What does it feel like to believe in God? (classic)

This week, we try to understand an experience that 74% of Americans routinely report having. The first of many conversations (perhaps?). This one, an interview with Zvika Krieger. Comment on the episode https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/what-does-it-feel-like-to-believe Support the show! https://searchengine.supercast.com/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00PJ Vogt?

  Hello, everyone. This is our final rebroadcast of a classic episode before we return in August with some new ones for you. This episode is not like the other classics we've aired. It's more of a conversation episode. I really, really love this one. It's one of the episodes we have gotten the most listener emails about, and not just volume, like some of the most deep, interesting reflections in our inbox from anything we publish, which is crazy because we almost did not make this episode. I was worried the question was honestly too big, but we put it to the test that we sometimes put our questions to, which is just, is this a real, deeply held question? And for me, it really was.

• 0:42PJ Vogt?

  And I learned a lot from the person we asked it to and from the stories that the question elicited. After these ads, what's it like to believe in God? This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Bombas. Cozy season is here, which means it's time to bring out the movie marathons, crisp morning walks, and super soft layers. Once fall hits, I genuinely just want absolute comfort on my feet, and Bombas have become a go-to for me. Their new suede moccasins are a total game changer for this weather, packed with water-resistant suede, ultra cushy soles, and a plush, sheerling lining. On those busy days, or whenever I have travel coming up, I reach for their compression socks. They offer specialized support that actively fights fatigue and aches, keeping my legs

• 1:26PJ Vogt?

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• 3:22PJ Vogt?

  When I was a kid, I believed in God, the Christian, big guy in the sky God. My family wasn't hardcore about it, but we went to church on Sundays. When we kids resisted, we were bribed with donuts. I found Sunday school to be mainly confusing. I understood the concepts of God and Jesus, but I remember having a lot of questions about the Holy Ghost, this character whose backstory the teachers never seemed to want to fill in.

• 3:50PJ Vogt?

  But I believed in God. I prayed every night. I prayed for a long list of everyone I hoped God would protect, really, everyone I knew. My family, my friends, relatives, the souls of pets who had died. I couldn't fall asleep until I had prayed. Always the same prayer, every night, until I turned 15. When I was 15, something terrible happened to someone I loved. After that, I only prayed that this one person would be safe. A month later, the same terrible thing happened to them again. And after that, I mostly stopped praying.

• 4:23PJ Vogt?

  At first, I think I was pretty angry, but the anger went away. And then, when it was gone, it just felt easier for me to live in a world where everything didn't happen for a reason. A world where, when someone I knew got hurt, I didn't have to look for a lesson in it, or imagine it as part of a plan. I kept getting older. I didn't think about God very much. But a couple of years ago, I had a funny experience. I was in the desert with a friend, and I had this feeling I'd never had before. It lasted for about a minute, just this sense, like a physical sense, that the world might just be a shadow of a different world, a place that was more real or more true.

• 5:06PJ Vogt?

  It lasted for about one full minute, and then it passed.

• 5:13PJ Vogt?

  I did not rush off to start a new religion or join an old one. I took what had happened with a grain of salt. But I also didn't discard it. It just left me with new questions. I know I'm not allowed to do a podcast called "Is God Real?" But I did want to try to understand what faith feels like to the people who have it. That question has really been sticking with me. I think I'll probably ask it a lot in the future to different people of different faiths. But recently, I found one person who would let me pester them about it. Do you want headphones or no headphones? I don't think I need headphones. I might do no headphones too, Sherry. Is that OK with you?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm listening. Take it. Tell me what you had for breakfast today.

• 5:55PJ Vogt?

  For breakfast today, I had a smoked salmon avocado toast. This is Vika Krieger. How do I describe this person? We met recently. He leads a progressive Jewish spiritual community in Berkeley called Haqmat Halev. I really enjoyed talking to him, and I got the sense I could ask him a bunch of invasive questions about his faith, that I could ask him about God like I was a kid who'd never smoked weed, who wanted to know what weed was like, and that these questions would not offend him. So I invited him to Search Engine Headquarters to ask one of those no-questions-too-big. So my plan today, like the sort of roadmap I'm imagining for this conversation, I want to talk about your early life. I want to ask you about what your relationship to faith has been like,

• 6:39PJ Vogt?

  how it's changed, how you were dragged kicking and screaming into rabidum? Rabidum? Rabidin? Rabidin. And then I want to see if I can get a sense of like how it feels to believe as someone who doesn't particularly believe. I brought one of my favorite books on the topic. Oh, really? So that you can see the title.

• 6:59PJ Vogt?

  Like catching water in a net.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  It's a book about how to describe God.

• 7:02PJ Vogt?

  Oh, really?

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's like, this is the title.

• 7:05PJ Vogt?

  That's great. Okay, so we're doing something impossible.

• 7:10PJ Vogt?

  Okay, so can you just tell me about your life before you decided to become a rabbi? Like even, like as a kid, did you believe in God?

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Well, so I grew up in Los Angeles primarily. And I would say I definitely believed in a version of God as a kid, for sure. That sounds not too different from the version of God that you described growing up, even though I grew up Jewish. And so I grew up Orthodox, which means like on the very observant and very traditional end of the Jewish spectrum. And my parents got married when they were very young, like 19, early twenties, and divorced a year later. And I was born in that one-year period.

• 7:50PJ Vogt?

  Oh, wow.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  And my mom stayed in LA and my dad moved out and eventually landed in Israel. And so my mom is what maybe you would just call like regular Orthodox or like centrist Orthodox. And my dad is ultra Orthodox, or you call like Haredi or Hasidic, like where they with the hat and the beard and the garb and all of that. And so-

• 8:11PJ Vogt?

  So like Williamsburg Orthodox?

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, I mean, there's nuances, but you know, lost on people.

• 8:18PJ Vogt?

  What are the nuances?

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Well, I think there's like different, like the garb may look the same, but I think there's like different theologies around it within those communities, but subtle. And so I grew up primarily in LA. And when I was younger, I would go back and forth between that sort of LA Orthodox world and then the ultra Orthodox world with my dad. And so those were like the formative experiences of my childhood, particularly when it came to religion. But like, my life was religion because I lived in this insular Orthodox community.

• 8:51PJ Vogt?

  So you're in Los Angeles, but it's like a very strict upbringing, like a strict religious upbringing?

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, you know, only eat kosher food, which means that like you can only eat in restaurants that are like certified kosher. I don't think I knew a non-Jewish person until I went to college.

• 9:05PJ Vogt?

  Oh, wow.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Like, I, you know- Kept strict Shabbat, which means for one day out of the week, no electricity, no money, no phones, no screens, no driving. So like, you know, borderline Amish, I would say.

• 9:21PJ Vogt?

  And is it like, I want to say, excuse my ignorance, but if I say that, I'm gonna have to say it so many times in this interview. So just as a blanket consideration, please excuse my ignorance. Like, you know, I said, like, Williamsburg Orthodox, like, in Brooklyn where I live, it's sort of this thing that people always find remarkable when they move here, that Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which has a reputation as being both like a hipster neighborhood, but also an expensive neighborhood. There's one portion of Williamsburg that is just like Orthodox Jewish. And when you are driving, all of a sudden, you just like hit it. And it's like a lot of people in the same community, living the same way. Was it like that in Los Angeles, where you're in like a distinct community where everyone's sort of following practices? Or is it more dispersed?

