Noam: Hey everyone, welcome to Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam.
Mijal: I’m Mijal.
Noam: And I’m Noam. And this podcast is our way of trying to figure out the Jewish world. We don’t have it all figured out, but we’re going to try to figure it out together.
Mijal: As always, really love hearing from you, so please email us at wanderingjews at jewishunpact.com or call us and leave a message at 833-1JUICE.
Noam: Yeah, yeah. Let’s start with a listener question. Should we do it?
Mijal: Yeah, go for it, Noam.
Noam: Okay, so this one is from Isaac. By the way, my son’s middle name is Isaac. I like this. And my nephew’s name is Isaac. So maybe, maybe he wrote it. I like this. Anyway, so this is the, it’s actually very cute. It’s the theme of this episode. What do you do for Thanksgiving? Do you celebrate? What does it look like in your house? Very personal question, Isaac.
Mijal: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I feel like I don’t have an exciting answer. We, we, we do a big Thanksgiving feast. we basically, spend a lot of time figuring out how to visit both sides of our family. So my, my side, my husband’s side, each of them has a different meal. and yeah, this year we, you know, I have my, my list of things I have to cook and we just have really nice family meals together.
Noam: That’s so nice. Wait, Mijal, I just do your history again? Where are from?
Mijal: Yeah, I’m not American.
Noam: Well, you are American. You are American.
Mijal: Yes, I am not a… I am an American citizen. I wasn’t born here. I didn’t grow up with Thanksgiving.
Noam: Whoa, wait, wait, can we double click on that? I said you are an American, then you said I am an American citizen. Does that mean you’re not American? Is there a nuance I just revealed there that I was unaware of?
Mijal: People will often in this context, when you asked about my background, after I said, I celebrate Thanksgiving, people will often use American to implicate you were born here. So if we’re talking about that, I wasn’t born here, but I love this country. I’m an adopted American. But yeah, there actually totally is a difference between how the two sides of my family celebrate. So my, my husband’s side, they’re also immigrants, but they came earlier. So they, they do like the full, like, you know, turkey and gravy and like, I don’t know, like all the stuff that’s very American, pumpkin pies. My side, it’s like a Shabbat meal, but like American, you know, not on Shabbat. We didn’t get to the big turkey situation.
Noam: Gotcha. So you moved to the US when you were how old?
Mijal: 12. That’s when I started to learn English,
Noam: Wow, amazing. Okay.
Mijal: So the funny thing is that right now, the language that I sound the least accented in is Hebrew. Because Hebrew, I can speak like an Israeli, and Israelis would assume Israeli. When I speak English, I sound like this. And my Spanish at this point has taken some aspects from different countries. So people always ask, like, there’s a mix there. So Hebrew is my lesson.
Noam: So what’s your accent? Which dialect of?
Mijal: No, I have influence from like Argentina and Uruguay. So like it doesn’t, I don’t, I sound most native when I speak Hebrew, weirdly.
Noam: Thank you for the for the detour for me. Thanksgiving growing up was a few things. was playing football, watching football, eating with family. It was actually the probably the best day of the year. And by the way, I’m including Jewish holidays. I would say Thanksgiving was just awesome. It was just, you just kind of got to be and be with family with no ritual associated with it outside of what you’re talking about, which is turkey and gravy and pumpkin pie.
By the way, these foods are so average, but we’ll get into that. They’re such average foods.
Mijal: Well, but now it sounds like it’s like the marriage of Shabbat with sports watching. Is that what it is? Okay.
Noam: Yes. Yes. And playing sports, watching and playing. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you kind of feel weird, like as a Jewish person who’s, I try to be, I’m an aspirationally observant Jew and I, you know, like you kind of feel like, wait, am I supposed to like make like a blessing on grape juice before this? Should I be making Kiddush? Is that what I, are we supposed to like make hamozzi and cut the bread and be, is that what we’re, are you like?
Mijal: Right.
Noam: So I just gotta say something that I find fascinating, okay? You and I, American Jews, Jewish Americans, write a paper on it if you wanted to make the distinction, distinction between the two. But for our purposes, we’ll use the terms interchangeably unless you yell at me. But what’s fascinating to me is how seriously Jewish people in the United States of America take Thanksgiving. When I went to Canada, I was there recently, I was in Toronto on the Canadian Thanksgiving. So it was, I don’t know, last month or something. And there was Canadian Thanksgiving and the Jewish community people that I was around and they were all different types of people.
