I was to get to move to a place that was so different than Washington, DC, because I had no choice but to listen to people. I didn't know how to access the top of the mountain. I didn't know how to access the people at the Aspen Music School. I actually had to listen and learn from people, whereas maybe if I had taken on a pulpit in New York City, I would have been like, "Oh, how different is New York from Washington, DC?" I would have just been much more like a bull in a china shop.
Aspen, I really had to slow down. I went from-- Sixth & I has 80,000 visitors over the course of a year, and Aspen Jewish Congregation has 280 member families. It's a very different scale that we're working on also. It was such a radical change. I really, really had to listen. I would like to think I would have done it anyway, but I really, in some ways, had no choice.
Lisa: Yes, a great humility to lean into the conditions and to what's around you, and also maybe to let go of what you knew before in order to build. It's actually a great segue to the last chapter I want to talk to you about. Speaking of talking forever, I could talk to you about all these chapters forever, which is the ways of Shabbat. I want to again say that the Sabbath, the day of ceasing, as you talk about, is really for everybody.
I really want to emphasize that again in this beautiful chapter that you talk about, the significance of Shabbat. I learned so much from reading that chapter. I just want to really thank you for that. It's an ongoing practice of how much of ceasing I can bring into my weekly practice. I wonder if you could just share a little bit about the significance of Shabbat and how you've seen it play out both in the Jewish tradition, but also for everyone that might just need to build in a different rhythm to their life.
Rabbi Stutman: Yes. There are many things that I teach about as a rabbi, but there is nothing as easy to teach about as Shabbat because every human being deserves the right to cease from the work of the world. In the Jewish tradition, it happens to be 25 hours from Friday night to Saturday night, but it doesn't matter. Whoever you are, pick your time and do it. Now, the thing that makes Shabbat special is that it is a discipline.
To a certain extent, if you buy into the Mishigas of Judaism, what you're saying is it's "out of my hands." Once Friday night comes, I have no choice but to cease. Because you actually have "no choice," it forces you to stop. Really, any human being can do this, and they can say, "I am taking this time, whatever it is, Sunday morning, Friday afternoon, Tuesday night, and this is my time where my phone goes away, I don't answer any work emails, I'm just present for my family, or I'm just present for learning something new, reading a book."
We talk about the word Shabbat when we translate it to English means to rest, but Shabbat is not really a day of rest. Shabbat is a day of ceasing, as we said, from the work of the world. It's a day of whatever it is that you do the other six days of the week, you just don't do that thing and do something else so that your mind, body, soul can reset and get ready for whatever it is you want to do when Shabbat begins again.
Of course, in the Jewish tradition, one of the goals of Shabbat is to care for yourself and, again, your community. The other goal of Shabbat is to remind you that this feeling that you have when you are Shabbating, as it were, this should be a human right. Your job is, once Shabbat is over, to work so that everyone around the world ends up being able to have some sort of moment of rest in a just and equitable world.
Lisa: Oh, I love that. I love that. Again, it connects to this idea that it's easier to do in community. It's hard to do Shabbat by yourself. It's really helpful when you have a community.
Rabbi Stutman: Yes. I would argue it's near impossible. You can do Shabbat by yourself once or twice or three times. In fact, sometimes it's actually quite wonderful to be up by yourself for a few hours. Really, at a certain point, if you are going to want to have meals with people that you love, if you are going to want to have any sort of ritual with people that you love, whether it's prayer or meditation or taking a walk in the park, whatever it is, you are really, at the end of the day, going to want to have the option of being with other human beings. Unless you're a total misanthrope, which is wonderful, then you really should just only be on your own.
Lisa: How much richer it gets. You have an expression there that I think I'm going to have to adopt in my own family, where you talk about, on Shabbat, it's a wonderful time to quiet ourselves. You actually have this expression; it's time to be quiet now. I love that. It's time to be quiet now. In our family, we turn these things into acronyms or sayings. I've dubbed it ITBQN. I don't know if you actually will say that. I'll just share where that comes from.