• 10:00Speaker 02

  I would say it's a little bit more dispersed, but there's a couple neighborhoods where you're like driving through Beverly Hills, you're on Rodeo Drive, you're passing by Prada, and then you take a left turn onto Pico. And then all of a sudden, all the storefronts are in Hebrew, all the women are walking around with wigs and long skirts. You know, it's so it's got that Williamsburg-esque vibe, but it's a little bit less in your face. And I would say, and I'd say this is probably pretty formative to who I am, is that people are like, oh, my God, you grew up Orthodox. And I say, yeah, but I grew up LA Orthodox.

• 10:33PJ Vogt?

  And what does that mean?

• 10:34Speaker 02

  So I think there was like a little bit more permeability, right? Like in Williamsburg, you'd think like if a kid grew up in Williamsburg, it's like, oh, they've got this kind of like super austere Orthodox upbringing. But you got hipsters, you got clubs and coffee shops, you'd think that some of that would permeate in. But in in Williamsburg and other of these like ultra Orthodox neighborhoods in New York, the gates are pretty high. Like, you don't really get much of that culture in, whereas where I grew up, like, I definitely, you know, by the time I got to high school, I would go out to like punk shows on Hollywood Boulevard. I would go to raves out in like the deserts around LA. I would go surfing on weekends with my friends. And so none of that would happen if I grew up in Williamsburg.

• 11:14PJ Vogt?

  And when you're experiencing punk shows and raves particularly, like, was that okay? Or was it like you're sort of like stepping out?

• 11:23Speaker 02

  You know, when it comes to Orthodox Judaism, maybe religion more broadly, there's sort of two pieces. There's like the letter of the law, like what are you allowed to do? What are you not allowed to do? And then there's like the cultural pieces of like, what is culturally acceptable and culturally layered on top of it? And so there's nothing wrong with going to a punk show according to the laws of Orthodox Judaism, but it may be frowned upon from like a culturally conservative perspective. And I think in LA, you know, there's still a lot of that judginess, but there's a little bit more of an acceptance of, okay, like you can sort of play in both worlds. So like, I would go to a punk show, but I'd always keep my head covered. Probably didn't wear a yarmulke to a punk show, but like wear a baseball hat or a beanie

• 12:08Speaker 02

  or something like that. Or like, I wouldn't eat anything there because the food there wasn't kosher. Or if I was out all night partying at a rave, like I would make sure to be back in time for sunrise so that I could pray the like morning prayers.

• 12:20PJ Vogt?

  And did you feel like you were moving between worlds? Did those things feel cohesive to you?

• 12:25Speaker 02

  I think that I definitely had a little bit of sense of subversion, like, oh, look at me. I'm a badass. I'm like doing these things. But I also, I don't know. I can't quite put my finger on why, but I felt a sense of integration. I was just like, okay, like, there's no paradox here between like doing this, you know, going to a rave and being an Orthodox Jew. And I kind of reveled in my ability to move between those worlds and not feel attention.

• 12:54PJ Vogt?

  I realized a question I meant to ask you really is like, and you've answered it, but was, did you feel ashamed? And it sounds like you didn't feel ashamed. It felt like exciting or normal or correct.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  I mean, I think that, I mean, I definitely was like a type A overachiever in high school. And I think that part of my ability to move between those worlds is like, I was like really hardcore on the Jewish front, right? And so I was like super into everything. I was like in the top Talmud class, like studying the best freaking ancient Aramaic legal codes that, you know, you can imagine. I was like valedictorian of my school and like all of that. And I was like bleached hair and baggy Janko jeans and like, you know, as one does in the 90s.

• 13:38PJ Vogt?

  Yes, yes.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  And like, I think there were people whose system would overload at the contradictions and like would look at me and be like, I can't fit this guy in a box. And I was just kind of like, Whatever, like, I like doing all these things and there's nothing mutually exclusive. And I think there's something also interesting about like growing up Orthodox in that I, you know, I learned fluent Hebrew from the time I was a kid. I learned Aramaic and I was studying the text, the Torah, the, all the legal codes from a young age in a way that like I had direct access to them. So like, I didn't need a gatekeeper. So like, someone could be like, you're not allowed to do that. And I'll be like, show me where it says that in the text, right? Or I'm gonna open up the Talmud and like, find the place where it talks about this and be like, well, doesn't say that in here, right?

• 14:22Speaker 02

  And so I think that for a lot of people who don't have that direct access, they need it mediated through a gatekeeper. And generally, those gatekeepers have a culturally conservative agenda. And so like, oh, no, you're not allowed to do that. And I'm like, well, it doesn't say it in there, so I'm gonna do it.

• 14:38PJ Vogt?

  Right.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  So there's kind of, there's this quote, I think it's Audre Lorde, who said, "You can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools." I'm gonna be really embarrassed if it's not Audre.

• 14:48PJ Vogt?

  I think that's right.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  And like, I kind of was like, well, like, I guess maybe sometimes you can. Like, I had the tools. The masters gave me the tools to dismantle the house.

• 14:57PJ Vogt?

  And so, okay, so at this point, you're like, you're able to live in different worlds. And the God that you're imagining is the sort of like, classic God, like God in the sky, watching, judging?

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Old man on a throne in the sky, long beard, kinda wagging his finger at you, recording all of your good and bad deeds in a book. And you're praying to this person, just like you were sharing. And so, yeah, that was definitely the God that I believed in as a kid.

• 15:26PJ Vogt?

  And what was your relationship like to that God?

• 15:29Speaker 02

  You know, it's funny, because people assume that if you're Orthodox, or if you grew up really religious, you have a very close relationship with God.

• 15:36PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  And that was not my experience growing up, because there was so many rules about what it meant to be an observant Jew, right? In terms of everything about what you eat, literally how you get out of bed, which shoe you put on first. First, it's the right foot, and then it's the left foot. And there's like, all these things, well, this is like, you know, the Jewish version of it. And, and now, as an adult, I can see how much of it is based in like, post-Holocaust trauma, OCD. I remember always growing up being like, this feels like OCD. And now I'm just like, oh yeah, that's like, not a coincidence. Like when people spend so much of their life having their agency taken away from them and like being abused and traumatized, the way they deal with that is by creating these incredibly

• 16:21Speaker 02

  specific rituals for every aspect of your life. You've got to wake up and before you do anything, you have to wash your hands and there's a certain way that you do it. Two scoops on the left, two scoops on the right. And then there's a prayer that you say before you do anything. And then which shirt sleeve do you put on first? Which pant leg do you put on first? And so like, and it's for every part of your day, like literally every step of your take, you're thinking about, okay, what's the Jewishly prescribed way of doing this? And it's almost like there's no room for God. And like, yes, in theory, you're doing all these things because you think that that's what God commanded you to do and that's what's going to make God happy. But you almost forget about that because like you're just so focused on all

• 17:00Speaker 02

  the rules that you're keeping. And so my life was deeply infused with Judaism. Like every moment of my day was infused with Judaism, but God was like weirdly absent, except for this like hovering background figure that's like keeping a tally of did I put the right foot off the bed when I woke up in the morning.

• 17:19PJ Vogt?

  And so when you said college is when you start to kind of split somewhat from the exact rituals and beliefs of your childhood?