It was just like, it was like they didn’t have work, but it was any other day. Like it didn’t seem like there was a big deal. And it was kind of like, this is, yeah, it’s a thing we have off. I can’t speak to the Jewish experience in the UK and like the celebration of a UK holiday or Australian celebration of something that’s a and the Jewish people are fully integrated in it. So there’s something very distinct about the relationships between Americanism and Judaism and Thanksgiving actually being one of these holidays that Jewish Americans celebrate like broadly, quite pervasively. I mean, there’s some people in the ultra-orthodox Haredi sector that won’t do it because it’s following the, know, following imitating non-Jewish people and you’re not supposed to do that in certain ways. So they don’t necessarily celebrate it. But the vast majority of American Jews are like, this is what we do. We take off the fourth Thursday of November and we watch football, we play football, and darn it, we eat turkey. That’s what they do.
Mijal: Yeah, I mean, we don’t do the football part, but the third, yeah. But, no, I don’t know if it’s like a Jewish thing or just like, if you’re comparing like people in Canada and people in America, like I think it’s just like a very strong American.
Noam: Yeah, so yeah, it’s a very, that might be, you might be right. It might be, so you’re saying because it’s a more, more, it’s more American.
Mijal: It be that in Canada no one, I actually don’t know.
Noam: Yeah. Yes. By the way, come at us if we’re wrong.
Mijal: I mean, come at Noam.
Noam: We’re, yeah. Yeah, come at me. Come at me. Exactly. I’ll take this one.
Mijal: But it might be that in Canada, it’s just not as celebrated as it is in America. There’s something very American about it. And I think Jews largely are good Americans and we love this country.
Noam: We love this country, we do. We love this country. Good, bad, ugly, warts and all. And the amazing things about it. Like definitely had a good experience here broadly speaking. Certainly since the World War II. But I wanna say something about that. And before that, but in different ways. But look, I won’t get into the history of Judaism in America. There’s a great historian named Jonathan Sarna. He said that Thanksgiving is one of four annual holidays that together promote what he called a cult of synthesis, meaning the idea that Judaism and Americanism reinforce one another. Can you guess what those four are?
Mijal: Ooh, four holidays that, okay, I actually don’t know the answer to this. Let me think. Four holidays.
Noam: Four annual holidays, yeah. And you could call them, and what he says is they reinforce the cult of synthesis between Judaism and Americanism. They reinforce each other.
Mijal: Okay, this is like a test. Okay, so Thanksgiving is one. I would assume that Passover is one.
Noam: Yes.
Mijal: Okay. Is the 4th of July one?
Noam: Nailed it. This is fun. Yes.
Mijal: Okay, so the remaining question is, which is the fourth one, which is that’s the hardest one, which is the holiday that Professor Sanger would believe combines. It’s complicated. I want to say Hanukkah, but, but it’s a very complicated answer, Hanukkah has become an American holiday because it’s like seen as like the Jewish parallel to Christmas. And together they like playing to this culture of like, materialism and consumption, all of us feeling really good about ourselves in the winter months. So is that the fourth one?
Noam: Yeah, it’s Hanukkah, you nailed it, four for four.
Mijal: Yes. Okay. I’m so excited. This is so much fun. Okay. Okay.
Noam: Overachiever, there it is, there it is. Okay, anyway, that’s what Thanksgiving is. It’s one of the big four of that is, and if you’re listening in Australia, South Africa, the UK, Canada, wherever you are, my apologies for making this about Judaism and Americanism, but I will say that it is a fascinating understanding of, I think like 40-45 % of world Jewry is in the United States of America. And there’s a lot to understand about what makes the Jewish American experience. Because what makes the Jewish American experience is in many ways this synthesis that Sarna is talking about where we feel so deeply American and we feel so deeply Jewish. And I wonder if there are other analogs in history that that was a case you felt so deeply A and so deeply B that but right now it’s like, that’s the reality. We feel so proudly American and proudly Jewish. So I will.
