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So many of you know that I just lost my
mother [clears throat]
and just over a year ago I lost my
father. And one of the Jewish customs is
the recitation of a prayer called
kadesh. And I'm not going to talk right
now about kadesh and its meaning.
Although maybe at some point in the
future I will. The main thing to
understand is that it's a prayer that
can only be said in a minion. The minion
means uh it's it's a Hebrew word, not
the English word minion, which means a
quorum, [clears throat] a public
gathering of congregational prayer. It
doesn't have to take place in a
synagogue, although that's typically
where you would find a minion. And you
would find it at set times. As Jewish
people, we pray three times a day. On
Shabas and on holidays, we'd pray four
times a day. Once a year on Yamkip, the
day of atonement, we pray five times a
day. But the point is that when you're
saying kadesh, not you, God forbid, you
should never have to say kadesh, but
when I was saying kadesh last year for
my father and I'm saying currently
kadesh for my mother, basically it means
that I have to catch a plane three times
a day. Not literally catch a plane, but
it feels to my nervous system. It feels
that way because I'm constantly thinking
about when is shakras, when is min, when
is maid. Those are the names of the
three uh prayer services. Um,
it is in many ways a full-time job. In
many ways, it takes over your life. Um,
some people are more serious about it.
Some people are more lenient about it.
I felt it was something that I could do
for my parents' souls to be super super
meticulous about it. So, um, I literally
didn't travel even though I normally
travel to speak. I, you know, go all
around wherever they call and give
lectures. I canceled all of that. I
didn't do that. I'm not planning on
traveling this year because, you know,
when you're traveling, it makes it very
hard to catch all of the different
prayer times. Uh, but I want to share
with you a reflection that I had. A
friend of mine lost his mother a few
months after I lost my father. And he
reached out to me privately and he said,
maybe he's listening to this, he'll know
who he is. I'll get a text from him.
Don't worry, I won't say any identifying
details.
Uh he reached out to me and he said, and
this just for background, this is a
fellow rabbi, a colleague of mine, a
very religious, pious Jew who actually
not every pious Jew enjoys prayer. I
mean, there's different aspects of
religious life. Some people prefer Torah
study, some prefer good deeds, and some
prefer prayer. He he liked prayer. He
was into prayer. And that's why it was
very notable that he reached out to me
and he said, "I'm hating this."
He said, "I I normally like prayer. I
like going to the services,
but the pressure of having to be there
and to be there on time and
three times a day and you can't miss."
He says, "It's very stressful and I
don't understand what's the purpose of
this. Why? Why do this? what he said,
why would a loving God require this of
me?
So, first of all, I just sort of held
space for him and I listened
and uh after he was done speaking, I
said, "I don't have a great answer for
you, but I can tell you my personal
reflection that works for me cuz I asked
this question myself and I had to answer
it."
So he said, "Sure, let me hear the
answer that you gave yourself." I said,
'All right, and if it works for you, you
can keep it. I asked myself, "What's up
with this this [snorts] constant going
to shul?" And I realized
that, [clears throat]
see, I'm I'm anyway an introvert. Being
in public places exhausts me. I avoid
public places as much as possible just
because it's it's a re it takes a real
toll on my nervous system just being in
that high alert mode. You're going to
laugh and say that's high alert. Yeah.
Being anywhere where somebody might just
randomly come up and talk to me. I'm in
high alert mode. So, and that's
draining. So, I generally not like to go
out to public places. That's why even
when in the past when I would pray
I would sometimes I would pray at home
uh which here it's not the ideal but
even when I would go to the synagogue to
pray I would like go find a little room
next to where the sanctuary is and I
would listen so I could kind of
participate uh but I would like go into
the next room and have my own space be
by myself you know just me and God so to
speak. So, and by the way, this is for
another time, but there's a long
tradition
of second rooms. It's literally, it's
called Sheni in Hebrew. It means a
second room where people who wanted to
focus on their prayers and pray pray at
length and not necessarily pray at the
pace of the congregation, they would go
into this other room. Um,
so I said to my friend, I'm anyway an
introvert and I just experienced grief,
loss, and not just grief and loss, but
the loss of a parent. And I don't think
I have to tell you, even though if you
haven't experienced and may you never
experience it, but if you haven't
experienced it, you won't believe me
until it happens. There's always regret.
