Rabbi Steve Leder, THE BEAUTY OF WHAT REMAINS

2021-01-13  ·  26:46  ·  Rabbi Steve Leder  ·  Podcast Audio

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[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
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[1:28]Rabbi Steve Letter currently serves as the senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, one of the largest synagogues in the world.
[1:35]Newsweek has named Rabbi Letter one of the ten most influential rabbis in America. His sermon on capital punishment was included in an award-winning episode of the West Wing.
[1:45]As the author of published essays and best-selling in the best-selling book, More Beautiful Than Before, Rabbi Letter's newest memoir, The Beauty of What Remains, is an inspiring book that takes us on a journey through the experience of loss and how loss makes life beautiful by giving it meaning and love.
[2:00]His inspirational works have received prestigious media attention on CBS this morning NPR, The Steve Harvey Show, and NBC's Today Show, Among Others. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
[2:11]Welcome, Rabbi Letter. Thank you so much for coming on mom's time to read books to discuss the beauty of what remains your brand new book.
[2:18]Thank you. I'm really happy to be with you today.
[2:21]Well, first of all, whenever my friend Karen Frankel tells me to do anything, I do it because she has the best taste and recommendations for everything.
[2:28]So when she recommended your book, I was like, of course, but then I read it and it was unbelievably amazing. So
[2:35]Thank you. I'm delighted to be connected with you. Thank you. As in my, I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me about it.
[2:41]My pleasure. Now I have to go back and read all your other books. But anyway, could you please tell us nurse what this book is about and what inspired you to write it?
[2:49]I think the best way I can frame this book is as an apology. And let me explain. I had been a rabbi for about 30 years before I started writing this book.
[3:00]And obviously it helped many, many hundreds, thousands. I calculated that I had officiated it roughly a thousand funerals over those 30 years.
[3:10]And I thought I was doing a pretty good job of helping people and guiding them through this process and of helping people discover what an extraordinary teacher death is when it comes to helping us lead meaningful lives.
[3:23]So I thought I would have given myself, you know, maybe an A minus, maybe even an A in the rabbi pastoral department. And then my father died. And in the run up to during and the aftermath of his death.
[3:36]I realized that despite my best efforts in the past, I was really, as I say in the book, one degree shy of the deepest truth when it comes to guiding people through the many ways death teaches us about life.
[3:52]And I wrote this book really as a kind of apology, an attempt to undo what I had gotten wrong and to get it right and to put the reader on my shoulder as I walked through my own trajectory with my father's 10 year decline due to Alzheimer's and his death.
[4:10]And to put the reader on my shoulder as I walk into the homes and hospital rooms of so many others to help them through what is inevitable for all of us.
[4:22]And so I guess to again to kind of succinctly answer your question, the book is an attempt to get to get it right.
[4:30]Wow. Well, there was so much helpful information in the book. I don't think you need to apologize. I think A minus would have been perfectly fine.
[4:39]You had still have graduated with honors. You didn't grow up in my family.
[4:43]Okay. My family, they were happy with A minus. So anyway, at least for me.
[4:48]No, I think that you even without that layer, you had so many tidbits and anecdotes and stories from the many people you've helped, including really gut wrenching decisions like what to say with your rabbi had on versus your Steve had on to the woman who wanted to know if her family could assist in her family.
[5:07]I could assist in her death at the last minute and you didn't know what to do to all these other moments where you've helped families to say goodbye moments you come in with jokes and I appreciate you putting in a few jokes in case the rest of us are really at a loss and need a good one.
[5:23]To buffer our conversation skills. I'm going to have to like photocopy those and hang them up.
[5:27]But there's this whole piece of you, which is like, this is me as the rabbi and this is me as me. And then this book I feel like is like where the two come together.
[5:36]Well, I did want to explore in this book.
[5:39]The tension and the dance that goes on within me when I am both rabbi and friend rabbi and son rabbi and husband rabbi and father and often those are aligned.
[5:53]But sometimes they're in conflict and what I really really tried to do in this book is to weave that conflict and that tension and that resolution throughout the entire book.
