The Professor and Heather Anne
Although we don't have all the answers, we hope we can encourage and excite you.
We're here sharing our lives to inspire you to make the most of the second half of your life.
Join us each week, my friends, where you're sure to get a smile -- from lessons learned to mishaps, the adventures go on for miles...here on The Professor and Heather Anne.
The Professor and Heather Anne
How We Found Identity, Community, And A Shared Faith In The Second Half Of Life
Faith rarely follows a straight line. Our story weaves two very different routes—a child searching for God without guidance and a scholar stepping away from belief—into one shared table where Shabbat blessings, community, and gratitude anchor the week. Heather recounts a turbulent upbringing, a Pentecostal grandmother’s courage, and a relentless quest that led her to Judaism, where rituals, tribe, and an Orthodox conversion finally felt like home. Alongside, Joe shares how youthful disillusionment gave way to a later-in-life return, not through sudden spiritual epiphany but through questions of identity, belonging, and the surprising resonance between science and faith.
We explore what Judaism looks like from the inside: why some rabbis turn seekers away at first, how debates over practice shape a living tradition, and why community is the heartbeat of Jewish life. From keeping a kosher home to showing up for a minyan, from assigning roles in services to hosting guests for Shabbat dinner, the practices dissolve spectator religion and foster real attachment. We also tackle misconceptions—especially the old trope that Judaism is only about rules—contrasting it with the central themes of love, forgiveness, and teshuvah that animate the High Holidays and the daily work of becoming better people.
If modern life feels unmoored, this conversation offers a sturdy thread: create small rituals, ask honest questions, and let community carry you when belief feels thin. Whether you come to faith through wonder, reason, or both, there’s room at the table. Join us as we talk candidly about marriage, meaning, and the second half of life—how gratitude keeps us centered, how synagogue life shapes our week, and how learning across traditions (yes, including The Chosen and Nobody Wants This) deepens understanding. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help others find the show. What practice will you start this week?
Welcome to the Professor and Heather Anne. Although we do not have all the answers, we hope we can encourage and excite you. We're here sharing our lives to inspire you to make the most of the second half of your life. So today we are diving into religion.
Joe:Yes, as we are approaching Hanukkah. So we thought we would discuss our faith journeys.
Heather Anne:And how important faith religion has been in our marriage, how important it is that God's in the middle of our marriage. We thought this was a perfect opportunity with, you know, Hanukkah right around the corner, then we have Christmas, so this just seemed like a perfect opportunity to um talk about religion, talk about our faith. We are Jewish. You were raised Jewish.
Joe:I was raised Jewish uh and uh fell away from it, from both the faith and the community life for well for decades. Whereas you uh were not raised Jewish. You you discover Judaism as part of a spiritual quest.
Heather Anne:Yes, uh when I was actually very young, I did not grow up in a home with religion. God was never discussed in our home, we never prayed. I got my love of God and understanding God from my grandmother on my mom's side. She was somebody that was very important to me in my childhood. When things were really bad, we were dropped, we would be dropped off at her house, we could be there for a few days, we could be there for a week or so. And whenever we were there on a Sunday, it was expected that we would go to church with her. It was um a very scary church to go to. My grandmother, I grew up going to church with my grandmother until she passed away, and maybe probably even a little bit before that when she became ill before she passed away. She went to the Sunshine Church in um Bakersfield, and it was a Pentecostal speaking in tongues, chickens, all kinds of sacrificing chickens. Sacrificing chickens, bring out the snakes. And when I was about five years old, I had asked her, Why do you go to this scary church? And number one, the one reason why she went to that scary church is because my grandmother's a very faithful woman. She did not drive, and that was the closest church to her. So we would she would walk every Sunday to church and walk back. She only lived a couple of blocks away. But on one of our conversations on the way home, it was like, why are you going to this scary church, grandma? And she just told me that God didn't care where you worshiped him, just as long as you worshiped him. And I think that stayed with me for in fact, I know that has stayed with me my whole entire life. I knew I was searching because of the things that were happening to me in my home. I, even at a young age, at five years old, I knew my dad was choosing to do those things to us. I knew that God had nothing to do with it. I knew that it wasn't his fault. I've never blamed God. I've always been hopeful. I always knew I would have a better life than the life I had when I was a child. But that also sent me on a quest. And I would literally, especially after my grandmother passed away and I could no longer go to church with her, I would literally go to church with whoever would take me. And that means Sunday school, that means vacation Bible school. Um, for three years, I went to church with my gymnastics coach. I would stay the night at her house and go to church on Sunday. She would bring me home after church. Why my parents allowed that to happen? I have no idea.