• 17:29Speaker 02

  You know, I think it was like a slow progression. Like I'd say to this day, I'm still quite traditionally observant and a lot of the rituals that I kept back then, I still keep today. For example, like I keep a pretty strict Shabbat from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Like I don't use my phone. I don't use the internet. I don't drive. I don't use electricity. I don't use money. So I do a lot of things from when I was growing up, but the intentionality behind it is much different. And like the relationship of that act to God is very different. And definitely going to college was a big part of that. I mean, I grew up in this insular world. Then there's like sort of tradition in my community that after you go to high school,

• 18:09Speaker 02

  you go spend a gap year in Israel studying in Yeshiva, Jewish study school institution, seminary. And so I went to Israel for a year and I just literally from like 7:30 in the morning till like 10 o'clock at night, I just studied Talmud all day long, which is like obscure Jewish Aramaic legal codes.

• 18:27PJ Vogt?

  I can't imagine studying anything that much.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  It was, it was, it was when I started drinking coffee. First time for sure, but like, I mean, it does boggle my mind when I look back to being like, holy shit, how did I spend so many hours a day studying what these, you know, first century, second, third century rabbis were saying about your ox gored my ox? And who pays who what, under what conditions? I was like, I was like an 18 year old.

• 18:54PJ Vogt?

  And what were you getting out of, like, as 18 year old you, like, what is happening in your mind while you're doing that?

• 19:00Speaker 02

  I think part of it was, like, it was just what was done in my community. It is very intellectually stimulating.

• 19:07PJ Vogt?

  How come?

• 19:08Speaker 02

  This is like for the, for the, we all have those friends that like, graduated college and were so excited to go to law school because they wanted to study torts, you know, and they, they, those big, I don't even know what they're called, but those like weird leather bound books that have like all the legal theories in them, like, that's probably the closest parallel where you basically, the Talmud is basically a transcription of esoteric debates and arguments between rabbis. And when a rabbi will put forward a position, another will argue it. And they're basically using the Torah as like a proof test. Like, well, I think the Torah says this. It's like, no, well, I'd interpret the Torah this way. And so there's something kind of intellectually satisfying about like, deconstructing an argument, following a debate, and also doing it in ancient Aramaic in a book that has no punctuation.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  And so like, there's something cool, almost about like decoding these texts.

• 19:55PJ Vogt?

  That makes sense. So it's like, it's very intellectually stimulating. And it's like the Netflix algorithm of experiences would be like for fans of debate club and arguing.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah, totally. Yes, that's exactly right. But I will say that for me, and I don't want to judge other people, but like for me, there was exactly zero spiritual fulfillment in that, in that task. But like, like this idea of like spiritual fulfillment, like that wasn't really part of my vocabulary growing up. I mean, it's probably not part of most teenagers' vocabularies, but this idea that like religion would be like nourishing in some way, that wasn't why we did it.

• 20:29PJ Vogt?

  Right.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  And so going to college, like leaving my world, all of a sudden being surrounded by like other kinds of Judaism, more like mystical versions of Judaism, more embodied forms of Judaism. I was just kind of like, huh, okay, like, that is interesting to me. And like being able to pause and ask questions of like, why are we doing this? And who are we doing this for? And like, definitely the questioning started then and continued well into my twenties.

• 20:58PJ Vogt?

  And so then what does that period of questioning look like?

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, college again was like this interesting time. I went to Yale, which was like a total mindfuck for me, being this cloistered Orthodox Jewish boy who, you know, went to only Orthodox Jewish schools, basically only knew Orthodox Jewish people. I was onto a college campus where I was like, like, you know, and in my community, highbrow secular reading was People Magazine.

• 21:26PJ Vogt?

  People didn't have like the New Yorker?

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Oh, hell no. I never heard of the New Yorker until I went to college.

• 21:31PJ Vogt?

  But that's so weird. I mean, just to say, like, whatever, different transmissions reach different people and places and mean different things, but why People Magazine?

• 21:39Speaker 02

  Stars, just like us.

• 21:41PJ Vogt?

  That was my favorite part of People Magazine.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  So like the highbrow families had Newsweek.

• 21:47PJ Vogt?

  Okay.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  But yeah, it was just like not a very intellectual milieu. And so like anything that I learned was like books that I had read on my own. And then I went to college and it was so embarrassing because there were so many words that I had never heard said out loud.

• 22:03PJ Vogt?

  Oh.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  And so like I'd only read them and I'd be in seminars with kids who went to like Exeter and Tote and, you know, all these like fancy prep schools. And I would like mispronounce words all the time and people would always laugh at me.

• 22:15PJ Vogt?

  But I always feel like, just to defend people that mispronounce words, I'm always like, all that means is that you read a lot.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  Totally. But I think there's like something about like growing up in a cultural milieu where like people have intellectual conversations.

• 22:27PJ Vogt?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Like I thought the word penesia and panache were the same word.

• 22:33PJ Vogt?

  I can imagine that getting embarrassed at Yale.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so, but, but you know, it was definitely like my intellectual horizons were like totally broadened, but like I still prayed three times a day. I still studied Talmud with a friend like two hours a day. I still kept Shabbat and kosher. So like, I had this sort of cultural mind blowing moment, but then I also like kind of kept doing my thing.

• 22:56PJ Vogt?

  Yeah. And it didn't, again, it was like you were able, I'm so used to hearing stories where the, a very familiar arc of a very familiar story for me is. Person grows up in cloistered, intense, religious community. And then, you know, it's almost like every culture loves a conversion story into itself. And so like, as a progressive intellectual type, we love the story of like, I was very religious, but then I read The New Yorker and I blah, blah, blah, blah. But your story, the way you tell it is, I was very religious. I found more experiences. I found more things to read and think about, but I was able to bring with me where I came from in a way that didn't feel painful or confusing.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and like, maybe partially I attribute it to my upbringing in LA where there wasn't this like strict binary of like, either you're this way or you're this way. But it was this sense of like, if these practices are meaningful, you can keep doing them and do other things that don't conflict with those practices.

• 23:52PJ Vogt?

  Right.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  But have you ever heard of the concept called the second naivete?

• 23:56PJ Vogt?

  No.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  It's this, this like French philosopher, Paul Ricard. He kind of like traces a version of that arc that you just traced, but it's, it's got a slightly different twist to it, which is like, the first naivete is like, you grow up and you learn about the God in the sky and you pray to this God to do good things for you, da, da, da, da. And then there's like a second phase, which is like, it all comes crashing down and you have this realization or you learn like, holy shit, like, all this is bullshit. Religion is constructed by all these people with nefarious agendas, like, screw this. Then he has this thing called the second naivete, which is like, okay, like, yes, religion is invented by people, like, yes, there is like no old man in the sky, and there's still value in a lot of this stuff, right?

• 24:41Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna like, choose to believe a lot of this stuff in a way that like, is more suited to a grown up sensibility of like, what exists and what doesn't exist, but I'm not gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like, there's like, a way that you can opt in to that world that sort of meets you post-crash.

• 24:59PJ Vogt?

  Right, like, a way to not become one of those like internet atheists that's like constantly being like, oh, the flying spaghetti monster or whatever. They can't imagine that the human desire for belief in something larger or a spiritual existence is anything but like, a dumb trick played on dumb people by the people who would manipulate them, that there might be something valuable or real about that impulse, even if you don't sign on to it. Whatever you grew up with.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Totally. And like, a lot of my twenties and thirties was about like, updating my conception of God, and then looking back on my life and the practices and the way I kind of live my life as an observant Jew, and saying, okay, like, which of these still resonate? Which of these don't resonate? And like, what aligns with this conception? And actually, like, a lot of it does align.