Thanks to my very dear friend, Jennifer Dolsky, who will be a guest also on How We Future. Brilliant, brilliant woman. She grew up with all these sayings in her house that I've now adopted in my family. One of my favorites is, UCOC, which stands for unclear on concept. If you're at a dinner party, but it's not really dinner party, it's something else. It's a fundraiser, but it's not really a fundraiser. It's really a chance for someone to show off their music, whatever it is. You're like, "I'm a little UCOC on what's happening." Anyway, I'm going to bring in ITBQN, it's time to be quiet now, into my house.
Rabbi Stutman: Yes, that's right. The best Shabbats are sometimes when my whole family is together, and no one is talking. We're just all reading on the couch, but we are in the same space together.
Lisa: Yes. I think you make the point that that quiet time is often where the insights come in. We feel like we're like, "Oh my God, I'm doing something wrong, I'm not busy." You're actually giving yourself the gift of learning new things or having something come to you that wouldn't in that state of active doing.
Rabbi Stutman: Correct. Especially for those of us who have children, at whatever stage they are, the idea of pulling everyone together without all of the birthday parties or the travel sports, or have older children like I do, I just happened to have all my kids home for this past weekend that we were just able to sit for an hour and read on the couch on Shabbat with my kids who don't live with me anymore was one of the greatest gifts I could have imagined. We were absolutely not talking to each other, but that was as meaningful as any conversation could have been.
Lisa: This brings me maybe to some final things I want to talk to you about. Again, the gratitude for introducing me to some new vocabulary. In the Shabbat chapter, you talked about these practices of both shamor and zachor. This idea of guarding shamor, what we don't do, guarding that time, and zachor, really bringing in some ritual. That was very fun for me to think about those two things working together.
Rabbi Stutman: Yes. I love that you brought that up because on the Sabbath, especially in a Jewish perspective, you often think of the things you're not allowed to do. If you're a religious Jew, you're not allowed to use technology. You can also think of the things that you are allowed to do on the Sabbath. In my home growing up, my kids were not allowed to have soda except on the Sabbath. Every Shabbat, they were allowed to have one soda.
Every Shabbat when we went to synagogue, after synagogue there's a little reception, they were allowed to eat anything they wanted. They went right to the dessert table first. There were all these things that they were only allowed to do on Shabbat. Every Shabbat, we would have friends over. Then once my kids were teenagers, on Shabbat, they were not allowed out on Shabbat Friday night. We had dinner at home every Friday night.
We made a deal that any of their friends could come, and we always ordered out. Their friends were allowed to decide every Friday night where we ordered from. If you're a 17-year-old boy and someone else, what restaurant in Washington, DC, do you want to have dinner from? That's a very exciting thing. All the things that are additive, not just what is taken away from you.
Lisa: I love that. My friend I went over who keeps pretty Shomer Shabbat, I opened up her pantry, and I saw Fruity Pebbles. I was like, Fruity Pebbles? What are you talking about? She was like, "Shabbat cereal. You don't have Shabbat cereal?" I was like, "What? I'm in. I'm down. Fruity Pebbles." Love Fruity Pebbles. Perhaps something most people don't know about me. Just continuing on some new vocabulary that I love. This was in a different chapter, I think, talking about Simcha and celebration, the idea of shepping naches. Am I pronouncing it? That was like the greatest term ever.
Rabbi Stutman: You're pronouncing it perfectly.
Lisa: Shepping. Hello, you just described me. What is shepping naches?
Rabbi Stutman: I have heard that nachas is a word that we have only in Yiddish and in no other language. Maybe one of your listeners can write in and tell me if that's actually factually true or not. Naches means to take joy in the achievement of someone else. I have a friend whose teenage child has had a very difficult adolescence. They ended up dropping out of high school. They really suffered. They are now the most badass, awesome teenager you've ever met. They are about to get their GED.
