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“If you have a good gut on something, go for it. You’re probably right.”
Sarah Lefton is the creator of G-dcast, a site that teaches me more about Judaism than any other resource I have ever found.
The “guts” of the site is the weekly Torah portion, taught through animated cartoons. “Jewlebrities” as far reaching as Hesta Prynn (from Northern State), actor and yogi Marcus Freed, controversial Rabbi Steven Greenberg and…ahem…myself, contribute d’vrei Torah that are insightful, musical, and frankly, hilarious.
Sarah and I have three big things in common. First, our mutual friendship with Matthue Roth, second our love of Judaism, and third…well…our love of cussing.
“I basically grew up with crap for Jewish education…there was one synagogue when i was growing up…this whole project, honest to G-d…is an honest attempt to educate myself.”
Honest to G-d is right. And honest to the Jewish people as well. G-dcast staff do not have a hidden agenda to promote any special version of Judaism. They are reform, orthodox, secular, and everywhere in between.
Why G-dcast? “A spoon full of sugar that helps the medicine go down,” replied Lefton. I started hearing Mary Poppins in my head when she said, “this is a fresh idea for people…that Jewish learning can be fun.”
Lefton, like most cool Jews, came from outside the system. Growing up in the south, her town had one synagogue and no Jewish educational resources available.
So when Lefton started college, she jumped right into Judaism, head first. “I did crazy things that no 21 year old would do, like joining a synagogue.”
This immersion into the Jewish world, coupled with her background in digital media and advertising came full circle when Lefton asked herself one basic question, “how come Jewish education sucks so badly?”
“I more than anyone can use a Jewish literacy. For me, this is what it has always been about,” said Lefton.
This runs contrary to the popular opinion of most Jews in the non-profit sector, who focus on community and identity. Lefton fights back with this bold statement:
“The Jewish community has done a damn good job in talking about identity and about people-hood, community, continuity, pride. But we’ve done a lousy job with literacy. Ask any American teenager is who Captain Ahab is and they’ll have a great answer…they may not like it, but they know who these people are. Smart Jewish kids…don’t know who Joshua, Miriam and Ruth are. Literacy, not pride, holds people together.”
“I have been thinking a lot about Judaism, and I’m kind of pissed at it right now.”
This IM from my friend Sarah* was strangely startling. She had a stressful weekend, and she needed to relax. She smoked pot, turned off all her electronics, and it was “the most spiritual thing [she had] done in a long time.”
The best part came when Sarah told me she had a religious epiphany over fruit. “I ate an orange. I peeled the orange and realized that it was probably the closest to G-d a food can be, because it was so protected from the rest of the world. So I said a bracha (prayer) over it.”
Ask us some! We’ll answer them!
Reply to this video, send us a video, or just send us an email at questions.indieyeshiva@punktorah.com!
Hosted by Michael and Patrick
Everyone is judging everyone all of the time, whether it is based on the clothing they wear, the community or place they live, what kind of car they may drive or where they buy their groceries. Judaism is no different when it comes to judging and labeling. Everyone uses labels on a daily basis to decide whether or not they want to move to a certain community, send their kids to certain school or eat at certain people’s house. We, orthodox Jews, love to judge and also hate the judging, but in my mind we kind of need the labels, maybe not to the extreme that they exist, but to me it seems that without labels there would be huge issues.
I have heard so many people say that they just want to be Jewish. I would love to just be Jewish, but so many issues would arise without labels like frum, modern or Chassidic. As much as we love to hate the labels, they do serve a purpose.
Though I don’t think the judging serves a purpose, other than as providing entertainment, the labels themselves do serve a very valid purpose.
Imagine for a second that you wanted to erase labels, think of all the problems that could arise.
How would people date if they didn’t know anything about the person’s religious level beyond the fact that they were Jewish? How would these people know if the prospective date kept kosher or kept shabbos without labels? When you say someone keeps kosher you label them in my mind.
What about sending your kids to school? Lets say that you want a modern school, but can’t say such things, so you try and describe what modern orthodoxy is. The problem is everyone has a different opinion as to exactly what constitutes modern orthodoxy. I have many friends who wear black hats that are modern orthodox, and friends who wear “regular clothes” who consider themselves yeshivish. Without these labels, people would spend all of their time trying to get places without saying exactly what they wanted.
It seems as if having labels is like having a necessary evil. We love to hate them and hate to need them, but what would we do without them? Some people cannot be labeled, that’s true, but you can place yourself in favor of a certain label. I wouldn’t know how to properly label myself. I dress and look modern orthodox; I like the yeshivish mussar movement and I have an affinity for chabad, even though I didn’t place myself in one category it was easier than explaining all of my affiliations.
One of the beauties of Judaism is that there is no right way to practice, everyone does their own thing. But how on earth would we be able to categorize these Jews without labels. Or is there really no need for categorizations?