[6:06]It's another component of putting the reader on my shoulder because so few people see behind the curtain when it comes to what clergy really do and how they do it.
[6:19]So few understand so few clergy honestly understand the dynamic within themselves that has to be resolved the cognitive dissonance between in my case the rabbi and the man the rabbi and the son and addressing that conflict has made me a better rabbi and a better son.
[6:44]And that's the end result and that that's part of the reason I called the book the beauty of what remains there are other reasons but that's a big part of it.
[6:52]Is that once you engage in that internal conversation what remains is really in my for me something quite beautiful.
[7:02]One of the most helpful pieces of advice in this book and there is just so much is for anybody who's feeling anxious about death.
[7:11]It means they're not dying.
[7:13]And that you can just go back to living and wait because when you die then you can start worrying about it for somebody with like immense amounts of anxiety about everything like me that was very helpful.
[7:25]I'm just going to read this one quote you said most people are ready for death the way we are all ready for sleep after a long and exhausting day we just want to pull the covers up around our aching heads and settle in for the piece of it all.
[7:36]We are not anxious about sleeping we are not depressed about it we are not afraid of it disease age and life itself prepares for death there is a time for everything and when it is our time to die.
[7:46]is as natural a thing as life itself consider this very good news for those of us who fear death dying people are not afraid of dying if you are afraid of dying it is not your day anxiety is for the living.
[7:58]Yes, it's really true and it's really helpful for people and it's sort of counterintuitive but it's really helpful when I can look someone in the eye.
[8:14]they tell me well I'm really afraid to die and I said well that's because you're not dying certainly not today because when you are really actively dying you will not be afraid Zibi in 33 years now at the bedside of more than a thousand dying people when that person is really ready to die.
[8:34]Not once not one single person has expressed fear to me and I ask are you afraid and the answer has every time been no now I know that's anecdotal evidence but it's it's pretty persuasive and and it is why I can say with a very high degree of confidence that if you fear death you're not dying take a breath.
[8:57]You know it's interesting my grandmother just passed away she was 97 and had been very healthy until the very end and because of covid we can only say goodbye over FaceTime which is just horrific and just so sad so she was there with an aid and as she was unconscious at the end I was like what is she afraid that she say she was afraid because when she was alive she was always talking about how afraid she was to die.
[9:19]and like does she know she's dying is she afraid and she was like no no I mean maybe she was just saying that to make me feel better but she said no no not at all no I said I told her I was right here and she said okay and then when I would say over FaceTime like you know God you don't be afraid everything's okay she just kind of her eyes kind of flickered and that was it and I didn't see any fear I just felt like I don't know since.
[9:41]yes there is a point in life when death makes sense but you have to be at that point in order to understand that well so I guess it's good I don't understand it well it's a sign that you that you're alive and not actively dying correct.
[10:00]Right. So the rest of your book, though, talks about not the rest, but much, much, a lot of your
[10:06]book talks about the effect of death on the living, right? And the loss of other people and
[10:10]the effect of illness, like all the things you had to go through with your dad. I mean, that was,
[10:15]oh my gosh, the scene with you tossing the balloon at your dad. I mean, all these like
[10:20]moments of cry when you go and cry in the hallway and you can just put yourself in your shoes
[10:25]time and time again and feel that pain and suffering. Anyway, but the rest of it is about how you
[10:31]deal with the loss and you had great advice on that too. And even how you, you know, it says,
[10:36]you say it won't always hurt so much. You said, I used to think that what they meant was that
[10:40]eventually grief abates the Greek diminishes. Now what I think they meant was not that it won't always hurt
[10:46]so much, but that it won't always hurt so often. That's right. Tell me about that. Well, so many,
[10:52]one of the most difficult things that I have to manage is the death of a child. There are very
[10:59]few things in life more difficult than that. And of course, as the rabbi, I take that on my
[11:04]shoulders with the family. I carry it with them. I even carry the casket. I always volunteer to
[11:10]carry the casket because it's too painful for the parents. You know, just imagine a casket the size
[11:15]of a shoe box. I have to stop. So as a way of learning more about the the feeling of losing a child,
[11:24]I read a book many years ago by edited by two women, both of whom had children who died.