I am shepping, which means I have so much naches for this teenager. Every time-- I just saw them last week and every time I see them, I feel like I could not be prouder, even if they were my own child, of how hard this teenager has worked to overcome all of their challenges. Actually, I don't want to know if it's truly only in Yiddish or not because I feel so proud that we have this word in our tradition, that we can take so much joy in the achievements of other people.
Lisa: I did not know how to describe that, and now I do. One of my colleagues said the nicest thing to me. She said, "Lisa, you're so gratitude forward." I just love that. I just love celebrating the shit out of people with no ulterior motive. Just being like, "Yes, you go." I just think that's like what an easy way to lift up.
Rabbi Stutman: I noticed that, Lisa. I was counting in my mind the number of people that you have cited already on this podcast. My friend X says this. My friend Y does this. What a lovely way. You didn't have to cite all those people, but what a lovely way to practice gratitude, to name-check other people in a nice way. To show gratitude. What a way to show up in the world and to honor other people. It's really lovely.
Lisa: I tell you, that's why we started How We Future. We're shep naches. I love it. Okay. I've got one more I got to ask you about. I don't even know if I'm going to pronounce this right. Is it a badchen? A badchen?
Rabbi Stutman: A badchen.
Lisa: Yes.
Rabbi Stutman: A badchen.
Lisa: I also love that one. Tell me about that.
Rabbi Stutman: Okay. We were talking about chesed before. The badchen, once upon a time, this was a paid profession. The badchen--
Lisa: [crosstalk] badchen.
Rabbi Stutman: I know. You would actually be great at this. The badchen is the person who, at weddings, but also at other joyous events, they're basically the hype person. They're the person who would come in to bring joy, to help keep the joy going at any sort of joyous event, whether it's a wedding or whether it's a-- I don't know if they would have a badchen and a bar or bat mitzvah in ancient times, but any sort of joyous. They would tell jokes.
There's actually a story in the Talmud that says that if someone is someone who helps people laugh, they will help bring the Messiah even quicker. We Jews, we don't believe the Messiah has come yet. It's like, "Who are going to be the people that are going to be the harbingers of the Messiah? One of them is going to be someone who helps people laugh." If you are an amateur comedian, keep it up because you might be that person who helps bring Messianic times.
Lisa: I just think it's like we often, again, this is the annus, laughing or feeling joyful amid all the suffering that's happening. It's a form of resilience, and it's a form of care and connection. Not to do it at their expense and not to be inappropriate about it, but not to shy away from it. The fact that it was a profession, oh my gosh, is something for me to aspire to, for sure. Shira, I could talk to you all day long. Before we go, I want you to know that I like to dress for my guests. I did intentionally wear a shirt filled with hearts because that's what I feel like you do for people. You grow their hearts-
Rabbi Stutman: Oh, my God.
Lisa: -you connect them to each other. I love the way that you do it. I'm so grateful to be a part of your community in all the ways, Little C, Big C, Hype Woman. What is it? A badchen.
Rabbi Stutman: A badchen.
Lisa: A badchen for your work. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on How We Future. So excited for the paperback and all the conversations and learning to come.
[music]
Rabbi Stutman: Thank you so much, Lisa. It's been an honor.
Lisa: Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. I hope you've taken away a new perspective on community, kindness, and living in the present. In a moment where so many people feel untethered and isolated, Rabbi Shira keeps pointing us back to the same thing: we are not meant to do this alone, and we don't have to pretend we know how to do it perfectly. We learn by showing up.
I keep thinking about the idea of shepping naches, celebrating other people's growth and taking delight in someone else's becoming. I just love that idea. This whole conversation circles back to hope, hype, and gratitude as daily practices. As always, thank you for listening to How We Future. If this episode stayed with you, consider this a small invitation. Reach out to someone, notice something good, or create a moment of pause in your week. Check out the How We Future Substack to read more of my reflections on this conversation. The link is in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Lisa Kay Solomon, and I'll see you next time.
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Links from the episode:
The Jewish Way to a Good Life by Shira Stutman
Switch by Dan and Chip Heath
How We Future featuring Dana Cowin, former Editor-in-Chief of Food & Wine