Joe:Um I don't think that could happen now.
Heather Anne:I I know for a fact that cannot happen now. I would have never let that happen with my boys. But I'm so God was never talked about, but there was weird. So what what kind of things were your parents into? My dad was into Scientology. Uh-huh. My mother was into tarot cards, going to the psyche, burning the right candles, having the right incense.
Joe:Okay. Um do-it-yourself spirituality.
Heather Anne:Do-it-yourself spirituality. And but one of the things my parents definitely uh I'm very thankful for to this day is that they allowed me to just go wherever. And you name it, I went to it. And but I think part of my journey not understanding as a small child was I was looking to wash away my family's sins. Because I figured I didn't think that I was doing bad things. So it was the bad things my parents were doing that if I just kept going to church, kept having conversation with God, kept um getting baptized, I probably was baptized eight to ten times as a child. Because I saw it as a way of again, just washing away my family's sins.
Joe:So in retrospect, you could say you didn't you didn't really understand the theological significance of baptism. Well, I guess people didn't explain it to you properly.
Heather Anne:I don't think it was really explained to me properly because one of the stories I shared with you, because I have some weird stories, was um when I was about nine or ten, I went to a Lutheran church, a uh uh summer camp. Summer camp. And w went with a friend. And one of the things they talked about, so we were there for two weeks, one of the things that they talked about when you were there was that you had the opportunity to get baptized. Of course, I signed up for it. And but they put on little robes for you and they had like a little leg, and I really just felt like I needed to be a part of this. And a couple of days before they were having the event, they informed me that I needed to have parental consent. Well, I knew that was not gonna happen because my mother, as long as I didn't bring it home, it's like whatever I did outside, as long as I wasn't coming home talking about God, asking questions about Jesus or anything like that, she was okay with it. But if it was brought, if I had to ask for something like, I want to get baptized or I want to do this, her answer was always no. And so I knew that was gonna happen, but I had to call my mom and pretend that I was getting permission from her.
Joe:And how did you do this?
Heather Anne:I dialed time. You used to be able to call time back then. You'd call the number to go beep, beep, beep, beep. The time is. So I sit there again. I'm nine or ten years old, and I'm having a conversation. Great mom, I really want to do this. This is I will let them know that I can do this. And I'm in their office at the camp. Great, okay. My mom said I could do it, put me down, I'm going to do this. They called me in the next day. Um, apparently, they needed to speak to my mother. And so they called her directly. And my mother was like, I don't know what you're talking about. And the answer was not just no, it was hell no. And uh they came and got me and said, You can't do this because of your we need your per the your mom's permission, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Well, you spoke to her. Don't you think I need this? I was trying to convince them that I needed to do this. So when the time came, I felt this truly just deep in my soul. And again, I know I was searching for something that I just was not getting at home. So I went around to like the other side, and they would say the prayer, the blessing, whatever.
Joe:The other side of the lake.
Heather Anne:Other side of the lake. They would say the prayer, the blessing, or whatever. And then when they would do that, I would dunk myself in the water and thought of self-baptism. Yes, self-baptism. I got in trouble.
Joe:Yeah.
Heather Anne:When we were packing up and leaving, one of the youth pastors actually came up to me and told me, it's probably a good idea you don't come back next next summer. And I was like, You wouldn't save me. Why would I come back to a place you wouldn't save me? But I think the whole purpose of that story and why that stays with me is I just knew I was searching for something. Not having it in my home, not having my grandmother around anymore. So I was searching for something. Even when I got into high school, I started doing more research: Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, all of the isms because I knew God was in my life.