A child always has regret about I could
have done more.
Um, you know,
what child can say that we did
everything we could do for our parent
and uh, you know, there's always that
feeling of
h it could have been different, could
have been, you know, Yeah. And you could
ruminate and you could definitely go to
scary places in your head that uh, can
bring you to a dark internal state. So I
said to my friend, I know my nature that
my nature would be to isolate and to
ruminate and get all into my head and
probably become pretty depressed this
year. I said, "Thank God
I haven't been able to do that. A, I've
been too busy to do it cuz I'm
constantly trying to catch the minion.
B, I'm forced to be out and about among
people. And it's not like I'm going to
synagogue and I'm sch smoozing with
people. I I actually kind of avoid all
the [laughter]
there is a lot of socializing that goes
on like between prayer services. I don't
do that. I don't do that. If you see me
in troll, please don't come and smoo.
You can wave and I'll wave back. But but
nevertheless, being among people, being
around other human beings
has a very grounding effect. Not one
that I would seek out. I would never
seek out. In fact, I would actively
avoid it. But I'm forced by a religious
obligation out of sort of a feeling of
guilt for for doing what I can do for my
parents' souls. I'm forced to be out and
about and among the living and among the
hubbhub of activity. And I said to my
friend, "Thank God because it's kept me
busy. It's kept me focused and it's
forced me to be among people. And I'm
sharing this with you because first of
all, if you've ever been in a position
to say kadesh, this may have uh meaning
to you. But even if you're not, even if
you've never said kadesh, and and my
wish for you is you should never, god
forbid, be in a position where you
should have to say kadish, you should
never lose a loved one. But I want to
share with you this thought and that is
you've ever heard the expression third
places. So there's a book I didn't read
it. I'm just for full disclosure but
there's a book uh by a guy named Ray
Oldenberg who talks about first place
second place is third places. I think
first place is the home and second place
is work.
Probably the first the first two places
are home and work. Third place is a
place not home. It's not work. Well,
what's that? So, um, you know, in
different cultures, there are different
places that serve as that third place.
You know, for some it's the cafe, for
some it's the barber shop. Uh,
if you're Gen X like me, we used to have
something called shopping malls, or as
my parents, [clears throat]
uh, may they rest in peace, used to call
it, the Museum of Contemporary Culture.
My remember my parents one time we were
getting in the car in the station wagon.
This is a real peak 80s. Getting in the
station wagon going to the mall to
Northbrook Court. If you're in the
Chicago suburbs, you know Northbrook
Court. And my parents said to a friend,
a friend said, "Where are you bringing
your kids?" And uh my mother said,
"We're going to the Museum of
Contemporary Culture." Oh, where's that?
Northbrook court. It's the Museum of
Contemporary Culture. We were poor, so
we'd go to the mall. We wouldn't buy
stuff. You know, what are we going to go
to Nean Marcus? We can't afford that
stuff. Needless markup, you Marcus. No,
but we'd hang out at the mall. You walk
around, you know, sort of like fun. At
any rate, that's a third place. And
what's happened to society is we've lost
our third places. And that's one of
that's I think that's one thesis of
Oldenberg in his book. Um
I think the name of the book is the the
great good place. Yeah. Is the name of
the name of the book. Um
and he he argues that these third places
are essential to mental health which is
sort of like I was talking about before
like during my year of mourning it was
definitely good for my mental health. Uh
he also talks about it's important for
trust just knowing your neighbors
interacting with them seeing them and
unfortunately today and he wrote this
book in 1989 I think the great good
place but now 2026
really these third places have dried up.
