Not That Kind of Rabbi

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 doi...

Estelle Frankel is a practicing psychotherapist, author, spiritual director and seasoned teacher of Jewish mysticism and meditation. For over forty years she has been a thought leader and popular public speaker on the integration of depth psychology, Kabbalah and the world's great spiritual traditions. Estelle is the author of numerous essays and two popular books:  Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spir...

Yisroel Bernath was 15 years old living in Chicago and doing what lots of kids in the windy city were doing back then, playing basketball. He and his kippah wearing friends were having a pretty good time. Then everything changed. There were threats, a gun was drawn, shots were fired as he fled. Justice was served but could Yisroel ever forgive the perpetrators? On this episode of Not That Kind of...

Not so long ago in Spokane Washington, otherwise known as the heart of the inland empire, there was a little boy named Josh, later to become Yoshi. His friends went to Hebrew school, he didn't. His friends learned how to write doo doo in Hebrew, he didn't. But he wanted to so he went to Hebrew school. Well now, living in Cleveland, he has moved far beyond the days of doo doo. Now he leads...

In his latest book , Diary of a Low-Born Cleric, We travel with him through the ebb and flow of his new'ish life as an Anglican Priest. Born to a Jewish father and Christian mother Michael has gone from an adamant right of centre Catholic to a progressive Anglican minister. It's been quite a ride.

On this episode of NTKR I spend some earthy time with Tiferet Nashman. She's the Executive Director of something called Shoresh. It's the centre for Jewish environmental programs. As easy as it is to keep our spiritual life contained in four walls and only visited occasionally, what would happen if we knocked those walls down and connected instead with the heaven that is all around us? Let...

Sometimes it's better to stop talking  and even better, to stop arguing our strongly held views. Better to pick up a crayon or a paintbrush and with no agenda just splash about in the wading pool of abstract images. That's one thing that Jewish artist, facilitator and filmmaker Jay Ginsherman is doing. This week on Not That Kind of Rabbi we get out of our heads and into our creative souls....

Paige Lowenstein was on the path to becoming a Rabbi in the traditional way. The well respected Reform seminary. Two years in she had a psychedelic experience on psilocybin mushrooms. That changed everything. She packed up and moved to the majestic redwood forests of northern California and finished her Rabbinic studies with Jewish Renewal's Aleph Ordination Program. Question is, now that your...

When Rabbi Natan Margalit looks at a dead tree on the ground he probably doesn't see what we see. He sees a divine spark of the creator. Everything, you see, is infused with that cosmic power. Reb Natan has a book out called the Pearl and the Flame. We had a great talk on this week's episode of NTKR. Have a listen.

There is, shall we say, a lot of turbulence in the Jewish world right now. Sometimes that turbulence becomes toxic and conversations are polarizing. One person who wants to change all that is the Executive Director of a progressive Jewish thought leadership and lobby group called Jspace. Her name is Maytal Kowalski and she joins me from Vancouver on Not That Kind of Rabbi.

Sometimes we see what our parents do and think that it would be a great idea to follow in their footsteps. Especially when they both chose the same profession. In this episode of Not That Kind of Rabbi I speak with a next generation Rabbi who did his best to resist the siren call of spiritual leadership. Didn't work. He's a Rabbi, but not that kind of Rabbi. Arik Labowitz is,and has been f...

When Amichai Lau-Lavie realized he was gay, he knew he had to make a choice: hide his identity to abide by his Orthodox upbringing, or be true to himself. It wasn't an easy call for a man whose ancestors had been rabbis for generations—including his uncle and cousin, who both served as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel. Ultimately, Lau-Lavie decided to split the difference. As an out gay man, he...

On the latest episode of Not That Kind of Rabbi, Ralph talks to Rabbi, Zen practitioner and spiritual rascal Rabbi Rami Shapiro. Shapiro is the author of 36 books, his latest being Zen Mind--Jewish Mind. The Rabbi believes that everything is God. There is no outside or inside of the divine . The Divine is in everything , we just have to be available to experience it.

Devon Spier has long COVID. The artist, poet and spiritual guide has spent days bedridden, feeling ill and angry at God. But that forced pause gave her time to reflect on her life, art and beliefs, and she began to realize more emphatically how God, for her, exists in liminal spaces—in the wilderness, in small moments of peace and beauty between devastation and pain. These thoughts led her to crea...

More Jewish couples are deciding to skip a ritual That has been a part of Jewish life for four thousand years. the Brit Milah. The circumcision of a male Jewish child at eight days old. Circumcision today has a scientific and a religious aspect. We'll explore those in this edition. of Not That Kind of Rabbi with my guest, a pediatric surgeon (retired) and a Mohel, Someone who performs circumci...

On this episode of Not That Kind of Rabbi, Ralph Benmergui speaks with neohasid.org  founder and author of the book, Kabbalah and Ecology, Rabbi David Seidenberg, on how we can restore the spiritual bond with an earth based Judaism.

Rabbi Zelig Golden likes to describe Judaism as a religion of deep roots, interconnectivity, compassion and feminine divinity, reminding the world that Adam came from the adamah . It's this philosophy that inspired Wilderness Torah, an organization based in California that promotes "healing, belonging and resilience," in an attempt to reshape how Jews feel about their culture—and the...

Growing up in the Orthodox movement, Neshama Carlebach would hear it a lot: "It's a shame your father never had sons." The father in question, the acclaimed Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, instead had two daughters—and the implication was that his legacy as a prolific songwriter, whose repertoire includes the popular 1965 folk anthem "Am Yisrael Chai", would die with him. Neshama d...

In this episode of Not That Kind of Rabbi, Ralph speaks with actor, director, producer, and playwright Saul Rubinek.

Rabbi Aaron Rotenberg realized at a young age he was drawn to Jewish studies. After graduating from Jewish day schools around Toronto, he decided to attend the Jewish Theological Seminary, a Conservative rabbinical school in New York City, for five years—only to end up a Renewal rabbi years later, ordained just this month. As the spiritual leader of the Annex Shul in downtown Toronto—and one of a...

With the recent news of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas and the eventual return of the remaining Israeli hostages, tensions remain high between pro- and anti-Zionist communities here in Canada, who've stood sharply divided on the foreign conflict for 15 months. Members of those communities may still be holding hatred or anger in their hearts—leading to increased depression, anxiety a...

Once upon a time, Toronto was a sleepy city. The atmosphere shut down at night. Red tape and cultural meekness kept things status quo. But through the 1970s and 1980s, the city's younger generations changed how things work—and one of the biggest players behind the scenes was Gary Topp. A music promoter and independent movie theatre operator, it was Topp—along with his colleague, Gary Cormier,...

On Oct. 9, around 2,500 strangers packed Montreal's Place des Arts concert hall to sing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" in surprisingly perfect harmony. The melody was beautiful. In a video recording posted online, tears and smiles are visible as people sing out the familiar chorus. You could say it was a spiritual performance—unless you're Nobu Adilman, who co-organized the eve...

Mark Leiren-Young wrote Shylock in 1996, a play using Shakespeare's controversial Jewish character in The Merchant of Venice to explore modern-day cancel culture. While the script saw productions aorund the world, Leiren-Young was wary of giving the rights away too quickly, knowing it was complex, sensitive subject matter that required an intellectual approach. So when he met the acclaimed act...

Growing up, Allan Novak assumed his family was fairly ordinary: modest, witty, hardworking Jewish immigrants who found a new live in Canada after the war. That his mother was one of four sibling survivors was noteworthy, but the outside world did not take notice. That is, until the siblings all began reaching the age of 100. Once international reporters and Holocaust foundations discovered the sto...