Joe:But you didn't know exactly how.
Heather Anne:I just didn't exactly know how. And I knew that I wanted that to be a major part of my life, but again, I still didn't know how because I didn't have any direction on how to make that happen. So all through high school I was just searching. And then when it came to Judaism, I just felt like that's where I belonged. I never planned on having children. That wasn't something that was in my wheuse. But I knew just in case if I did, I wanted God to be in their lives. In their lives.
Joe:This is uh this is a very common thing that uh people who convert to Judaism say is uh often it it can't like it's hard to explain it in words. It's just like this felt right, or this felt like like home, um, or this this felt like me in in uh uh in discovering it. So Judaism is not just a religion, it's uh well a tribe or a people, so the the Hebrew phrase om Yisrael, the people of Israel. And so there's there's something about joining it that's that's not really quite the same as as converting to most religions. And so like how how did you as you got more and more more and more acquainted with Judaism and more and more taken with the idea of converting, like how did that feel, the you know, the joining a tribe?
Heather Anne:I felt like it it truly was the path that I was on. Um I happened to be dating a guy who was Jewish. He was born in Iran, grew up in Israel. His family moved to the United States, and every Friday night they had Shabbat dinner. Um it was expected that you had to go, grandkids, all the kids. It was either at his parents' house or one of his siblings. I really liked that. I think part of learning how it was a tribe and everything, that was my first experience because I didn't have that growing up. I just felt like this is a place where I belong. So I went to the rabbi that was suggested to me. I went to the yeshiva to see about converting, what that would take. And one of the things about Judaism is that they turn you away.
Joe:So so it is not and hasn't been for well, really, since the destruction of the Second Temple. So that's the year 70. It has not been a proselytizing religion. So it permits conversion, but it doesn't go out looking for converts. And in fact, it's a tradition that uh when someone asks to convert, uh, a rabbi is supposed to turn them away. And then if they come back, turn them away again. They have to come three times um and confirm that yes, this is what I really want to do before a rabbi will even start the conversion process.
Heather Anne:And that's what happened. And growing up, I asked a lot of questions, and so I would drive my Sunday school teachers crazy, vacation Bible school instructors, all these people. I would no joke, there is times that people they would sometimes just be like, Does anybody have any questions other than Heather? Because I asked a lot of questions, and this did not change when I was converting to Judaism. I asked the rabbi a lot of questions too, and there would be multiple times he would roll his eyes at me as well. Um, because I just I I just had so many questions. I just had questions about God, I just had questions, and I think that really just came from how I grew up.
Joe:Being what? Skeptical.
Heather Anne:I don't know if it was necessarily skeptical. I really truly believe I know by the age of five that there was times when we were when we were locked in our rooms that I truly would have conversations with God and just like I know this is not you, I know these are choices he's making.
Joe:And so so you you converted with an with an Orthodox rabbi, right?
Heather Anne:Yes, it was important to me from the things that I've learned that it when I go to Israel, I want to be recognized. If I decided to have children, I wanted them to be recognized. So it was very important to me to convert Orthodox, which is a whole different thing.
Joe:So so for for those um for those who are unfamiliar, there's well, basically three branches of Judaism in in America. There's similar things in other countries, but in the United States, there's three branches: Orthodox, conservative, and reformed. Orthodox is the most strict, uh, reform is the least strict, uh, so reform they don't even keep kosher most of the time, and a lot of the prayers are in English, and then conservative is is is in between. But but it's so but the state of Israel a lot gives the right to return to all Jews, but for converts, you have to have converted Orthodox. Correct.
Heather Anne:So it was important to me that I did that, and um there was times the rabbi and I um did not see eye to eye on several things. Like I wanted to learn about the Kabbalah, but I had to go and learn how to keep a kosher home with the rabbi's wife.
Joe:So the the women did not get women converts did not get the same instruction.