Mijal: There’s another additional way to look at it, which is to argue that America was founded on, on principles that align at its core. So Rabbi Sacks, for example, we’re recording this in his yurt site actually. So it’s, special to, to mention him, but Rabbi Sacks spoke of America as being founded on the notion of covenant, which is a Biblical notion of a certain like agreement between each other. And the founders at least very much dreaming of being able to learn from the Bible. Of course, again, not perfect, took a very long time for a lot of terrible injustices to get addressed and they still need to be addressed. But I think for, as I speak for me personally, part of the reason that I love America is that I think it was founded at least with a premise that in many ways aligns with our most deepest values.
Noam: I agree with that. we actually, I’m just making a quick plug here. If you go to unpack for educators, we made four videos on.
Mijal: Wait, Noam, if I wanna go to that, where do I find it?
Noam: You go to unpacked.education. You just go to unpack.education. We made four videos on the influence of Judaism on the United States of America. We did it together with Stu Halpern, who is a writer at Tablet, writer for the Jewish Journal. He works at the Strauss Center at Yeshiva University and we made four different educational films on the influence of Judaism on the United States of America. So I think you’re actually spot on. It’s not the number of people here, it’s the shared values that have informed and cultivated the United States of America. So that’s a major part of it. You’re absolutely right.
Mijal: Beautiful
Noam: By the way, when you, when you email someone back and you’re in conversation, here are a few options. Do you do thanks, thank you, T-Y or T-Y-S-M? What do you do? None of them?
Mijal: No, I’m terrible though. I am the worst. I use no punctuation, grammar. I’m like, I’m like the man who’s juggling 20 things. just like, you know, typing away.
Noam: So what do you write? Do do a T-Y?
Mijal: T H X.
Noam: You do THX.
Mijal: Yeah, is that awful?
Noam: What does it mean though? I want to know what’s behind it.
Mijal: Thanks. Thanks.
I do THX, which means thanks, or I do TYSM, thank you so much. Or TY, TY sometimes.
Noam: Do you mean it when you write it? Do you mean it?
Mijal: Yeah, of course I mean it. What do you mean?
Noam: You mean it? I don’t know if you’re just being, I don’t know if you’re being quick and flippant and you’re like, okay, okay, THX.
Mijal: No, it’s not that. It’s like if you’re like…
Noam: Like you’re saying I don’t have time, by the way you’re saying I don’t even have time to say thank you to you.
Mijal: My gosh, that’s a, that is such a hermeneutic of suspicion. No, that’s not nice. It’s not that like, thank, okay. Thank God. And I’m saying, thank you for this. I am in communication with a lot of people, a lot of people, thank God, which is beautiful.
Noam: Yes you are, yeah.
Mijal: And I try really hard to be responsive as quickly as possible because I want to show that I care. So
Noam: Right, yeah, one of my colleagues said, you don’t have to respond, you don’t have to answer people, but you have to respond to them. Meaning you don’t have to know the answers, but you gotta get back to people, even if you don’t know the answer. Yeah.
Mijal: So my response there is that I don’t have to write out every word, but I do have to get back to people. so yeah, so it’s funny in my, whatever with the, with people that I work with in my community, they often laugh because sometimes like I might email from like a shared Shul account and they know that certain like lack of punctuation is just me because I’m like, even if I forget to put my name, cause I’m on the subway and I’m like, typing very quickly, so this become a joke actually. But yeah, I think I’m gonna forgive myself for this one.
Noam: Okay, some, Good, good, good, good. Okay, but I wanna talk about THX and TYSM right now, okay? So that is the shoresh, the root of thanksgiving is thanks and being thankful and having gratitude. In Hebrew, the way to say this, hakarat ha-tov, gratitude, which is, by the way, very literal translation is the recognition of the good, which, I love that. Like that’s a great translation of what it means to be thankful, an awareness of the good. That’s what it means. And there is a Talmud, a piece of Talmud in Tractate Brachot 54b. I love saying that out loud. I feel cool when I say that out loud. It says that there was a rabbi whose name was Rabbi Yehuda. He said in the name of another rabbi who went by Rav, which is cool that he just went by Rav, which means rabbi. So we’re not even saying his name. I don’t need a name. My name is Rav.
So anyway, he says that four people need to offer Thanksgiving. Number one is those who travel across the sea. Number two, someone who crosses the wilderness. Number three, someone who is sick and recovered. And number four, someone who is imprisoned and released. Those are the people that have the obligation to say Birkat HaGomel, it’s called, the blessing of one who gives loving kindness. And so there’s been a major tradition in the Jewish people for a long time to say and to be grateful for the ability to do something that was you were down or it was dangerous and you made it to the other side.