There really are no third places. The
malls don't really exist. Everyone
orders everything on Amazon. You know,
in the in the good old days, men would
go to the Montgomery Wards and you you
pick up power tools and you talk to the
guy next to you, some stranger, and
you'd smoo with him, oh, what do you
think about this leaf blower? Uh, now
you just order it on Amazon. You don't
have any human contact. Um, so one of
the last vestigages of our third places
are our places of worship. And that's
why I want to encourage you, if you are
Jewish, go to shul.
Don't even do it for a religious
purpose.
Just go in order to have a place to
interact with other people. If you're
not Jewish, go to your place of worship.
Go if you even if you don't intend on
praying. Just go hang out there. Just go
there. Just sit in the back. Go bring a
novel and sit in the back and and read
Harry Potter. But I mean, I hope that
won't be considered disrespectful and
that they'll kick you out. But I
generally clergy are compassionate
people and they're not going to kick you
out. And if they kick you out, then
probably
find another place to go. But what I'm
saying is
go to a house of worship. Go to a third
place. go to a place where these are not
your family members, meaning it's not
your home, and they're not your
co-workers, meaning it's not your place
of employment. Okay? It's not home and
it's not work. It can't be one of the
that doesn't count. Hanging out in the
break room does not count as a third
place. The break room is a bunch of
people you're forced to be with because
you work with them. Um, hanging out in
the family room with your family is
beautiful, wonderful, essential. We
could have a whole talk about family
dinner hour. We probably should, but um
what I'm saying is something that's not
home and it's not work. It's a third
place. And one of the last vestages of
third places that we have today are
places of worship. I want to encourage
you, go to your place of worship.
Don't go expecting a spiritual
experience. Don't even go for the
spirituality of it. just go because as a
healthy functional human being we need
to have these places. Um I'm thinking of
a joke right now,
famous joke. Um I don't know if anyone
will get this if they're not Jewish, but
I'll tell it anyways. The famous joke is
like this. Okay. So, a little
background. You have to know that very
often in Jewish congregations and
synagogues, there's something called
high holiday tickets where you actually
because everybody [snorts] comes to pray
on the high holidays, meaning Roshashan
and Yim Kipper. So, it's it's
overflowing. It's like standing room
only and you have so therefore you have
to have tickets in some places. Not not
the places where I pray. You don't you
don't have to have tickets and someone
can walk right in off the street. But
the premise of the joke is it's one of
these places where you have to have a
ticket. Anyways, so the joke is like
this. A guy comes to the uh usher at the
synagogue on Roshashana
and he's running into the synagogue and
the usher stops him. He says, "Hey,
where are you going?" He says, "I have a
very important message for Mr.
Goldberg."
A Jewish joke, you know, random guy is
Mr. Goldberg. Okay. So, like, you can't
go in there. You have to show me your
ticket. He says, "No, no, no. I don't I
don't have a ticket. I I have a I have
an important message for Mr. Goldberg."
He says, "No, no, no, no. This is high
holidays. You only enter the sanctuary
with a ticket." He says, "But I'm not
going in. That's not why I'm here. I I
just have to find Mr. Goldberg. I'm just
going to go talk to him and I'm going to
turn around. I'm going to leave. Please,
just let me in. Be reasonable."
Usher thinks for a minute. He says,
"Okay, all right. I'll let you in for a
minute. You can go give Mr. Goldberg
message and you come out. But if I catch
you praying while you're in there,
that's that's the joke.
Boom. Boom. If I catch you praying, and
I'm saying something similar. If I catch
you praying, all right, you're allowed
to pray because you can you can pray
while you're walking down the street if
you want. So you can pray in a house of
worship. But what I'm saying is go to a
house of worship just to be among
people. And what you might find,
not even looking for it,
is that sometimes the way we connect to
God is by being among his children.
That's certainly been the case for me.
While there may be a certain human
propensity for seeking out God on a
mountaintop, having that sort of
reclusive spiritual experience, the
reality is that God likes it when his
kids play together nicely. So, just go
hang out with some other people
that you have no other reason to hang
out with other than the fact that you've
all come to this third place.
And uh yeah, you may end up finding
God.
Okay.