[11:30]And it's an anthology of writers writing about writers who had children die writing about the
[11:37]experience. So for example, Robert Frost had four children die. Mark Twain had a child die,
[11:42]and they wrote about it. And in the introduction, these women say that the thing that helped them
[11:47]the most and was the most honest was when someone said to them, it won't always hurt so much.
[11:53]And I said that for years, and this is part of the apology component of the book. I said that
[11:58]to be so many years, decades, to parents, I would say, look, the most honest and helpful thing
[12:05]I can tell you right now is it won't always hurt so much. Then my father died, obviously a more
[12:11]normative circumstance than the death of a child. And I stopped saying that to people because it's
[12:16]not true. The truth is it won't always hurt so often. But when it hurts, it hurts every bit as much.
[12:27]And that is the truth. And that has to be said and has to be, and I find by enlightening people
[12:35]in this way, it enables them to go with these waves that come at them. I compare grief. One of the
[12:42]things I say in the book is that anyone who thinks the shortest distance between two points
[12:45]is a straight line, doesn't understand grief, because grief is non-linear. And this business
[12:51]about there being stages of grief, my opinion, it's nonsense. Grief is much more like waves.
[12:58]It ebbs, and it flows. It ebbs, and it flows. The waves get further apart. But every once in a while,
[13:04]when your back is turned, you can just get slammed by a rogue wave that you didn't see coming.
[13:11]It can be a song. It can be a taste. It can be a place. It can be something you desperately wish you
[13:19]could share with your loved one who's gone. These waves hit us. And when you're really looking at a
[13:24]wave, you have two choices. You can try to stand up against it. And what normally happens then is
[13:29]it crashes in on you and throws you upside down and you're gasping for air and lost and confused,
[13:36]or you can submit and lie down and float with it until you're able to stand up again.
[13:45]And that's grief. It's the learning to float with it until you can stand again. And that is the
[13:52]honest truth about grief. Well, I have been then on the beach watching this ocean sort of
[13:58]of ravage my husband and his sister as their mother and grandmother just passed away from COVID.
[14:03]And I have watched firsthand exactly what you're talking about. And especially the first week,
[14:09]in the first week, every few hours, somebody would fall, right? It was one. And then the
[14:14]other and the other. And I was just like running back and forth. And now it's been a couple months.
[14:18]And it's still well, it knocked me over this morning. And oh, well, I was okay. But then,
[14:22]you know, two days ago this, it's exactly it's not predictable. You can't plan for it.
[14:29]No, no. And I think the fact that I think it's always okay when it comes. And I don't think
[14:35]there's a wrong way to grief. Now, obviously, I'm not talking about a person who, you know, doesn't
[14:39]eat and can't sleep for months and has, you know, becomes clinically ill. But there's really no wrong
[14:45]way. Just as there's no really wrong moment or time to feel love, because actually that's really
[14:51]what you're feeling. And that's another way of seeing grief that makes it more beautiful to embrace,
[14:58]which is grief is really a reflection of love. If you think about one of the things I talk about
[15:03]in the book, the book is for everyone. Obviously, I'm a rabbi and I wrote it, but it's really not
[15:08]a Jewish book. It may be a book for Jews like everyone else, but it's not a Jewish book.
[15:12]But I do in the book talk about that verse from the 23rd Psalm that everyone knows,
[15:17]yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I shall fear no leave. And there are
[15:22]two very nuanced and very beautiful and important profound ideas in that verse. The first,
[15:27]we walk through this valley of darkness. We don't stay there forever. But even more nuanced and more
[15:32]profound is this idea of this metaphor of a valley of shadows for grief. And if you think really
[15:38]deeply about a shadow, no matter how long, no matter how dark, it's proof that the light is still
[15:44]shining. You cannot have a shadow without light without light. You have total darkness, not a shadow.