Mijal: Yeah, I’m curious, by the way, you it used to be that people said the blessing after flying. and, know, I’m just curious, like, you, Noam, you travel so much. I’m just curious if you say it every time you travel, but, it’s become a thing, right?
Noam: I do not, absolutely not, because first of all, now we’re being Talmudic. No, no, because it’s if you travel across the sea. I travel in North America a ton. I go to Israel like three, four times a year or something like that. But besides that, yeah, no, so then I say the blessing of Goma. But I’ll tell you, you just picked on something that’s a huge pet peeve of mine. We end up ritualizing, we’re going to go too deep down here, but like we end up ritualizing this performance of, you cross the sea, you were on a plane, and therefore you say the blessing. How about saying a blessing and being grateful so many times in life, like seeing the very fact that so much of life is precarious and we have this assumption that everything will just be good. No, like have an assumption actually that don’t just assume that everything should work out. And so if you kind of act and operate in that way and you say, you’re able to be ma-kir-tov and you’re able to recognize good, you’re going to be so much more thankful. So I wish I actually said, Birkat HaGomel, the blessing of gomel, more often. Like if something crappy happens to me and whatever it is, like a bad thing at work or something going on with a friend or whatever it is, I know I’m not being Talmudic right now by saying this, but I should say the blessing of gomel. Like if something was challenging and now it’s good, like be grateful. Like, it’s amazing. I should do that.
Mijal: Yeah. Well, it’s funny, last night I was with a group and somebody wanted to say a gomel for something they were grateful for. It wasn’t the right setting to say a gomel ritually, but we found like verses from sounds that allowed this person to actually express it. So I think we could kind of like create new ways to say that.
But I want to actually, it’s funny, you use the words ritualizing performance. That’s the word you used around Gomel. I actually want to say what I think Judaism teaches us about gratitude and all of the laws that we have around it, is actually that it shouldn’t be an emotion or a response that we live to chance. I actually think Judaism offers gratitude as a practice.
I want to give a story just to illustrate what I mean by this. So I remember one of, one of the first jobs that I had doesn’t, doesn’t matter the details, that we’re working in an educational settings and running a lot of like really amazing programming and midway through some of our work, some of us started to feel that we were really struggling because our participants were not expressing any gratitude. We were working like crazy, like staying up late, like really going out to help each individual.
And there was like a strong sense from our team, from our staff, of like entitlement. And like they’re not being grateful, they’re being entitled. So one of us actually went and spoke with Dr. David Pelcovitz, a psychologist, a professor at Yeshiva University, has written a lot around subjects of spirituality and wellbeing. And he said something that I heard secondhand, but I’m going to attribute to him. He said something that was really important. He said, well, what do you expect? People don’t just feel gratitude. You got to teach the practice of gratitude. So we totally changed our programming and we started to put touch points in the program for participants to actually express gratitude and to be able to like practice gratitude as opposed to just hope it comes up. So that, that, that was like really impactful because. Yeah.
Noam: Right, so that’s amazing because that is, we do the same thing in Judaism. In Judaism, the very first thing that we do in the morning is we say, modeh ani, I am thankful. And that is an insertion into your daily life that is teaching us this is what we’re starting with. This is it, modeh, that’s it.
Mijal: Right. Right. And especially when you don’t feel so great. I’ll give like right now, I don’t know if you can hear my audio is a bit different than Noam’s. That’s because I had an insane week and yesterday I lost my laptop, it in a coffee shop. I’m still looking for it.
Noam: So stressful, so stressful. by the way, if anyone finds it, please return it to Mijal Bitton at, okay.
Mijal: And then this morning I worked, I worked so hard to like set up like a desktop that would allow me to, and then it wasn’t working. And anyways, so I am, I was very stressed and like not feeling in the greatest of moods, but I think what practice does is it actually tells you, okay, you might not naturally start like singing gratitude. But if I, if I were to stop right now and literally like have to express what I’m grateful for as a practice, even if it doesn’t come naturally. It can change things. And there’s actually all of the studies in psychology that say that one of the best ways to improve wellbeing and happiness is to have like a gratitude journal to be forced to express gratitude.
