Tales of the Unbound Episode 7: Happily Ever After?
In "Tales of the Unbound, Episode 7: Happily Ever After?" the narrative explores the challenges and transformations within the Jewish community at Monroe Correctional. The story takes a twist, testing the community's cohesion and purpose. Despite these conflicts, Ari and Josh strive to uphold a sense of community and identity amidst uncertainty. The episode concludes with a reflection on the evolving nature of Judaism and the power of communal learning in navigating change and maintaining hope for a better future.
Show notes
[1] We reference a definition of chevrutah as listed in Berakhot 63b:12, “Make many groups and study Torah, For the Torah is only acquired through study in a group.” You can find the full text here.
[2] Malcolm Gladwell socialized the Tipping Point theory in his book “The Tipping Point”.
[3] We sing “Veshamru,” a Jewish liturgical prayer that celebrates the observance of the Sabbath as a people. The tune is by Moshe Rothblum. Though there are many renditions of this liturgy, this is the tune many people think is “THE” way to sing this prayer.
[4] Miriam quotes Ruth 1:16. The Book of Ruth is historically read on the holiday of Shavuot as the story is set during the festival gathering season. Ruth is also generally understood as the first person who converts to Judaism. In the Talmud pieces that Tales of the Unbound has cited, there are rituals (beit din, milah and mikvah) that affirm Jewish identity. Here, in the Book of Ruth, dated much earlier than the Talmud, we only see a vow as the mode by which someone might join the Jewish people. It’s possible that there were other versions of joining and that the vow-only process was somehow not a full conversion, but Ruth goes on to be accepted and integrated fully into Jewish life after she makes this vow.
[5] Padraig O’Tuama is a poet, theologian, and poetry podcaster. We love his memoir/autobiography “In the Shelter”.
[6] Miriam mentions Peter Block. Peter is well known for his community organizing and leadership training. Check him out here, or pick up this book, “Activating the Common Good.” Joey (Tales Producer) also produces Peter’s podcast, The Common Good, which Miriam sometimes helps with. Here’s an interesting one with Miriam Terlinchamp and Reverend Ben McBride on the “slow practice of belonging.”
[7] Sabbath in Time – Miriam shouts this out as a call for hope, turning Abraham Joshua Heschel’s description of Sabbath – as a palace in time – on its head. In a place where all there is is time, hopefully, there can be spaces, moments that feel like Sabbath.
[8] You can listen to the song “Iron Sharpens Iron” by Ric Hordinski here on the Shabbatish album “Now and Eternity.”
-
MIRIAM: Most of us, at the end of a good story, want the fairy tale ending, “…and they lived happily ever after.”
[Fairytale twinkle noise]
We will deliver on that wish in a nuanced, complicated, twisty-turvy Jewish way that is close enough to a happily ever after. But first, we need to catch up on a twist that happened after we were almost done with producing this story.
Amy is no longer leading the group at Monroe Correctional.
I know. Losing Amy as a sponsor and a spiritual leader is a huge loss.
Amy’s security clearance has been revoked, at least for the time being. We don’t have media clearance to share much, but suffice it to say that from our research, nothing nefarious seems to be at play. Prison security is delicate, and there are many reasons for something to change. Hopefully, at some point, Amy will be able to return.
And, there’s another complication.
Marvin is away right now, learning in Israel. He will be back in a month, but there are no more Jewish sponsors in Monroe Correctional right now.
It’s just the guys.
The rug of stability has been pulled from under them, and now, they trying to discern what it means to be a Jewish community in a leadership vacuum. Without leadership, the situation can become disastrous – dismantling the community or even, in the context of a prison, moving our group from orienting as a tribe to operating as a gang, which has catastrophic and potentially violent methods of gatekeeping.
It's not at that point yet.
But the limits of the fence that Amy and Marvin drew are being tested. Amy was very clear about what the Jewish space at Monroe was for:
AMY: I always said that the space was open and welcome to anyone who wanted to be there, but I also had some rules, and those were that this was not a place for Jesus worship, I was obvious that this was a traditional Jewish space it was not a space where people could question the validity of Judaism. And if that's why they were there, then it wasn't the right space for them.
MIRIAM: Non-Jews are welcome to participate in the Jewish community's study and worship elements, with the caveat that everyone involved understands and respects that it is a uniquely Jewish space. Some of the participants are folks of no religion, some are Jews by birth and Jews by choice, others are seeking a spiritual space that affirms their Queer identities, and still, others are Messianic Jews who love Talmud and Jewish ritual but believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
The latter hasn’t been an issue until now.