• 25:46PJ Vogt?

  It's funny, as you talk about this stuff, one of the things that makes me realize is that, in my existence, as like, you know, the identity categories I belong to, or don't belong to, or like, flat in between, all have days where, I don't know, like, in the last few years, I feel like I spend, not a lot of time, but some amount of time being like, you know, like, progressive, liberal, like, left, whatever, where I'm like, where do I, where do I fit in here? Where don't I fit in here? Like, how much does it matter to know where I fit in here? Like, how much is the tribal question versus the intellectual one versus values one? You've had to do that sort of internal maneuvering with faith.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Totally, yeah. There's a famous rabbi who said, like, "The people I socialize with, I can't pray with, and the people I pray with, I can't socialize with."

• 26:31PJ Vogt?

  And you relate to that?

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think that, I definitely relate to that. And I think that that's like, to the extent that I quote unquote, "left" orthodoxy, though I like to pretend that I haven't really left. But to the extent that I've left, it was actually more for like, social reasons, in that like, the people in those communities tended to be more socially conservative, and that's politically conservative, and just like, not into the kind of stuff that I was into, and tended not to be like, particularly interested in the world, particularly interested in things beyond their sort of parochial bubble that they lived in. And then like, I'd go hang out with like, my cool friends who were like, into all the things I was into, but they're just like, "Oh, religion? Like, that's weird. Like, why are you keeping Shabbat? God, ugh." You know? And so I'd say that, like, that tension in

• 27:13Speaker 02

  my twenties is what kind of led me down into this spiritual leadership route, because I was just like, I mean, there was still a long ways to go until I got there, but it was a sense of like, well, I don't fit in here, I don't fit in there, I guess I kind of gotta create for myself what I want.

• 27:33PJ Vogt?

  Coming up after the break, before Zvika becomes ordained as a rabbi, we chart how being both spiritual and unusual can lead someone to perhaps the strangest professional path I've ever heard a person describe. That's after some ads.

• 27:57PJ Vogt?

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• 28:59PJ Vogt?

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• 29:44PJ Vogt?

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• 30:02PJ Vogt?

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• 31:18PJ Vogt?

  I don't even know how to handle this in the context of an interview. Like, one of the things I have to do is like, take complicated lives and simplify them in a way that is not untrue but is legible. And you've had such an interesting life path that I'm not... Like, can you give me, what is your quickest, dirtiest pencil sketch of your professional life? From college to rabbi?

• 31:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I'd say probably like, the headline is ADHD.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  But, okay, the quickest, dirtiest sketch is, you know, graduate college, become a journalist, work in Newsweek in New York. Because I spoke Arabic, they send me to the Middle East. I become their Middle East correspondent, lived in Egypt and Lebanon for a couple of years, moved to DC for the first time, work at The New Republic for a couple of years, work at The Atlantic for a couple of years. Work as a writer, editor, all sorts of different things. Work in a Middle East think tank, work in the Defense Department, work at the State Department. And then John Kerry, who was the Secretary of State at the time, was like, "Hey, like, all this stuff is happening in Silicon Valley and like, it's like really affecting policy and we don't have anyone whose job it is to like, build relationships with Silicon Valley."

• 32:31Speaker 02

  And I was running the Innovation Lab at the time at the State Department and they're like, "Sveka, do you want to go be our ambassador to Silicon Valley?" And I was like, "Yeah." Why not? Yeah, so I moved to California and did that for a little while. Then Trump got elected and I was like, "Fuck this, working for Trump." And so I taught at Stanford. So I studied design as an undergrad. So I went back and I taught in the design school at Stanford. And then I got hired by the World Economic Forum, like the Davos people, to set up a like hub for them in the Bay Area focused on like ethical tech, responsible tech. So I did that for a couple of years and then Facebook hired me to be their first ever Head of Ethics,

• 33:15Speaker 02

  Director of Responsible Innovation. What was that one like? You know, it's definitely the job title that gets the most snickers.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  And when they reached out to me, like when the recruiter first reached out to me, he referred to the job as Chief Ethics Officer at Facebook. And I just, and I burst out laughing and I was like, "This sounds like an Onion article." But you know, eventually what, and I spent a lot of time like talking to like all the people I'd be working with. I was like, "Okay, like this actually sounds like it's legit." But I love the job, despite all the sort of snickers that you had. And like, they're like, "Oh, you did a really good job." And it's like, "Yeah, okay, fair." You know, like I didn't totally transform the business model there and like zero out any harm that was being caused in the product, but like I built like a 40-person team there. And we reviewed hundreds of products before they were released, actually like pretty early in the product development process.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  And we were able to sort of figure out or like anticipate like, how might these products harm people? And like, I found the engineers and the product managers to be quite like well-meaning and being like, "Oh, wow, like we hadn't thought about this, right?" It's not their job to think about, or it's not their mindset to think about. It's like, you don't wake up every morning being like, "How is this thing that I'm working on going to harm people?" Right? So like having a team that is their job, like it actually made it a lot easier. And did you?

• 34:36PJ Vogt?

  Again, forgive me, this is an naive question, but like, you're in a job that involves thinking through ethics and morality. The part of you that you would consult when you're trying to solve a problem there, was it just like you yourself? Were you thinking about, you know, Talmudic disputes about aux scoring in Aramaic from many centuries ago? Like, how did your faith and your job doing moral reasoning for a tech company, were they involved with each other?

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would just like walk into a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, like, open my Talmud. And just be like, Mark, it says it right here in the Talmud. Like, you gotta change the newsfeed algorithm. No, I mean, it's interesting, because I think actually, like, I, when they recruited me, I'm just like, first of all, I just want to let you guys know that I'm not a very ethical person. We're like, that's okay.

• 35:27PJ Vogt?

  Even better.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  But I'm not like a conceptual ethicist. I have no professional background in ethics, right? I don't come with like frameworks for like ethical reasoning and things like that. But basically, like, the first thing that I really tried to impart to people was like, number one, like, it's generally not right versus wrong. Like, generally, it's not like, you know, either we launch this product and it brings us lots of revenue and more clicks, but it might cause a genocide in Myanmar. You know, like, it's not like those types of trade-offs. It's more like, hey, like, we could do end-to-end encryption for all of our messaging, which is great for privacy, and everybody's like really being the drum on privacy, but that means we don't have access to any of the content in those messages, and there might

• 36:09Speaker 02

  be proliferation of all, you know, human trafficking and child pornography and terrorist extremist groups. So it's like, that's a trade-off, like, optimize for privacy or optimize for safety.

• 36:20PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  And like, being able to surface that and sort of frame in a way where it's like, what are we going to optimize for? And so it wasn't really my job to tell people what the right answer was, even though most people wanted me to just tell them, they're like, what should we do? And I'm just like, well, like, let's actually frame up what the trade-offs are and help you make an intentional decision about what you're going to prioritize.

• 36:43PJ Vogt?

  But it's funny, I mean, that does sort of sound like, I have not often sought spiritual guidance in my life. I'm not trying to say you were a spiritual leader at Facebook, although that's like a great movie idea, but more like... You were doing what I've found people do, which is like they rather than be like, here's what you should do. They'll say, here's what you might consider.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Well, it's interesting because of course I had to be like very careful like not to like bring religion into the room with, you know, like I'm not gonna like proselytize people, you know, but like I think there was this sense that it was spiritual work. And like people would often like jokingly call me like Facebook Rabbi, you know, they would just be like, hey Rabbi, I need some advice, you know, on on this stuff. And so, and I do think there is like a link between how I practice now as a Rabbi and how I practiced, like the responsible innovation work I did at Facebook, which is like even now, like in a spiritual leadership role, people come to me all the time and they're like, what should I do? You know, my husband's having dementia and I want to put him in a nursing home because I still want to live my life. Like, what should I do?