Noam: Do it, do it. And we have it, I mean, it’s all over, it’s all over our prayers. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, we mentioned earlier, he said that Jewish prayer is an ongoing seminar in gratitude. Only he could speak that way. He said that the dawn blessings, like the morning blessing said at the start of morning prayers each day, are litany of thanksgiving for life itself, the human body, the physical world, land to stand on and eyes to see with. Like this is what we have, this is we have going.
Mijal: Yeah, I actually had a random question for you, Noam. Like you mentioned, Thanksgiving is so popular across America. And I was wondering, like, who are people grateful to? Like, I guess I’m trying to wonder is there’s all of this benefit that comes from being grateful, even if people aren’t like directly grateful to God or to another person. But like in traditional Judaism, we express gratitude to God. We express gratitude to each other. And I was just wondering this morning, I’m like, when Thanksgiving was established, it was at a moment in which it was obvious that it was to God. But even as our society has gotten more secular, you have plenty of people who love Thanksgiving who benefit from it by just expressing gratitude. I’m just sitting with that.
Noam: You’re just wondering who, yeah, I actually don’t, I mean, this is not meant to be cynical. There’s a whole group of people out there who utilize the day to be thankful and to be grateful. And I think one of the things that we’re trying to do in this episode, just again, reflecting on it right now, is saying that would be actually really great if we made Thanksgiving about gratitude. I just think that Thanksgiving has become about other things beyond gratitude. And they’re kind of, they just happen because of the day and the day itself.
See, that’s the thing about gratitude also. It’s not saying thanks, THX, TY, TYSM. It’s actually just acting in a way that is grateful. So acting in a way that’s grateful is to be kind to each other, to be good to each other, to have a good time with each other, to not ask for more things after you get them. Like those are things that are ways to act thankfully, act gratefully. And very often we don’t do that. Very often we just, you know, we say the words, but we don’t act the way.
So I think Thanksgiving has been this day that people are maybe even not even aware that without saying the words I’m grateful for, I’m sure there are homes that do this. I’m sure that there are rituals that people created for Thanksgiving that’s awesome, good for you. But I think the day has not become, it’s about the act of Thanksgiving, which is being with each other, having a good time with each other, playing games, being light by the way.
Thanksgiving should be a light day. Like I said, it should be light. There’s so many heavy days, there’s so many heavy things going on in the world, but in the US, it could be a day of lightness and that’s okay, that’s okay. And yeah, so I think that’s what’s gone on, I think typically actually. That’s my take. So here’s what I want to do with you right now, Mijal. What I wanna do with you right now is I want to go through five things that you and I are grateful for. You ready?
Okay, who goes first, me or you?
Mijal: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So five things we’re grateful for.
Noam: Okay, flip a coin. Okay, you won. Amazing. You got to go first.
Mijal: Okay, I mean, on Thanksgiving, which is an American Jewish holiday, I am really grateful for this country. I think we often take it for granted that we live in a country that gives us unbelievable freedoms and in which citizenship comes with incredible protections and opportunities and to inherit, to be part of this country is amazing. I love it. I love this country. I think right now it feels precarious just because of like, last year, the rise of antisemitism, rise of populism, like all of these things we can talk about. But I will always love the premise of this country.
Noam: That’s nice. That’s special. The premise of this country, basically means something to be aspirational to. go forever love the idea is the value is the covenant. Okay.
Mijal: Yeah, yeah, I will forever love it. I mean, some people, yeah, when some people see like some bad stuff in America, they fall less in love with America. I think for me, and maybe it’s because I became an American, like I’m like, the promise is still there. This is a betrayal of America, so we should fight it.
Noam: Right, right. I hear you. That’s right. That’s very well said. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, Here’s my gratitude. Number one is God. It’s God. Let’s talk about God. Is that weird? God, the divine, Hashem, the master of the universe. Yeah. That being. The reason is for me is there’s a line. I don’t know where it’s from, but it’s something that I feel. I’ll say it in Hebrew first. I am with you in your distress and your pain. I think that, so I don’t know the origin of that, but it’s definitely a line that has been cited by many Jewish people over the years. Definitely one place is a medieval commentator named Rashi who mentions it when I think Moses met God at the burning bush. Okay, anyway.
But so the whole idea is I am with you. I and I feel that I feel that when I’m in the depths, nobody understands what I’m going through and even the people I’m closest to in the world, no matter what I feel that Ima Nochi Bitzar, I feel this notion that I have some being, the divine, that is with me. So gratitude number one for me goes to God.
