Not That Kind of Rabbi

On this week’s episode of Not That Kind of Rabbi, Rabbi Amy Grossblatt Pessah discusses her upcoming book, The Wholeness of a Broken Heart, exploring resilience, renewal, and the spiritual journey through grief and loss. She shares personal stories, insights on faith, community, and the power of rituals in healing.
This book shares a lived experience of loss, hope, meaning, and spiritual courage in Judaism. Pessah’s book is rooted in honesty and compassion, emphasizing the need to meet life as it is—without denial—while cultivating meaning, connection, and joy.
Through Jewish texts and teachings, Rabbi Amy engages with the big questions—suffering, responsibility, purpose, and God—with depth, accessibility and emotional intelligence.  The Wholeness of a Broken Heart honors brokenness as part of the human experience and helps the reader to find joy, meaning, purpose, and connection.

Is it just me? What we call entertainment has, over the last thirty years, devolved into an often voyeuristic parade of extreme violence programming. Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Highlander, even Seinfeld sport an a-morality that is the backdrop to a political and social reality that values the Psychopath and the vigilante more than the compassionate and the kind. Mafioso like John Gotti in the 90's became fashion plate mobsters. Today the heartless have grabbed power in our politics and in business. Patricia Pearson is an award winning journalist and author and she's my guest on this episode of Not That Kind Of Rabbi, this time to talk about the dark side of our cultural moment.

There's a book out right now that I think has a great deal of wisdom and asks the tough questions. It's called Zionism in Crisis-Jewish Power and Moral Responsibility After October 7th. In a time where the internal conversation about what it means to be Jewish, and where Israel sits in that question, has given us food for thought. Rabbi Zachary Truboff is the author, and my guest on this episode of Not That Kind of Rabbi.

What if the peak spiritual experience isn't the point? I talk with Rabbi Laura Duhan-Kaplan, Dean of the Aleph Ordination Program, about Jewish education, mystical practice, ecological spirituality, and the challenge of remaining in relationship across deep communal divides. We explore what it might mean to bring the mystical into ordinary life—and to build a Judaism that is both deeply rooted and open on all sides.

One of the defining features of what we call Jewish Renewal is the emergence of an Eastern inspired marriage of Buddhism and mystic Judaism. This has given rise to a new movement, Jewish meditation practices. Last week I got an email from Rabbi Jeff  Roth. The founder and Director of the Awakened Heart Project asked who I was and why I sent him a Sabbath greeting. I honestly don't remember doing that, but hey, since I had him on a thread I asked him to join me on this edition of Not That  Kind Of  Rabbi. Here's our conversation.