• 37:45Speaker 02

  And I'm like, it's not my job actually to tell you what the right thing to do is. It's like, I can help you frame up what values are at play here.

• 37:54PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  I will walk beside you and give you some tools, give you the confidence to trust your own moral compass, but I'm not gonna like loan you my moral compass.

• 38:03PJ Vogt?

  Yeah, but people want that.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  Oh, totally. Yeah, like, and especially engineers. They're just like, dude, like, we got, we got lines of code to write. Yes or no? What should we do?

• 38:13PJ Vogt?

  Did you ever just give them a straight yes or no?

• 38:15Speaker 02

  No. But I think maybe it's also just something that is a part of my constitution and that like, I just grew up around so many rabbis who just constantly told people what to do, that I'm just like, I'm not, it's not my jam. Like, I'm not, I'm not here to tell people what to do.

• 38:32PJ Vogt?

  Okay, so Facebook ethicist.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:36PJ Vogt?

  Then what happens?

• 38:37Speaker 02

  So like I had these two, I like praying with these people. I like to socializing with these people, but like, I feel like there's nowhere where I can like, pray and be spiritual with the people who I actually like. So I just like started like doing a lot of my own like pop up stuff, you know, like putting together like, prayer services, like in my living room, in my backyard, just kind of like. Experimenting and I'm like, I grew up Orthodox, I know how to do this shit. You know, like.

• 39:01PJ Vogt?

  But it's funny, it's also you're taking the ethos of DIY scenes like punk and raves. You're like, we can just throw a show.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  Totally, totally.

• 39:08PJ Vogt?

  We don't need an organization here.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  And like a lot of it, like, cause also I spent a lot of my time in my twenties. I took like a little detour. I never like left Judaism, but like meditation and mindfulness became really important to me. Because as I mentioned, I have very severe ADHD. It's not just like, my career is ADHD. I have very severe ADHD. And like the only, and like medication did not work for me. It gave me like horrendous headaches. And so the only thing that really worked for me was meditation. And so I got like really into meditation in my twenties and like mindfulness was really important to me. And like embodiment became really important for me. I know that's kind of like a buzzwordy.

• 39:44PJ Vogt?

  What do you mean when you say embodiment?

• 39:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of like a new agey phrase. I live in Berkeley, so I need to like translate.

• 39:49PJ Vogt?

  You're in New York now.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I gotta translate like some of the lexicon, but like, I don't know. I'm guessing you can relate to this, but like I spent a lot of time in my brain. Right? A lot of time like thinking and mulling things over and duh duh duh. And like intellectually is like the way that I engage with the world mostly. And I just like, at a certain point, realized that like that wasn't really serving me. And that like I needed, not that I should stop doing that, as if that's even possible. But I need to spend more time like in my body, not just thinking all the time, but just experiencing and being and moving. And so meditation was really helpful for that, but I got really into dancing, which had always been part of my life. Starting with the like mosh pits in the punk scene and then moving into like the electronic music.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  All these embodiment things started just being a really important part of like my spiritual practice. But then I realized like, hey, I want to like fuse all of this together. Like I've got the traditional parts of Judaism that still really speak to me. The ritual, the practices, the liturgy. And then I've got mindfulness and meditation and I've got embodiment. Like, how can we bring that all together? And part of it was also this learning journey that actually Judaism has. I mean, and by the way, so does Christianity and Islam. Like they have these ancient embodiment mindfulness traditions that have been sort of sanitized in a post enlightenment sort of rationalist Western European world for Judaism and Christianity in particular. So I just kind of wanted to bring all these things together. And so I was like, ah, like I'm gonna like.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Do stuff like this, you know, in my living room. And like, I think there are like a lot of people who like grow up more progressive. And they're kind of wary to do sort of radical things in a religious space because they're like, oh, well, that's not authentic and that's not real or that's not okay. And I'm just like, dude, I grew up in the Orthodox world. I know the emperor has no clothes like over there also, right? Orthodox Judaism is just as constructed as whatever we could construct as well. And so I think there is this conception, especially from people who grew up outside the Orthodox world, that Moses got the Torah at Mount Sinai and then like passed it down and like basically was living as an Orthodox Jew. Like Moses had those like side locks and a black hat and a beard, you know?

• 41:58Speaker 02

  And then like Judaism had been practiced like that all the way down to Orthodox Jews today. And anything more progressive was like a deviation. But like, I guarantee you, if Moses came alive today, walked into an Orthodox synagogue, you'd be like, what the fuck is this? What religion is this? This is not the religion I got at Sinai.

• 42:14PJ Vogt?

  A few years ago, Sveka started attending rabbinical school. His time there coincided with a chapter of personal crisis in his life. A divorce, burnout. He took a break from full-time work to focus on parenting his child. And ultimately, he'd end up in the job he has now, leading services for a Jewish spiritual community in Berkeley.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Basically, there was this community in Berkeley that was started 30 years ago. It's called Chomat Halev, which means Wisdom of the Heart. And it started as a Jewish meditation center.

• 42:45PJ Vogt?

  Okay.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  And it was a bunch of what we call Bo Jews.

• 42:48PJ Vogt?

  Buddhist Jewish people?

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:50PJ Vogt?

  Okay.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Which there's a sizable population of Bo Jews, of Jews who were just like, oh, Judaism's like really not spiritual enough for me. I'm going to go to Eastern religion. Which was like, even though like Judaism has like a pretty long lineage of meditation and mindfulness practice, it's not, it was never mainstream in Judaism. It's certainly not in modern history. But there are practices that you can go back to. And so there was this movement of folks who wanted to like reclaim mindfulness and meditation and contemplative practices. And so they created this center. But it's been around for about 30 years and it's slowly evolved into like being more of like a traditional synagogue.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Don't tell anyone, where they have like prayer services and bar mitzvahs and weddings and like, things like that.

• 43:31PJ Vogt?

  So you ended up in a place where even though you didn't want to be a rabbi in a synagogue, you're a spiritual leader who has now graduated rabbinical school in a spiritual community that has synagogue-like tendencies.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, synagogue-adjacent.

• 43:48PJ Vogt?

  But you feel like you have a practice that fits with your own contradictions, or things that maybe you don't feel like contradictions anymore, but perhaps wants to.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Well, yes, and like, what I, I promised myself, when I, when I, when I went to rabbinical school, but even more so when I took on this job, I promised myself that I would not have a rabbi persona, that I would not have like, my rabbi persona and my like, friend persona, or like, private persona. I know so many people who are in spiritual leadership who live sort of these double lives.

• 44:16PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  I was like, I don't want to do that, and I don't have the energy for that, and like, I, I don't think it's good for people, like, I don't think it's good for the people in the community, and it's not good for me, so I was just like, I'm just gonna be myself, warts and all, and like, if anything, like, I would like to be a role model for people, to be like, hey, look, that guy who's up there on the stage, like, giving the sermon, like, look how flawed he is, and he's up there on the stage, like, being a spiritual leader, that means he's like, valuable and worthy as a person, and so if he can be up there doing that, like, I can also be lovable because of all my flaws and all the ways in which I am, fall short, and I'm still a work in progress and have not figured things out at all.