That was heavy. Was that too much? Did I go too far there? That was too much, right? That was too intense. Okay. You’re okay with it. You’re okay with it. It won’t scare you. Okay, fine.
Mijal: I mean, you know me, I’m a, no, that’s not too intense.
No, no, but I think what you’re saying is like you’re grateful. You’re grateful for the, the feeling of God’s presence. With you. Just beautiful.
Noam: Yeah, yes, well said. okay. Number two, you.
Mijal: I am really grateful to Israelis right now. So it’s funny, like a couple of weeks ago, I was asked to speak with a group of Israelis who had come to visit rabbis and educators. And I have this thing that like, I don’t know if you have this, Noam, this last year. I feel like I’m either like a little bit numb or I’m like totally raw. Like I tend to like go very quickly from one to the other.
And when I speak with Israelis, that’s when the raw side tends to come out. And I just, I got very emotional at the end. I told them that most of them have children in the army. And I told them that I think that we owe them a debt of gratitude that I don’t know if we can ever pay. and I’m like, said, like, I know that anytime I want, I can go to Israel. I can move there. My children can go there and you’ve been living under fire and you’re still under fire. And, and people are risking their lives, their children. And I’ll say here now, it’s not only gratitude for like risking of life. I find that maybe, I’m looking at, I’m not saying everybody knows, well, I’m not saying everything, but I find that there’s a certain, like moral lessons, like I’m constantly looking to people in Israel that I admire and communities that I admire and thinking they are teaching us what it means to life under challenging conditions and to be dignified under fire and to increase love in war. I’m like, we are here in America and I’m not only grateful that we have a safe Israel, I’m grateful that in a Western society that can often go into like decadence and nihilism and cynicism that we get that I get to have this amazing people that I look up to as like exemplars of life right now. So I am I am just yeah.
Noam: That’s awesome. I love that. I love that. By the way, I quoted from you in your committed sub stack last week and I teach on Shabbat afternoons and I quoted what you were saying about the challenges of the American Jewish communities willingness to sacrifice and thinking about like the pain on the one hand of how you, not the pain, but like looking up to others and almost envious of others in Israel that have this. But now you’re saying you’re grateful. Like saying like you’re grateful, you’re both. And envious and grateful.
Mijal: I am both. I am both envious and grateful.
Noam: Yeah, I’m with you. Amazing. So here’s my number two. My number two is, without a doubt, is family.
It’s just family. It’s a different version, by the way, of Imo Anochi Batzara. I’m with you in your pain. I think that family does a great job of doing two things, and I’m very grateful for this. Number one is when you’re down in the dumps and you need to pick me up, family, my family, family, and my closest friends. I don’t want to say friends in some generic way, because that’s malarkey. But like my closest friends. What I would describe as my ride or die friends.
No matter what, they’re with me, no matter what, I’m with them. And that’s the same thing with family. And that’s what makes them like family. So I would say family, number two, who’s when you’re the dumps, but there’s something else that your closest friends and your family do. And I hope to do this also. It’s a Yiddish word that became a Hebrew word, which I love. It’s called Fargen. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that word. In Hebrew, it’s Lefargen, when you feel someone else’s joy positively. It’s such a beautiful idea. Lefargen, my grandfather Sabah Royal was known, someone said this at his eulogy, as someone who was such a Farganer. He always Farganed. He always, if something positive happened to someone else, they would feel good about, he would feel good about that. He’d be like, it’s amazing. So when you have family and close friends that Fargan that feel genuinely good for you and when you could do that for them, that’s incredible. So I have gratitude to family and close friends who actually fargan.
Mijal: Beautiful. Yeah, that’s beautiful. I guess for me, mean, yeah, three, mean, it’s similar. I was gonna say family, maybe I’ll add a new layer just to add to what you’re saying. I would say I’m very grateful for those who came before us, especially those who made us feel saying, you know, very specific. But this week I’m thinking a lot about Rabbi Sacks, who we mentioned passed away and also my grandma Abuela Nari, she passed away, it’s her yahrzeit this week as well. And there’s an incredible gift that you have when you feel really seen and loved by someone who then, I mean, even after they’re gone, you can reach to that, to that memory and to that feeling of, it’s interesting, because you were speaking about the feeling of either God or family not letting you be alone.