Heather Anne:No, I only had to learn enough Hebrew to say the prayers, not necessarily speak it fluently or even be able to read it. So this was the late 80s. So I would have conversations with the rabbi that it's the 80s, we should be able to, which drove him crazy, which came from my childhood too. It was it it's not that I'm trying to I was ever trying to make trouble. Make trouble. It was I truly have questions, and you've learned this in our marriage now. I question a lot of things. I I'm just not a person to sit there and go, oh, okay. It's like, well, why is it done that way? Why why can't I do it this way? Or is there a better way to do it? Just telling me just because does not work for me at all. I want to dive deeper. And it's just for me, it's not to be a smart aleck. It really is, I truly want to understand. I truly do want to be as close to God as I possibly can. And I wanted to raise my boy uh raise my children if I decided to have them at the time when I was converting to uh be able to have that in their lives as well.
Joe:So so this was how how you arrived um how you arrived to be Jewish is this largely kind of solo spiritual quest, starting from when you were a young child and and and culminating in a conversion. Well, not culminating, but continuing on with your conversion. So my my experience is is completely different. So my parents were fairly observant. Uh they uh kept a kosher home. They didn't they didn't keep kosher out if when they uh ate outside the home, but that was that was the line they drew. Different people draw different lines, but our home was kosher, there were separate silverware for the meat and dairy dishes uh and so forth. Um and um we uh we went to services pretty frequently, and and I was bar mitzfit, I was given all the training to to uh chant a portion from the the prophets and give a speech. Um so in my mid-teens, um I started to become uh disenchanted, um disenchanted with the religion, uh it started to seem to me to be just a way to frighten people into obeying arbitrary rules. Uh so one of the themes at the high holidays at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is that God is recording in a book who's going to survive until next Rosh Hashanah, and then who's going to die by all these various means, who will die by water, by fire, by earthquake, by wild beast. And um, I remember, so I would have been like 14 or 15, um, deciding that um that this was it was frightening, frightening children just to get them to obey. And then a couple a couple of years after that, I started reading uh the philosopher Frederick Nietzsche. Uh and so I left behind both religious faith and also uh identity uh identity with my Jewish heritage. And this continued for decades. So really until I was into my fifties.
Heather Anne:Um and but one of the things I've learned being in your academic world is a lot of academia people have a tendency to go the other direction. They have a tendency to go away from God.
Joe:So I I just read this new book by Charles Murray called Taking Religion Seriously. And so he he describes uh it's it's autobiography. He's he's a very well-known social scientist. Um he's written about controversial topics like IQ and crime. And um he tra it's the but this book, unlike all his other books, is is autobiographical and and traces his journey to to from being um from losing his faith in college to regaining it uh uh through uh gradually through the rest of his life. And one of one of the things he says is, yeah, that it was well, the smart people don't believe that stuff anymore. And the way he puts it is of the tribes I belong to, one of them is a tribe of smart people. And so it's you know, it's like it it's kind of costing something um to say that he's rediscovered faith. Um so that that's what you're referring to.
Heather Anne:Yes, yes. So do you we've we've had this conversation multiple times about what age were you when you started coming back to God in Judaism?