• 44:55PJ Vogt?

  But isn't it strange, I mean, look, I'm on the side of flawed people, honesty, uncertainty, but even to me, it's surprising that, you know, people often go to spiritual places for answers, when people are showing up with questions and you're like, the answer is, I don't know.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  It's not just that I don't know, it's that like, it is okay to have those questions. You don't actually need the answer to that question. It is okay to be living in this place of uncertainty and confusion and not knowing, and I want to like, validate you for that, and like, that is actually, I think, often more powerful than giving people the answers.

• 45:31PJ Vogt?

  You're saying that a question can be as valuable as an answer?

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and like, not knowing, like, I mean, so much of my personal practice has been releasing the expectation of knowing, and it's just like, oh, like, you're confused? That means you're right.

• 45:47PJ Vogt?

  Right.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Like certainty is actually the wrong place to be. And like, listen, I'm exaggerating a little bit. There is Jewish wisdom out there on a lot of questions. And I do have access to a lot of that wisdom because of the like decades I spent studying all these ancient texts. And so I do try to sprinkle in things from the texts. But I will say like, there is a lot of Jewish wisdom about not knowing.

• 46:09PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  And mystery and surrendering control.

• 46:13PJ Vogt?

  I was reading your sermons. I was struck by a couple of things.

• 46:16Speaker 02

  I'm so excited to hear what you have to say because like generally I'm like preaching to the converted.

• 46:22PJ Vogt?

  I'm not the converted.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so I'm so curious, like, because I don't write them in my, like, people who are like, wouldn't be kind of like a captive audience. And so I'm so curious what comes out.

• 46:32PJ Vogt?

  Well, the first thing, and I was like, perhaps this is just my boundless narcissism. But I was surprised reading some of what you'd written because I thought, oh, part of the job you're doing is less far away from the job that I try to do than I thought. Where it's like, you're telling stories, you're choosing stories that already exist. You're trying to contextualize the experiences people are having and give them something that might help them make meaning out of it. Like, there was a sermon where you were talking about, it was as simple as, hey, like, everyone's going home for the holidays. People are going to have difficult conversations with family members.

• 47:13PJ Vogt?

  You were relating an experience you'd had where you like made comments that were like about Israel Palestine, that were sympathetic to Palestinians. And you had like more hardcore, like pro-Israel people who had said hurtful things to you. And I thought like, oh, this is a kind of sense-making and meaning-making that like I understand. And that surprised me.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  I mean, that is like, when people ask me, what is the role of being a rabbi? I'm not just saying this because you said it, like, the number one answer I say is meaning-making. Like, it is helping people make meaning. It's like helping them, as they're like navigating their lives with a certain level of unconsciousness. It's like helping them pause and be like, how do I make something that feels mundane feel meaningful? And it can be through a teaching, it can be through a prayer experience, it can be through rituals, totally meaning-making is my job.

• 48:00PJ Vogt?

  But then there was another type of sermon, and this is where I was like, oh, religion requires a level of familiarity with texts that I don't have. Where it would just be about.

• 48:11PJ Vogt?

  You know, stories from the past, stories from scripture, that's the part that I can never, it always feels impenetrable to me. It always feels like a TV show that is on its like 15,000th season. And everybody's like, oh, in season one, this thing happened. And everybody says it means this, but I think it means this. And like, I understand the pleasures of textual analysis, and I understand the pleasures of looking at a story and trying to see it differently. But that was the part where I thought like, oh, this is just a culture that's not my own.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it is interesting how much I take for granted people's familiarity with like, just the general contours of the Torah or the Bible. You know, just the other day, I was just like, oh, that's gonna be the story of like, the binding of Isaac. And someone's like, what's that? I'm like, you don't know the story where like, Abraham was commanded by God to like, sacrifice his only child, you know? And they're like, no, I've never heard that story before. I'm like, right. I live in this like, little bubble. Like, of course, the binding of Isaac.

• 49:05PJ Vogt?

  But Well, and do you, okay, the binding of Isaac, which is a story that, as you start to describe it, I do know that story. When you're making a decision in your life, or confronting something confusing or painful that's happened, are you like, oh, the binding of Isaac? Does it?

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Right. I mean, I think that, I don't know if this is the question behind your question, but it's the question that I'm hearing is, why am I returning to the Torah as this like, book of wisdom, right? Like, and, you know, the traditional answer to that question is, the Torah was written by God, right? And so like, if you wanna, you know, and like, a kind of, the way it's often talked about in Jewish tradition is it's like, it's like a blueprint for the world, and like, a sort of instruction manual for how to live your life. And there are parts of the Torah that are very much instructions, like, eat this, don't eat this, wear this, don't wear this. So that that stuff's kind of clear, if you believe in it. But then there's like, lots of stories, like, the binding of Isaac, or like, the Exodus story, or whatever. And it's like, well, what are, why are those in there? At the very least,

• 50:02Speaker 02

  These are stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. And they are like in the DNA of anyone who's in the world of Western civilization, and including Christianity and Islam. So like, first of all, the fact that they have been passed down, like, there's this kind of buzzword these days of like ancestral wisdom. And it's just like, yeah, this book has been around for like a really long time. So even if you don't believe God wrote it, like, there's something there, you know? So like, I think it's like worth exploring. And then even if you don't think that it's inherently valuable, it has shaped our society. That you can't disagree with. And so like, looking back at it with sort of a critical eye and being like, what is here? What is this text? And like, what wisdom can be mined from it? Like, it feels like a worthwhile endeavor.

• 50:46PJ Vogt?

  Yeah. It's funny, I had a moment in my life where things were more challenging than usual. And it was the only time where I found that when I read or thought about stories from the Bible I grew up with as a kid, I found myself more attracted to them. And it wasn't because I felt more faith or less faith. I think it was the feeling of like, people in the past lived lives that were harder to make meaning out of because death was everywhere and things were more senseless. And the stories that those people had used to survive then might be more valuable because, I don't know, making sense of modernity can feel hard, but it's not hard like plague is hard. You know what I mean?

• 51:29Speaker 02

  Totally, totally, yeah. And I think that, first of all, I think that's an important context for like when that book was written, right? But I also think the core tension, right, of being a quote unquote religious person is like, the God that is portrayed in these religious texts is like, not a very appealing God, right? It's just kind of like, you have a God who gets angry, you have a God who gets jealous, you have a God who feels like, kind of petty, actually, like, in the Torah. And you're just like, how is this supposed to be the bedrock of a faith? This is God that's actually such an unappealing character? It's like going to see a play where like, the main character is like really unappealing. It's just like, you know, like, it's kind of how I feel about White Lotus. Like, I kind of hate that show. I'm just like, there's no appealing character in this whole show. So like, the Torah is kind of like White Lotus in that way.

• 52:14PJ Vogt?

  But it's also the text that you have to use.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  Right, well, the way that I navigate that is that the God of the Torah is not God. The God of the Torah is a character. It's a God character that was like created by humans, but it's not God. And I would say that There's an inherent contradiction, and I'll say in Judaism, it may be true in other religions, I'm just less of an expert in other religions, that Judaism has these sort of two paradoxical truths, which is that we have the God of the Torah that is very much a human-like figure that has feelings and does things. But then it's very clear in the Jewish tradition, the Jewish law, whatever, that you are not allowed to personify

• 53:01Speaker 02

  God, you are not allowed to anthropomorphize God. God is not a person. God is not a being. God is not separate from us in any way. And so it's this paradox of like, wait, okay, this resonates. I think for a lot of modern people, this idea that God is not a person or a sentient being in any way. It's like, okay, that can kind of square that with the world as I see it. But then what the fuck is this very human-like God in the Torah, or in the Bible, or in the Quran, or whatever? And the only way to really square that circle is that is actually a God projection. That is actually a human creation of God that is not God.