Their participation has been a powerful addition to the group study sessions. Yet, without Amy, dormant opinions are rising up, creating significant conflict. Some express homophobic feelings, hard conversations around messianism, and conflicts around Zionism as part of Jewish identity… all the underbelly and complications of a diverse Jewish community are playing out in the group.
AMY: When I think about a gang, I think of one or two people being in charge and dictating to the rest what their behavior should be, and I think that what we've seen with this group is that their is not one leader. There are many leaders in this group and each of them step forward in a different way at a given time.
One year to the month after their conversion to Judaism, Ari and Josh are in leadership positions, trying their best to manage what’s next, which hopefully will be … “and they lived happily ever after.” We are not sure how this will end, but we are all rooting for them.
[MUSIC]
This is Tales of the Unbound, Episode 7, “Happily Ever After?”
[MUSIC]
There are four conversions in this story. The conversion of Gerim, the converts – affirmed through rituals with water, blood, and words.The conversion of their teachers – transfigured in mindset through personal connection. The conversion of the rabbi – metamorphosized out of hierarchical, dynastic leadership through the opening of gates. And, we’re hoping, the conversion of you, the listener, altered by the story to reimagine fences around the Torah in your lives.
Every conversion, not just this particular one, is a multi-directional conversion.
It is not one person saving the soul of another. Or unilateral education, where one is the teacher as the giver, and the other is the student as a receiver. Entering the gates of shared identity and community isn’t decided by the rabbi or whoever holds the most powerful title; every person involved ultimately decides entrance and acceptance.
Conversion is chevrutah.
Each person transformed through one another’s Torah.
Traditionally, chevrutah is a rabbinic approach to Talmudic study done in pairs or small groups.
In the Gemara, Berakhot 63b:12 we read,
Asu Kitot kitot v’asku baTorah עֲשׂוּ כִּתּוֹת כִּתּוֹת וְעִסְקוּ בַּתּוֹרָה
“Make many groups and study Torah, For the Torah is only acquired through study in a group.”
If we unwind and broaden the traditional definition of Chevrutah, we see an organizational theory for engaging with one another in the wilderness.
Chevrutah learning is non-hierarchical; it is beyond a singular space. It is cyclical and timeless, connecting us in an ever-evolving revelation through discussion, study of those who came before, and reimagining what it means for us today. Chevrutah is the connective tissue of lineage, sharpening ourselves through shared transformation to restore and reimagine our world.
We know that throughout our lives, our Judaism changes. Our childhood faith is not the same as our faith in our twenties, when we become parents, face illness, or experience our first major losses. Judaism has something to offer in those key moments of human experience if we let it. When we accompany others through their transformations, our fences around our relationship to Jewish identity and community either contract or expand. In vulnerable, authentic chevrutah, they do not remain stagnant.
A lot of energy around conversion is focused on the tipping point—the space between being non-Jewish and Jewish, between seeking entrance at the gate and walking through the gates. However, this is a waste of energy—the focus must be much broader than a singular tipping point because every stage of Jewishness includes multiple phases of learning and unlearning, affirmation, and rejection.
In our desire to include, it's natural to want to assuage the suffering between rejection and acceptance. Often doing so by mistaking conformity for community by trying to repeat the same words we were taught about acceptance:
You are part of our tribe.
So wear this tallit.
Light these candles in this way at this time.
Be scared about the same things we’re scared about.
And loyal to the places and values we are loyal to.
Eat gefilte fish without freaking out.
Marry one of us.
Talk like us.
Worry like us.
Arrive late and stay too long, like us.
Miss work and school on holy days, like us.
Value what we value. Do as we do.
And if you learn this prayer, sung in this particular way…
Wherever you go in the world, you will know the words of your people.
[AUDIO] Veshamru B’nei Yisrael et HaShabbat
Just like Ruth 1:16, the first person in our canon who formally joins the Jewish people by saying
כִּ֠י אֶל־אֲשֶׁ֨ר תֵּלְכִ֜י אֵלֵ֗ךְ וּבַאֲשֶׁ֤ר
“For wherever you go, I will go
תָּלִ֙ינִי֙ אָלִ֔ין
where you lodge, I will lodge
עַמֵּ֣ךְ עַמִּ֔י
Your people shall be my people,
וֵאלֹהַ֖יִךְ אֱלֹהָֽי
and your God, my God.”