Joe:It was it was very gradual in my um in my 50s, so after so after about 2010. Um and part of it was just um a realization that was it really wasn't so much about religious faith, it was about identity. And so the academics, again, to generalize here, but um academics, it's not just that they for the most part don't have religious faith, it's that they it's that they reject on principle pretty much all of the like traditional bases of identity that people that Westerners have had until fairly recently. So uh patriotism, okay, so if you uh identify as you know uh an American or a British or a French, patriotism is is derided as being um uh potentially racist, potentially warmongering. Uh religion is derided, oh, it's all superstition. Um and even uh the identity that people get from their family roles of being being a parent, um, that too is kind of more subtly, it's derided. It's like, well, you know, you you need you need help from the experts to raise your children. Like, you know, you you know, you you can't make those decisions yourself. And so um, as people have jettisoned those sources of identity, I think this is one of the reasons why so many young people, especially been brought up without these sources of identity, feel so alienated and atomized and and like they don't belong to any any kind of community. So that was one thing. And so was rediscovering the need for identity. And the way I saw it is, well, you you you gotta be who you are. So, you know, my my my the identity that I was um raised in was Jewish, and so that's that's who I was. So that came first, really, was was the rediscovering a sense of identity with this, the the tribe. And then the religious faith. So another one of the things that Charles Murray says in this book is that um, so his his wife was, he says, very attuned to spiritual experiences, okay, to to feeling the presence of God. And she's been involved in a Quaker church for a long time. And he said, observing her and the other people in the church, he could see that he he couldn't experience what they were experiencing, but he could also tell that it was real to them, that it wasn't, it wasn't uh a kind of delusion or self-deception. That what they were, they were tapping into something real, but just he couldn't tap into it. So he draws the analogy with um uh people's different how people differ in their appreciation of music. Some people are very profoundly, very emotionally moved by music, and then there are other people. I met one of these people once, and I read about them. There's this book by Oliver Sachs called Musicophilia. And some people, for some people, music is just noise. It has no effect on their emotion. And and so what Murray is saying is probably the same is true about being attuned to the spiritual world, and that he, Charles Murray, and this applies to me also, we just we can't feel it. Um, but there's another way to get to faith, and that is by um uh looking at uh rational arguments for the existence of a creator. And so to make a long story short, get into professor mode there. Um, you know, for centuries it's been thought that science and religion are a conflict, but today it looks more like um scientific findings like point the way toward uh toward belief in a in a in a creator. So things like uh the origin of the universe, the Big Bang, and the fact that the universe, the laws of physics and so forth, seem to be very finely tuned to the emergence of life. There's a whole lot of other ways the universe could be organized in which there would be no life or even no stars. Then there's things like what's called um terminal lucidity, in which people who are um uh like have advanced dementia, then just for a short time, like a day before they pass away, they're suddenly completely lucid again. They recognize relatives they haven't recognized uh for years, and there's uh been no materialist explanation for this. In terms of brain function, it makes no sense. And so this raises the possibility that human consciousness is not always entirely dependent on material processes like what goes on in the brain. So that's you know, it's thinking about those things that have brought me back to faith. It's not really, it's not having spiritual experiences as such.
Heather Anne:But would you say since we've been together, because mine has been a spiritual journey, I have had conversations. But one of the things that you talk about is you have no idea why you jumped in your car, drove halfway across the country to a place that you didn't know anything about, you knew a few people. Wouldn't you say that that is kind of a spirituality and that you're maybe learning more of those since we've been together?
Joe:Yes. Yes, that did. I at the time I wouldn't have said it felt like a spiritual experience. It just it just felt like um something that I was doing that I couldn't explain to myself. Um but uh yeah, it was it was a complete departure from. I mean, making the decision to come to Oklahoma was a complete departure from how I've made all the other decisions preceding it in my lifetime.
Heather Anne:And several of the decisions that we've made since we've been together.
Joe:Yes, have felt like they've been spiritually driven. Yes, brought to us, faded.
Heather Anne:So that was something that was very important to us when we that was very important to me, that I found somebody who was spiritual and who believed in God and God was going to be a part of our lives and part of our marriage. I've been fortunate that my boys grew up in the synagogue, local synagogue. They went to Hebrew school. My youngest one was involved in youth group, um, went to summer camps, he's been at counselor summer camps. So very involved. Um and you grew up in the synagogue that your mother still goes to this day.
Joe:That's right. My mother still attends the synagogue where I was Bermitzfoot more than 50 years ago.
Heather Anne:And one of the things that we did when we decided we were going to move was go check out the synagogues in the Roanoke area because that was important that wherever we moved to, that we were still part of the Jewish community.
Joe:Yes, and uh we found uh two different communities. There's uh conservative one, um, and then there's um the um Chabad, uh which is um so Chabad is it's not just Orthodox, it's um uh it's kind of what should we say? It's kind of there's kind of an emphasis on like mystical experience, um dancing and so forth. Um but it there's a whole lot, the Chabad have a whole lot of energy. This the Chabad is at a is at um uh a college town, and so they sort of, well, I guess you'd say minister in a way uh to the to the uh Jewish college students. And um, and what we heard about that is that there's uh just uh a tremendous amount of energy. Their building is packed on uh uh on for the holidays and even for the weekly Shabbat services.