Noam: Either way, either way. Meaning even when something’s good also. Yeah.
Mijal: And I feel like I can access, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, but I’m adding to it that I feel very grateful that I get to, I’m not being very eloquent right now, but I get to access that with people whose memory I have, who were here beforehand.
Noam: Okay, so we’re halfway through and we have five out of 10. We have God, family, the US, Israelis, and family. Now we’re gonna, we might go in different directions here. Number three is, ready for this one? For me, pizza.Pizza, pizza’s the great equalizer. It’s the great equalizer. It is that very thing that exists, whoever created it. And I don’t wanna say the Italians, because I’m not referring to like Italian pizza, which doesn’t even have cheese, whatever. So annoying. But like, I’m talking about just good, thin crust, like good undercarriage pizza that, you know, it’s not floppy, the sauce and cheese is delicious. And you’re just eating with people, you’re kicking it, you’re having a good time. You’re having what’s called hygge, a Danish word for just chilling. There’s no better, there’s no, like, I was2 traveling all week, like you said, I was in, and I just got back and my wife goes, have pizza for dinner. I was like, my God, I love you, I love you. And the families pounded pizza, everyone was happy, and that was it. So I am grateful that we’re able to sometimes in life put our hair down, just like lounge in a chair with terrible posture and just pound pizza.
That’s number three. There you have it. You have no response for that. Okay, fair enough. okay, number four, you go to your number four, go.
Mijal: Okay. I’m just like, okay, I’m still processing. It takes me a while. I’m still, yeah, I’m like, you said something about Italian pizza, something about thinker. I’m trying to follow here. Yeah.
Noam: Hey, enjoy it all. Okay, process. Mijal: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I’m trying to think like, what’s my equivalent to be grateful for pizza? I’m sorry.
Noam: You don’t have one, stop it, stop it, you don’t have one. Okay, number four, go, go.
Mijal: Yeah, I’m grateful for, we’re kind of repeating here, but just the community. It’s interesting, I did a talk with Jonathan Haidt a couple of days ago. And you know, so much of his work is around like social media and the way it just breaks people’s brains, especially young people. And so much of his research has been to say like, there’s actually a cure for this, less screen time, more face to face interactions, and religious communities do this really well.
And I just feel like, my gosh, like we live at a time in which our religious communities are like the greatest bell work against one of the most dangerous technologies in the world. So to be part of, I’m very grateful I’m part of multiple communities and each of them is beautiful.
Noam: That’s excellent. That’s excellent. Some might say greater than my pizza, but I just said it. I wanna know, do you agree on this one? I’m gonna take a shot at someone else right now also. Do you agree with what I was saying about turkey before that it’s such a farce that people love turkey? I don’t mean like a turkey wrap or like a turkey sandwich, like, listen, if a food is so amazing that you only have it once a year, then it’s not so amazing. You would have it more often. And my second proof of that is that why are people like deep frying turkey? you any, my shoe tastes good.
Mijal: People deep fry turkey.
Noam: Yeah, because they don’t like it. So they deep fry it and just like you deep fry anything and it makes it good. So people don’t like turkey. So sorry. Sorry for insulting people.
Mijal: People deep fry Oreos though.
Noam: That’s phenomenal.
Mijal: Wait, I know, but you just said you only deep fry things when you don’t like them. Sorry, I was like, there’s like a logical contradiction there. That’s how I listen to your food talk. I’m trying to listen logically.
Noam: It’s phenomenal. No, I’m saying it’s an easy way out. No, takes, no, takes, no, it’s not a country, it takes something, no, no, if something’s an eight out of 10, it makes it a 10 out of 10. That’s how it works. If something’s a four out of 10, it makes it a six out of 10. It, Yeah, you don’t like what? Deep fried Oreos?
Mijal: I don’t like the fried Oreos. I think they’re awful. No. Sorry. Okay. Let’s keep going.
Noam: Okay, so my number four is the Jewish people, similar to yours with community. No, it didn’t. It had absolutely nothing to do with it. the Jewish people being part of Catholic Israel, to use an academic term, the Knesset Israel, the broader collective of the Jewish people, I just feel it. I feel it all the time. I feel it with the head nods in the airports. I feel it when people see me and even if I’m not wearing a kippah on my head, I’m wearing a hat.