Ruth's words are the first recorded commitment to joining the Jewish people. It’s possible that this was a vow structure before Ruth says it, and she is repeating something from a communal handbook. But, it’s more interesting to think of those words as coming to her in the moment, a vow from the heart that is future-oriented and assumes change – כִּ֠י אֶל־אֲשֶׁ֨ר תֵּלְכִ֜י אֵלֵ֗ךְ וּבַאֲשֶׁ֤ר wherever you go, I WILL go …
Our first convert tells us, across time, that Judaism and peoplehood are ever-changing, that community is a verb, just like Padraig O’Tuoma describes it:
“It’s not a person, or a thing, or a place – even if the place is beautiful. Community is a verb; it is a constant conjugation of people with people.”
Navigating what is next for the Jewish community in Monroe Correctional is not necessarily a crisis; it is a natural moment in the community where the fences are being pushed, and they have to decide who they are, who belongs, and who does not. Conjugating the active verb of community is never really done.
JOSH: I've been tasked with studying Ki Tisa and bringing that to the group on Shabbat and have an opportunity to present this to my brothers and have a little study together after we go through the siddur service and we get an opportunity to really dive in and read some footnotes, and I will potentially be questioned by my peers, and I look forward to it, because this is what it's all about, right? So, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to say, I don't know, but let's figure it out, because that's always an option. I always have that answer in my back pocket.
MARVIN: Their willingness to share and step out and and joke among themselves because now it has some context of studying together and they're very patient with one another. Some people read better than others, both Hebrew and English, and they're very supportive of one another. So, they've created a new tribe, created their own tribe. you call a tribe, call it a gang, but it works for them.
MIRIAM: Perhaps the clearest indication that the Jewish community in Monroe Correctional is a tribe is how they feel obligated to their shared affiliation.
As Peter Block points out: To belong to a community is to act as a creator and co-owner of the community. What I consider mine, I will build and nurture. The work, then, is to seek in our communities a wider and deeper sense of emotional ownership; it means fostering among all of a community’s citizens a sense of ownership and accountability.”
And that is our deepest wish for the Jewish Folks in Monroe correctional. That in the wake of their leadership loss, they will rise to what Amy modeled for them - shared leadership in a sacred community that grounds them in Jewish wisdom, personal agency and mutual respect .
But for now, the guys are devastated.
They had a taste of community, hope, and love. A sense of how Jews commune on the outside, and it made them feel, at least a little bit, like a part of them wasn’t trapped in the inside, that their souls were part of a bigger, broader world that cannot be imprisoned.
JOSH: up to this point in my life, I did not feel validated. We're judged to be worthy of acceptance and this was an important time in my life to feel that validation that you are worthy and furthermore, you're with us and not only that, but we're going to be here for you and we're going to hold your hand and we're going to walk with you and we're going to continue this journey together.
MIRIAM: Amy taught them to see their humanity, and to value it, to live out their Torah through the lens of Jewish wisdom. Amy is a mother, teacher and rabbi for them. She held the space, created routine, and reminded them that for the time they have in this world, even in this hard place, that time can be spent doing good time.
Who knows what will happen a year or two or ten from now.
But right now, in this wilderness period of change and uncertainty, our guys are holding fast to the tribe.
Ari reminds the community of how far they’ve come—that they have had lean years in the community before and that the words of Jewish liturgy, the rituals of study, worship, and Shabbat ground us now, as they always have.
Josh encourages the group to have faith, to believe that there is a thread we are chasing that offers meaning, and if we hold fast to it, we will not lose our humanity. We will not devolve into a gang or calcify the fences around our community.
They hold strong to the boundary of inclusion.
ARI: Well, it's freely come, freely go; we always welcome people in that wanna be part of it, so I would say with some groups, there's a very strict amount of gatekeeping. The who's in, who's out, whereas this is a place that's welcoming. We've had people come and go over the years. Some people just come check it out. But for the tribe part of it, those who have affirmed their Jewishness or been born that way, feel a little bit closer to each other.
MIRIAM: They learn Torah in chevrutah.
JOSH: And one of those things that Amy used to do is she would ask, what's one good thing that has happened this week and one thing that you've learned? And so through that, that really was my foundation of, oh, like, There's an expectation that I'm gonna learn something and bring something. And so I just started to learn a little bit and bring something of substance for the rest of the guys that maybe they haven't heard, or maybe they'll hear it in a different way …That was important to me and continuing a community was also very important to me and so every person that comes is very important and is accepted, as someone who can participate in this thing so that we can all be a part of something that's very meaningful and special to us all. And that was very important to continue showing up and continue to learn from people around me. And to embrace community in a way that I had never seen it, my main obligation at that point was to show up, to be part of community.
MIRIAM: It’s so amazing to hear them hold fast to their values and to step into leadership in such a hard moment. But, how long can it last?
What happens when Ari is released?
Or limitations are placed on the group’s ability to congregate?