• 53:39PJ Vogt?

  Right.

• 53:40Speaker 02

  It's a God character.

• 53:41PJ Vogt?

  Right. It's like, we've made something in our image, rather than something making us in its image.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  Right. And it's a useful jumping off point to have a conversation about God, but that is not God, because God does not have human form. So how can you talk about God in that way?

• 54:05Speaker 02

  Coming up after one more short break, we get to the question that brought us here today. Okay. What does it actually feel like to believe in God, at least for this one person? That's after some ads for companies.

• 54:21Speaker 02

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• 55:27PJ Vogt?

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• 56:30PJ Vogt?

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• 57:42PJ Vogt?

  So what is it like for you to just live everyday life with a belief in God? Like, how are you having a different experience than me?

• 57:52Speaker 02

  So I was joking with you before that there's this book that I love where that talks about the challenge of like, explaining the experience of God. And it's called Catching Water in a Net.

• 58:03PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  Which is like, it's so hard to talk about. So I'm gonna try to talk about it.

• 58:08PJ Vogt?

  I appreciate it.

• 58:08Speaker 02

  And so the first thing I want to say is like, I don't spend all day, every day thinking about God.

• 58:13PJ Vogt?

  Okay.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  Right? And in the Jewish sort of spiritual tradition, like, that's okay. There is this practice called dveikut, which literally means like cleaving or connecting. And it's like, we always want to be deepening our awareness and our connection to God. But like, that's something that you drop in and out of. Right? Probably the best analogy is like mindfulness, right? Like, yes, you could be like a Buddha on a mountaintop somewhere and just be fully mindful 24/7. But actually, like, for most people, it's like, I strive to have moments of mindfulness in my life. And those moments kind of inform the rest of my life, but I'm not just like, sitting in lotus position all day. Right?

• 58:56PJ Vogt?

  But sometimes you are, in this analogy, there's times where you do feel like you're getting a clear connection or a clear signal.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  And so to answer this question, I kind of have to tell you like, what I think God is.

• 59:07PJ Vogt?

  That's fine.

• 59:09Speaker 02

  I'm gonna come out of the closet and tell you what I think God is. You know, so like, in Jewish spiritual tradition, God is like, and it's gonna be so hard to say things that don't sound like completely woo and sort of out there, so.

• 59:21PJ Vogt?

  You have blanket permission.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  Permission to be woo, sir. So in Jewish tradition, the shortest way to sum it up is like, God is oneness. That like, everything that ever was, is, and will be, the sum total of all of those things is God.

• 59:37PJ Vogt?

  Okay, so it's like an immolation of self as part of it.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  Absolutely. There's, yeah, and like, and this concept of tvekut, of cleaving, is like, when you feel totally subsumed in the oneness, like, that's the sort of goal, right? And like, God is an English word and a Christian word. It's not a Jewish word. And the word for God in the Jewish lineage is, it's a four-letter word that you can't pronounce. It's some people call the ineffable name, and it's like, some people clumsily pronounce it in English, Yahweh. I don't know if you've heard of that.

• 1:00:07PJ Vogt?

  I have heard that, yeah.

• 1:00:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, because those are, it's the, like, four letters, they're like all vowels, and like, you can't really pronounce them. But like, first of all, there's something cool about having a name of God that you can't pronounce, which like, really gets at the fact that it's this kind of like, intangible mystery and not like, a person, or like, a being. But the, but the word for God, which I can't pronounce, is actually an amalgamation of the Hebrew words for was, is, and will be. Ha'ya, hovei, yihia. If you mush all those words together, it'll create the word for God.

• 1:00:42PJ Vogt?

  Huh.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  So God is essentially like, everything that is, was, and will be. So when you ask me, like, how do I experience God? How do I connect with God? To me, it's, how can I plug into that awareness that everything is one? That we are all connected, not just like, we all people, but like, everything in existence is connected, and not just like, everything currently in existence, but like, everything that was in existence, everything that is, and everything that will be, is like, all of that is connected. You can either think of it as like, there is a life force that flows through all those things, or just like, all of those things mushed together are God.

• 1:01:19PJ Vogt?

  And when you're describing that awareness, is it an intellectual idea? An emotional idea? A physical feeling? Like, at a peak experience of that awareness? What is happening inside your mind or inside your heart?

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a great question, and like, I remember asking this question to one of my spiritual teachers, because she was like, "Okay, your homework for this month is every day I want you to spend 10 minutes meditating on the oneness of existence."

• 1:01:45PJ Vogt?

  Sure.

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  And like, when I heard the assignment, I was like, "Okay." And then like, I sat down on my first day, I'm just like... Okay, like, what do I do now?

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  One, okay, everything is one, everything is one, everything is one. And then, like, of course, like, I went to that intellectual place. I'm like, what does that mean? Everything is one. Does that mean that we're like, literally connected, like glue? Like, is it something flows through all of us? And so, like, there is like a way in which you can grapple with that intellectually. But for me, once I sort of moved past that intellectual piece of it, there is a felt experience of it. If we are all part of like, one entity that is God, we always all belong. And there is just this like, beautiful sense of peace for me that just kind of like descends on my body when I'm feeling kind of on the outs or sort of, you know, not belonging, this sense of like, oh, we're all part of this. Like, we're all in this together. All this sort of distinctions kind of fall apart.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  That's like one way in which I definitely like experience God, is when I allow myself to relax into that awareness.

• 1:02:48PJ Vogt?

  And so it's the way you're describing it. It's like a place you can go sometimes with stillness and contemplation.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's kind of how I experience it.

• 1:02:58PJ Vogt?

  Yeah. That's really beautiful. I mean, it's like, I feel like people talk about oneness and unity and like, trying to get away from the self. And I understand those things. But I guess I hadn't connected it to a feeling of belonging.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  Totally. Yeah, and it's so core in the Jewish teachings, or at least in like, the mystical spiritual teachings that like, I've really gravitated towards. And like, it's funny, because people ask me, like, where do you encounter God? Like, most in the world? And like, I've really thought about that. And like, honestly, the place where I like, most encounter God is on the dance floor.

• 1:03:30PJ Vogt?

  Really?

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I know it's like, kind of cheesy, but like, there's this moment when you're dancing. And like, I don't know, I particularly like electronic music. I don't know if it's true in other genres of music, where you're just like, on the dance floor. And you were just like, feeling the music. Like, it is just like vibrating inside of you. And then you just look around, and everyone else is just feeling it, right? Because you're all dancing to the same beat. You might be dancing in different ways, and some people are like, more subtle, and some people are bigger movements and that. But you're all dancing to the same beat, and it's just like... Ooh, like, I feel connected to everyone on this dance floor because we are all in it and we're all feeling it. That's oneness. So that's the place where I most, most feel connected to God. Maybe the other place is like when I'm surfing.

• 1:04:14PJ Vogt?

  Really?