Heather Anne:But it was important to us to make sure we liked the community before making our final decision if we were going to because I am leaving a synagogue that I have been participating, my boys grew up, I you know, the relationship with the rabbi, we got married in the synagogue. It was very important to us. Neither one of us had a very religious first marriage, so it was very important to us that we had the whole experience. We got married under the hobba, we broke the glass, we had a reception there, which had to be kosher because they're a kosher synagogue. So um that was important to us.
Joe:Yes. Um and right, I say my my first marriage, we had to kind of uh write your own vows. It was almost pagan in some ways, even though it was a minister who performed it, but he just performed the what what we wrote and um uh talked about the life force instead of about God.
Heather Anne:I didn't know that life force that's interesting interesting. Ours was my um ex and I, we got married in Vegas. It was a last minute thing. So there wasn't really an Elvis impersonator? It was not an Elvis impersonator, but we got married at the MGM. So um when it was brand new at the time.
Joe:So So it was very important for our wedding that it be um a religious service. And and the rabbi did gave a very nice little, I guess you wouldn't call it a sermon, but a little message that was um, you know, he because we, you know, of course we had talked to him before this, and so he knew things he knew about us and our story.
Heather Anne:And um and we talked about because again, I ask a lot of questions, but I also like to put my spin on some things. So one of the things with Judaism is you have what they call a ketubah. It's like a uh document that's a contract. It's a contract that says we're going to stay in this marriage, we're going to commit to each other, we're going to commit to God, we're gonna have God in our relationship.
Joe:But at the bottom of it, so okay, so it's in Aramaic. Yes. And that part is just set. You can't change that. But then what you can also post on it as or print on it as the translation, it doesn't have to be a translation of the actual Aramaic. It can be pretty much whatever you want.
Heather Anne:And so we put things like I promise to sew the saw the holes in your socks. You you made a comment of what did you put in? We each had our own little joke joke that we put in it. And the rabbi actually thought that was cute. That because even though we talk about the heavy stuff and even here on the podcast, we do try to keep things light. So I wanted to make sure Archituba really had some of our personality in there.
Joe:Exactly. And then the the the design, the decoration of it is based on something from Lord of the Rings.
Heather Anne:Always go back to the Lord of the Rings. No, actually, it was really great, and I love our Kato, but we're um I like how we made it personal. So do you think that people in general, no matter what religion, since COVID are going more back to their faith? They're looking for God more.
Joe:Absolutely. Um, and uh I see the and I see the uh the quantitative data, you know, the opinion polls, and you know, it's sometimes it's I mean it's still the case that the the younger generation is is uh the like the least the least religious generation in American history. But there are signs of a turnaround, and if you just sort of go past the quantitative data and just look at things like attendance at religious services, um you you can see this that people are um they're hungry for meaning. So modern life, even when it provides us with all the material, the material benefits, right? It provides us with you know safety and and um and adequate food and housing and shelter, and food and housing and clothing and so on and so forth, even when it provides that, it sort of uh it tends to strip away the meaning from life. And people are so people and people need a sense of meaning. And so on the one hand, you know, you have the rise of, well, frankly, occult kinds of activities and uh do-it-yourself well, so I guess I guess you could say that your parents were kind of pioneers in this um uh do-it-yourself spirituality. Um, it's much more common now. But on the other hand, you also see some people turning to turning I wouldn't say really turning back to traditional religion because a lot of them were not even raised in it. They're they're turning to it for the first time. Seeking God. Yes. Seeking seeking to feel like they're part of part of a bigger story. I think in a way, like that's a more general way to put this, is that is that people like to people need to feel like their lives have some meaning. There's and they're a continuation of events that happened in the past, and they're a kind of a prelude to events that are gonna happen in the future, that their their lives are situated in this bigger story, um, of which of which traditional religion is a you know is a is an excellent way of of of telling a story like that.
Heather Anne:And do you think your explanation kind of is your explaining how you came back to God you were seeking, you there was a bigger picture.