Or, if the Messianic Jews convert the newly converted Jews?
Or, any number of realistic eventualities…
Our fears around durability come from a place of needing assurances that change, and all the accommodations, sacrifices and work that went into the change, are worth it.
But we can never promise that it is worth it. Or that it will all work out.
Hopefully, there will be sabbaths in time, moments where it feels like this works! We made the right choices. Opened the correct gates. And now, everything is so much better.
Which is not the same as saying from now on, everything is better. Or that there won’t be moments of flux, where it feels like a waste of time, or regret swinging the gates so far open that the essence of Torah is watered down to the point that it is virtually unrecognizable as Judaism.
However, we know that Judaism is on the cusp of great change - a crash. We can’t know what will lead to the next renaissance. What we do know is that Judaism has something good to offer the world, that makes our lives better, more meaningful, more curious, more rooted and therefore helps us care for one another and the world in deep ways.
But if Judaism is so great for the world, then we can’t keep it protected from the outside, remaining unchanged behind locked gates. In order to fully affect the greater world, there needs to be many iterations of experiments that encourage Torah to do her magic in the greater world. The exact “what” that will lead us into the next era of Judaism, remains unclear. But the how, of how we will get there is clearer.
The future of Judaism will happen first in small study groups.
It is the orientation of chevrutah, dropping the need for hierarchy, believing in the Torah of each person, recognizing that transformation begets transformation, turning it over and over… is how we will navigate the wilderness before us.
This is what we did after the 2nd Temple fell, we turned to one another and said, let’s figure out what’s next together. It took us a couple hundred years, but eventually, rabbinic Judaism was formed. We don’t know enough to describe the promised land of the next Jewish future, all we can know is that in chevrutah, together, we will transform each other, and for now, that might just be enough.
I wish I could say,
Ari, Josh, Amy, Marvin
You and me
All of us
Lived happily ever after.
But the particularities of life don’t allow me to promise that.
Or that any of the transformations we make are the right ones.
Or will endure beyond the initial moments of change.
But what I do know is that
In a world of unknown endings we have each other.
Josh and Ari’s conversions to Judaism were sealed with the words of the Priestly Benediction. So, too, for our own conversions into Unbound Judaism.
Yevarechecha Adonai Veyishmereycha
May Adonai Bless you and protect you.
Yaer Adonai Panav Eleycha Vichuneka
May the Mysterious, Loving thread that connects all living beings, shine a light on your face, inspiring gratitude and grace within you.
Yisa Adonai Panav Eleycha Veyasem lecha shalom.
And when the holy energy that is made in chevrutah shines on you, may it only bring you Shalom, peace, allowing you to live the very best version of happily ever after.
[MUSIC]
MIRIAM: Thanks for listening. It has been an honor to be part of this story with you, our listeners. Tales of the Unbound is a production of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future and part of the family of podcasts of Judaism Unbound. Tales of the Unbound was created and written by Miriam Terlinchamp, me, and produced and edited by Joey Taylor. The original music was by Ric Hordinski, and the art was by Katie Kaestner-Frenchman. Thank you Amy for your courage and commitment to Jewish identity and inclusive community. Thank you Marvin for your teaching and ongoing sponsorship of the guys at Monroe Correctional. Thank you Ari, for teaching us that Judaism believes in doing good time, to Josh for reminding us of the joy of Torah- and to both of you for your vulnerability, leadership and untold amount of hours spent sharing your stories. We hope that you know your stories have an impact, and that their truth has changed us all. Special thanks to DOC at Monroe Correctional who allowed access to Ari and Josh, trusting us to share a candid story about religious life behind bars and continuing to provide a safe harbour for Jews who are incarcerated in Washington State. Thank you to my chevrutot:
The Judaism Unbound team, Dan Libenson and Benay Lappe for sharpening the story and grounding it in Jewish wisdom. To our producer, Joey Taylor, the ultimate storytelling chevrutah, for sparking joy in the process. Without you, this story would not have happened. And to my partner, who compassionately encouraged late night writing, near constant “shhhh i’m recording!’’ for the last year, and accompanying me every step of the way. Thank you to all of you out there, and all people everywhere trying their best to do good time.
As always, check the show notes to find out ways you can get involved to support those who are incarcerated and for behind-the-scenes content. We'd love to hear from you, so you can email us at miriam@judaismunbound.com or find us at: www.judaismunbound.com/tales. And make sure to subscribe so that you know when Season 2 drops!
[MUSIC] happily ever after sound
Thanks for listening. This has been Tales of the Unbound.
[MUSIC] “Iron Sharpens Iron…”