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. I generally go surf at sunrise and there's this moment where like the world is all dark and then like you kind of see like the beginning glimmers. I'm on the West Coast, so some does not rise over the ocean, but you just kind of see the like glimmers of the like morning light kind of sparkling over the water. And then like, it's, I actually don't feel connected to God when I catch a wave. I feel it when I'm just kind of like floating and you kind of like the waves kind of come and it almost feels kind of like the heartbeat of the earth. And it's just like, oh, there's just this kind of like steady presence connected to something bigger that I can just relax into. So those are like maybe as I think about it, like two places where I definitely feel God.

• 1:05:00PJ Vogt?

  I'm always encountering studies suggesting that basically if you can believe in God, in many ways, you're likely to be happier. And it's always like, well, that's great. But like, it's not the type of thing you could rationally persuade yourself into doing. It's like, what advice would you have for someone who doesn't believe in God? Like, what are the things from your practice that you think a non-believer could still benefit from?

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  I, I was talking to my friend Adina this week, who's a spiritual leader here in Brooklyn. And we were talking about this whole idea of like believers versus non-believers. And we were saying how that doesn't feel like the right way to divide the world between like atheists and believers, or like people who believe in God and people who don't believe in God. It's people who think about the nature of existence and people who don't.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  You know, a lot of people ask like, do you believe in God? My version of that question is I start with, what do you believe in?

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  You know, in every spiritual tradition, there are hundreds, if not thousands of ways to define God. And I think that, in essence, you can find a definition of God in some spiritual tradition that resonates with what you believe in, in terms of the nature of existence. But that means you have to be like curious about like the nature of existence, why are we here, what's happening in the world beyond what can be explained by science. You have to be interested in asking those questions.

• 1:06:26PJ Vogt?

  It's funny, I mean, I know your bent is towards not being prescriptive. But I do think like the advice I would take from that, or what I take from that, is that perhaps more important than whether somebody has faith or doesn't have faith, or what they have faith in. I do think it's pretty important to wrestle with larger questions, because I think if you don't, you end up just being stuck with the small ones. Like, your life just kind of becomes, am I happy today? Was I happy yesterday? Will I be happier tomorrow? Will I get this? Will I lose this? And sometimes things go really well, and sometimes they go really poorly. But it's almost like those larger questions about existence are a refuge

• 1:07:07PJ Vogt?

  because they give you a larger timescale of meaning than whatever's happening right now.

• 1:07:13Speaker 02

  Totally. Yeah. I mean, like, people ask me like, well, like, why do you believe in God? And I'm like, because I like to. It nourishes me. It gives my life meaning. It gives me an impetus to sort of grapple with these questions, right? I don't believe in God because I feel like I have to. It actually brings meaning to my life.

• 1:07:27PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:27Speaker 02

  But I also like, I don't want to just punt on your question, because I can give a more specific answer of like, what I recommend. Like, I'm a big fan of prayer. And you might be like, wait, what? Like, if someone doesn't believe in God, the prescription you're going to give them is prayer? And, you know, to me, like, I like to say, you know, there's that phrase, like, dance like nobody's watching, or whatever. So I like to say, like, pray like nobody's listening. So like, there's like two parts of it. One is, Just stating what you want, like verbalizing and allowing those words to come out of your mouth, actually has a positive impact. People who verbalize what they want feel more of a sense of hope.

• 1:08:09PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  And then like number two is like, I really do find a lot of power in this idea of surrender.

• 1:08:14PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:15Speaker 02

  You know, of just like, oh, like, there's something I really want. And like, one solution is to just like, work my ass off and like, grasp and like, really try and get that thing. And then like, there's another strategy, which actually, and the strategies are not mutually exclusive. You can say like, actually, this is like, totally not within my control to get, and I'm gonna like, surrender my ability to make this thing happen. And there is something, perhaps, counterintuitively, really helpful, for me at least, to just like, be like, yeah, I'm gonna just like, put this out there and like, surrender my, my sort of exclusive control around making this happen. And so like, prayer to me, like, has those two components to it. And that's like, one genre of prayer, which is like, wanting things to happen. There's also like, a whole other genre of

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  prayer, which is around gratitude, which I find really powerful. And like, if you're, you're a more traditional person, you're like, thanking God.

• 1:09:06PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:06Speaker 02

  For, for giving you these things. But then if you don't think of God as like, a person that gives and doesn't give things, there's still a value in being like, I'm so grateful for, you know, for all the things that I have in my life. And to get specific about it and to, on a daily basis, connect with gratitude. So, you know, it can take on a different flavor, depending on what your conception of God is. But I think that anyone can benefit from a prayer practice.

• 1:09:30PJ Vogt?

  That's not what I expected you to say, and I like it. I also just like, it's funny, this year, we've sort of been collecting advice from people. And I would not have predicted, at the beginning, that where we would be sort of a year in is like, consider prayer and surrender.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  The world is so fucked that like, the only thing left to do is just surrender.

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  It's a piece of the equation. It's not, it's not the whole recipe, but, you know, I think it's, it's an important practice.

• 1:09:57PJ Vogt?

  So, Yegh, thank you for talking to me about this.

• 1:09:59Speaker 02

  Thanks so much for having me.

• 1:10:02PJ Vogt?

  When I spoke to Zvika, I was having a nice week. The week after was more challenging. And I found this conversation playing back in my head. During the tough week, I had this feeling that I forgot I have sometimes, which was a little jealous of people who are able to believe. It's a funny kind of jealousy. There are so many things you get to choose: how to behave, who to spend your time with. But if you choose to believe in something, I'm not sure what you have really is belief. Or if it's belief, it's not the kind of belief I'm jealous of. But Zvika had told me the two things someone like me might take from someone like him were prayer and surrender. You could try saying what you hoped would happen,

• 1:10:46PJ Vogt?

  or you could try letting go of your ability to control it.

• 1:10:51PJ Vogt?

  Sometimes I think, for those of us who don't believe, we make this mistake that if no one's in control, we have to be. Maybe that's wrong. This week, I'm trying to surrender. I'll let you know how it goes.

• 1:11:57PJ Vogt?

  Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey. This was created by me, PJ Vogt, and Trudy Pinamaneni. This episode was produced by Garrett Graham and Noah John. Theme, original composition, and mixing by Armin Bezarian. Fact checking this week by Holly Patton. At Odyssey, our executive producer is Leah Reese-Dennis. And thanks to the rest of the team at Odyssey: Rob Morandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Moira Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Schuff. Our agent is Orin Rosenbaum at UTA. If you'd like to support our show and get ad-free episodes, zero reruns, and some additional audio, please consider signing up for incognito mode. You can learn more at searchengine.show. Follow and listen to Search Engine for free on the Odyssey

• 1:12:40PJ Vogt?

  app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. We will see you in just a couple of weeks with a brand new episode. We gotta make that. Until then, have a cool summer.

• 1:13:12PJ Vogt?

  This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Vistaprint. As a small business owner running a podcast, I'm always looking for authentic ways to connect with listeners, which makes Vistaprint such a valued expert partner for us. I was on their site the other day brainstorming new things we could make for our show, and the creative momentum took over. I ended up designing Search Engine stickers and I tried to make a sign for our office. When your physical branding looks this sharp and professional, it immediately communicates credibility and shows your audience that you mean business. Vistaprint truly helps every dollar go further, delivering premium quality and design support that make your company look established without breaking the bank. Whether you need your design tweaked or a total rebrand, Vistaprint has you covered with the expert service small businesses deserve.

• 1:13:56PJ Vogt?

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