Joe:Yes. And so the you know, the field of study that I my field of study of of evolutionary social science, it uh it seeks to provide explanations for why why are people doing the things that they're doing. One of the ways that my worldview changed in my 50s was I would hear these explanations and and think, okay, well, you know, yeah, that that that's it's consistent with the data, and it may not make sense from the point of view of evolutionary theory, but it it had the explanations what started to sound kind of shallow, kind of incomplete, like, okay, but that's that can't be the whole story. Um and so that science can explain a lot about why people do what they do, but there's also there's more that it that it can't explain.
Heather Anne:We're very so we openly talk about God in the house. We're very, you know, on a regular basis, just about every day. We're whether when we're waking up, we're going to bed, we're very grateful for our life, we are very well aware that God brought us together. There is no other explanation of how we met or how our lives even, you know.
Joe:It's a series of impossibly unlikely events that brought us together.
Heather Anne:And we talk about that a lot. And I I think one of the things that I want to get across to our listeners is we talk about it a lot because it helps keep us centered. I know for me, it helps keep me centered. It helps me, you know, on the tough days to be very thankful to know that God has brought me from where I was as a child to even here with you now. So we openly talk about God in the house all the time. I'm open with my children. Um even with us making this move, it's important that we're still part of our a community where we can go volunteer. Volunteering is a very big thing for me, where we really want to be a part of our community. I've been very fortunate to be a part of the Jewish community here in Tulsa. And um a little sad to be leaving it.
Joe:Of course. Of course.
Heather Anne:Yes.
Joe:I've been I've been going to meetings of the Synagogue Men's Club, and at every meeting they tell me, so, so you're leaving. Why are you leaving us? So the Jewish religion is a very community-oriented religion. There, there aren't any Jewish hermits. I mean, that there have been a few, but the way they're they are not they're not spoken of in a uh a complimentary way. It's like that that what they that that's wrong. You you should not be going up on a mountaintop to contemplate God. Um, and so some of the rituals are are family rituals, like like the the Seder, the the that uh opens the holiday Passover. That's generally done in the home with family. But most of the rituals are done um with the community, and so there's this a rule that there needs to be what's called a minion, which is, well, for the Orthodox, 10 men for the conservative and reform who've loosened things up a bit, uh just 10 adults. Then and that number of people is required to do a lot of the rituals, like to read from the Torah scrolls. So it is it's very much a religion that is embedded in group. Or you know, communal practice.
Heather Anne:Which we are again very involved in the community. Um, Hanukkah is around the corner. We do you do things in your home, but you do things with the community. Um high holidays, it's very community-oriented. You go to services, there's a particular um way that services are set about.
Joe:Yeah, and there are a lot of the a lot of the roles in the rituals, like um uh like taking the Torah scrolls out of the ark and walking them around the congregation, are you know, these these roles are assigned at the beginning of the day to particular congregants. And so there's this sense that everyone's involved in this. It's not that you're just sitting there listening to the clergyman uh um you know tell tell you what's up. Uh it's like you you, everyone is involved in it.
Heather Anne:We've actually talked about a lot. Um you have a great foundation from your childhood. I have no foundation, uh, but was searching for that. What are what's some encouraging words that we can give our listen listeners about faith and having faith in your home, having faith in your marriage?
Joe:So faith will well, first of all, you you can't for the for those who are doubting, you can't force yourself to have faith. Um so faith is something that you come to through effort, and sometimes you have sometimes you feel like you're losing your faith. So it can be a struggle to maintain faith. But faith can provide an anchor for all aspects of your life. Um as I said, I think a lot of young people are are turning to traditional religion because of this crisis of meaning. And um and so the the faith that you hold and that you're and that you are uh you've uh embedded it into your personality, it will um provide an anchor for for for your relationships, for your for your for your professional or your work life, um, for friendships, for friendships, for for everything.
Heather Anne:So would you say that your life started changing? You were on this journey even before we met each other when you went back started going back to your religion, when you started going back to looking at God and looking at your faith.