[15:49]So the light is obstructed in this metaphor by mountains on each side of the valley, of course,
[15:53]but in the real world by our grief. But what is grief really? If not a reflection of the love that
[16:01]we had and continue to have with the person who has died. And so in that way, we can start to rethink
[16:10]grief and see it as something quite beautiful. And really exquisite despite its pain. And there's
[16:19]a duality, of course, to grief. Like I also say in the book, there's a duality to memory. You know,
[16:24]we always say may as memory be a blessing. Wolf blitzers made a living off of that on CNN.
[16:29]The truth about memory is that it's beautiful and it hurts. It's both. In the book, I say,
[16:36]it's like being caressed and spat on at the same time. That's memory. Right? That's memory. You know?
[16:43]And the more we understand the fullness of the experience, the more we're able to find the beauty
[16:51]within it. And ultimately, and maybe there's a little bit of hyperbole in this statement to the
[16:56]years of others. But as a guy who's been on the inside of this for a long time, I will tell you,
[17:01]I think death is the great teacher in life. Imagine a deathless life. Think about that for a moment.
[17:09]Imagine a life that was endless. What value would that life have? What would happen to ambition?
[17:16]What would happen to love? What would happen to having children? It would all be gone. Death is
[17:23]the great teacher when it comes to really embracing and enjoying and getting the most out of
[17:32]and giving the most to life and love themselves. Well, now I'm getting worried that maybe you're sick
[17:38]because it sounds like you're not scared at all to die either. No. Well, I wouldn't. I'm not.
[17:43]I don't think about it because look, I don't want to die. I'm 60 years old and I want to have
[17:47]grandchildren and I want to have fun and all of these things. But when I do feel any fear of death,
[17:53]I remind myself of my own words, which is you're clearly not dying if you're worried about dying.
[17:59]Because when the day comes, you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. You're going to be
[18:04]better than fine because it says natural, as I said, as birth itself. And you know, my kids worry
[18:10]about because I especially now during COVID, you know, I'm officiating at three, four, five funerals a
[18:15]week now. Very long congregation, obviously. And you know, my kids get wind of this and they've
[18:20]been at the dinner table for their entire lives listening to Daddy's day. And my kids worry about
[18:26]me dying. It's said, look, rare accidents occur, but the truth is I am not likely to die
[18:32]until you are ready to handle it. No, that's really nice. I'm going to feel that until my kids.
[18:38]Yes. And it's true. Well, we can get to what to say to kids about when they ask you,
[18:43]are you going to die? Because there's a whole conversation that you can have with them that I
[18:48]think will really calm them down quite a bit and maybe calm you down too, Zippy. I don't know.
[18:52]Yeah. No, I know you wrote about that in the book as well. You had advice on like everything
[18:58]that anyone can look. Look, I wanted it to be a field guide and a journey. That's really what I was
[19:03]hoping to do. Put you put you the reader on my shoulder and journey through the resolution of the
[19:09]rabbi versus the sun, the sun versus the rabbi, the resolution that memory brings to my
[19:14]relationship with a very complicated and difficult father. And also a very amazing father,
[19:19]as most high achievers are, you know, they're complicated and they're amazing.
[19:24]And also to put you on my shoulder on this journey with other families and other situations.
[19:30]And I hope that it's a field guide for this journey. And I ultimately hope that it really helps
[19:36]people. Well, you read it. You tell me and be honest. You know, I hope that it ultimately helps
[19:42]people take their own lives more seriously and appreciate those lives more deeply. I mean,
[19:48]that's really the hope. That's why it's called the beauty of what remains. What you said,
[19:52]I think one of my favorite lines that I think reflects us. You said the profound and simple
[19:56]truth is that we are each writing our own eulogy every day.
[20:00]with the pen of our lives.
[20:01]Yes.
[20:02]That's also going up on the bulletin board.
[20:04]I mean, these are like profound statements
[20:07]that you make and it's so true
[20:08]where the way we live each day,
[20:10]the culmination of that,
[20:12]that's all that we're left with.
[20:13]That's what people will say when we're gone.
[20:14]That's all you can do is like,
[20:16]live the way you wanna be remembered.
[20:18]It sounds obvious, but it's so important.
[20:19]That's right.