People will just like, they’ll tuna bagel me every now and then, you know what I’m saying? They’ll be like, you know, they’ll just like, we’ll connect over it. I feel part of something even though we’re only 15.7 million strong across the globe, it’s like, there’s like a very special connection that we all have with each other, even when we strongly disagree and see things very differently from each other and have different political views and religious dispositions and all the things.
I feel like I am part of something and feeling like I am part of something feels really good and I’m really grateful for that. Yeah, I’m really grateful for that and feel good about it. Feel good about it.Noam: All right, number five, say the last one for you.
Mijal: I just feel like this year has been so hard in so many ways. And at the same time, I think many of us have found that we can stretch ourselves. Again, I don’t know if I’m expressing myself well, I’m really grateful for the human capacity for growth.
And I’m grateful that we can look at ourselves and decide to expand our notion of who we are. I’ve seen just so many people do that this last year and there’s something like, love the fact that I, again, again, it’s personal, but I love the fact that I can start something new, like, like the substack that you mentioned that I’m writing this essays. And I’m like, I want to become a better writer. And I’m actually like work, it’s like work. And I’m like, I want to expand who I am because I want to. I’m just grateful that we have that ability to continue developing and growing and expanding and seeing ourselves in new lights.
Noam: Yeah, I just think of like, again, just reflecting on these nine so far, going from the sublime, the gratitude for the ability to expand our growth as human beings compared to the mundane of pizza. It’s such a good, such a good side by side.
Mijal: You started with God, Noam, so it’s okay.
Noam: My last one is health. I know, I know, but I’m gonna finish with health because my favorite blessing of gratitude, and I’ll go back to that, of every day, no matter what. I don’t care if you’re religious, not religious. I don’t care if you observe Shabbat, don’t do it. If you do kosher, you’ve never heard of these things. But here’s a good one. When you go to the bathroom, and after you come out of the bathroom, you’re like, wow, things work. This is unbelievable. There is a bracha, there is a blessing called Asher Yatzar, which means who formed me.
That is such a moment, no matter what you’re doing throughout the day. And if like for me, again, this is TMI, I drink a lot of coffee, drink a lot of water. I twice had kidney stones. It’s the worst thing in the world. So I drink water and I put lemon in my water. Anyway, so I say a share Yitzhar after going to the bathroom. And I feel that gratitude. I really do. And if you pause and you think of something as mundane as going to the bathroom that you’re able to do it, health, like just having whatever health that we all have. My God, feels it’s something to be so grateful for. So that is like throughout the day when I feel so we hear here are our 10. There’s a few overlaps, but I’ll say yours and then I’ll say mine. Yours were the US, Israelis, family, expansion, and the ability to expand and grow, and community. Mine were the divine, family, the great equalizer, AKA pizza and not Turkey, the Jewish people, and so there you have it. Those are our 10 things to be grateful for.
I’d be fascinated to know what our listeners, what they’re grateful for, what goes in their gratitude journal.
Mijal: I’ll say, Noam, last thing. I made a decision as we were talking. I just like wrote it down next to my papers. I think I’m gonna spend some time this Thanksgiving doing a gratitude journal with my kids. No, I mean, just decided, as we were talking, I was like, wait a second. I’m like, it’s usually just around the meal and running. And I’m like, what if I take half an hour, whatever, with my kids and we can do like arts, crafts, whatever. My kids are young and we can…
Noam: I’m gonna do it also. I’m gonna do it also.
Mijal: And as a family, not just them, but me as well, each of us write five things we’re grateful for. I’m like, why shouldn’t we do it?
Noam: I love it. Like on a poster board? Mijal: You’re asked, that’s a lot of questions though, I just thought of it.
Noam: No, but let’s workshop this, let’s workshop this, come on.
Mijal: Now maybe, know what, okay, let me think out loud actually. So you have to know my kids, they would love it if each of them had a personalized journal with their name on it. Like, know, thematic. So I think I’m gonna get each of them a journal and maybe we can think about when else to do it, but at least in Thanksgiving we can sit down as a family and each of us, my daughter can’t write yet, but she can draw or tell me what she wants.
Noam: Okay, let’s do it. I love it. I’m in. Okay, anyway, Mijal, I love the idea. I wanna wish you a happy Thanksgiving. I’m looking forward to hanging out soon. Take care.
Mijal: Thank you. Have a good day.