Joe:So yes, it uh I I I really I reached a stage of actually doing something, not just thinking. During during the pandemic, and in fact, the um the first high holiday services that I attended, quote unquote, were were on Zoom. Uh it was the um uh UCLA uh Hillel, that's the student Jewish organization, um, uh had their high holiday services. And I so this would have been um I uh probably 2021, but it might have been 2020. And um I remember just sitting in the living room watching the services on my laptop and feeling you know, this was connecting me with something that I you know I hadn't experienced since I was a child, um, and it was it was very emotionally powerful. So yes, yes. I was this was before we met.
Heather Anne:And um what would you say is one of the biggest misconceptions about Judaism? Unfortunately, the last couple of years, we've seen a rise in anti-Semitism, and we are very fortunate that we have a lot of friends that are around us and ask us questions. They come participate, they come have dinner with Shabbat dinner. That is something that is grounded in our marriage, is that we try to have Shabbat dinner at home, we invite guests to come.
Joe:Yes, we do bake- I bake holla.
Heather Anne:You bake holla, which is very good. And you bake the and you do the dinner, and we it's a big thing. We say the blessings and everything, that that's what helps keep us grounded, and we try to do Friday nights. We either have guests come over or we stay home ourselves. But what is one of the misconceptions that you think is out there about Judaism, especially these last few years? Okay.
Joe:Just one.
Heather Anne:So there's a lot. Unfortunately, there are a lot, but what's one of the biggest ones?
Joe:You know, has well, has a long history in in Christianity is the uh is the idea that Christianity is about love, whereas Judaism is about just following the rules. Okay. And so, I mean, this you can actually see this theme worked out in in Shakespeare's um The Merchant of Venice, where you know, the the Jewish villain uh because, well, you know, sign this contract that this this if this guy doesn't pay up, then he's then trying to take this pound of flesh, it's in the contract. And and you know, and then whereas the Christian characters are all about love and forgiveness. So that's a misconception. Um uh in fact, rather than being about blindly following the rules, actually Jews love to argue about the rules about you know which ones are applicable, and you know, uh uh so uh uh so and we're and and and love and forgiveness are are in fact a central theme in the Jewish religion.
Heather Anne:Which is Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur during those times, those period the period of time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, you are supposed to go to the people that you did the wrong things to and ask for their forgiveness. So it is about forgiveness and love and everything, but that's one of the main things that um I really like about Judaism is you're going to the people that you wronged that year in asking forgiveness. Then you go in on Yom Kippur, I'm gonna be a better person, I'm going to do better this next year.
Joe:Um so it is about love and community and forgiveness and it it's it's a it's a religion for there's a very strong practical component. Uh a lot of it is about like how how to how to live in this world and treat other people well.
Heather Anne:So as we're wrapping up, we there's two things that I want to recommend. So two of the shows that I think people should watch. One of them is Nobody Wants This. Nobody wants this. That's right. So we want to recommend, watch that. It's on Netflix, we love it. It really has a lot of great explanation and everything. And we have really been enjoying watching The Chosen.
Joe:So we uh neither of us, even though you went to all those Bible camps, but somehow you still have a lot of stories I don't know. Neither of us knew very much about the New Testament. And uh and watching this series, it's been I'm not sure it's quite exactly how closely it adheres to the text, but uh we've learned a lot.
Heather Anne:We've learned a lot, but I think there's also a lot to be learned about Jews and uh about the Jewish people in that series as well. So we definitely do recommend those two. I guess that's the first time we're recommending something, but I recommend that. Um so we hope you enjoyed this episode where we really talked about faith, how God is part of our um part of our marriage is inside our marriage, the aspects of how faith shapes our lives, the traditions, some of the misconceptions. We have so many exciting discussions coming up, including guests, and can't wait to have you along for new episodes.
Joe:And if you enjoy our podcast, and we hope you do, please subscribe and please rate us and write a review on whatever platform you whatever platform you where you get your podcasts. So join us here each week, my friend. You're sure to get a smile from lessons learned to mishaps, the adventures go on for miles. Here on The Professor and Heather Anne.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to The Professor and Heather Anne.