[20:20]And there's this notion that I often share with people
[20:23]about living as a good ancestor.
[20:25]You know, we don't think of ourselves as ancestors.
[20:28]We are, just not yet.
[20:31]And so can you live as a good ancestor?
[20:34]That's a really good question to ask oneself.
[20:37]Am I being a good ancestor?
[20:39]For generations yet to be born.
[20:42]You know, this line of cleaning products
[20:44]called seventh generation,
[20:47]that comes from the great law of the Iroquois tribe,
[20:50]which says that when the elders make a decision,
[20:53]they have to consider the impact of that decision
[20:56]on the seventh generation to follow.
[20:59]What a way to live.
[21:00]What a world we would have if we lived that way.
[21:03]Wow.
[21:04]Certainly something to aspire to.
[21:06]Well, that's a lot of cleaning.
[21:07]I just said, tell me a little about the writing of this book.
[21:11]It said, you wrote in the book
[21:12]that you took a sabbatical and spent a month
[21:15]in ponce rings just writing about death
[21:17]in the midst of COVID.
[21:18]Tell me what that experience is like.
[21:20]Well, I had often on, I set aside time.
[21:23]I need a long runway to write.
[21:26]I'm not a guy who, oh, I have an hour and a half.
[21:28]I'm gonna sit down and knock out 10 pages.
[21:31]I need a really long runway.
[21:33]There's a lot of pacing.
[21:35]There's a lot of straightening up.
[21:37]There's a lot of snacking on sunflower seeds and potato chips.
[21:41]I need a lot of runway.
[21:44]And I also need to be intensely alone when I write.
[21:47]And so most of this book was written
[21:50]in an empty house in Palm Springs
[21:52]and in an empty cabin in Joshua Tree,
[21:55]which is an extraordinary desert
[21:58]about three hours from Los Angeles.
[22:00]And I locked myself in a cabin with no TV,
[22:04]no internet, nothing.
[22:06]And just this book just poured out.
[22:09]And that's, I don't know if that's a process
[22:11]as much as it's an environment,
[22:13]but putting myself in the right environment
[22:15]with absolutely no distractions
[22:17]is the only way that I could do it.
[22:19]Because this book forced me into the duality of memory,
[22:23]because I had to go back and revisit the pain
[22:27]of my father's Alzheimer's, the pain of his death,
[22:30]the pain of his life, the pain of his mistakes,
[22:34]and to find a way for myself,
[22:36]and therefore I hope the reader
[22:38]to see how we can round the sharp edges of our loved ones
[22:42]through memory and through our own lives
[22:44]and our own behavior in their honor and memory.
[22:47]Beautiful.
[22:48]All right, last question.
[22:49]What advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[22:52]There are a few things.
[22:53]First, I would say, be aware that there is not one fun thing
[23:00]about writing a book.
[23:02]Not one single, enjoyable, fun thing, okay?
[23:08]You have to know that going in.
[23:09]There's nothing sexy about it.
[23:12]It is the hardest kind of work, and it's really work.
[23:15]I think it was Hemingway who said,
[23:16]yeah, writing's easy.
[23:17]You just sit down and open a vein, okay?
[23:20]So you really have to want to say
[23:24]what you're planning on saying, right?
[23:26]That's the first thing.
[23:27]The second thing I would say to aspiring writers
[23:30]is write what you know.
[23:32]The best books I believe are not research-based.
[23:36]They're people writing about what they intuitively know
[23:39]and have lived.
[23:41]And thirdly, I would say, get published everywhere,
[23:44]every chance you get.
[23:45]Say yes to everything.
[23:47]My writing career started,
[23:49]because I said yes to writing a weekly column
[23:52]for a little Jewish newspaper in Los Angeles
[23:55]and a publisher started reading the columns,
[23:57]and I got my first book deal,
[23:58]and someone read that book,
[23:59]and I got my second, and someone read that book
[24:01]and the third, et cetera, et cetera.
[24:03]And it's because I say yes to every opportunity
[24:08]to be published.
[24:09]And because it makes you better,
[24:11]and because you learn.
[24:12]And so it's a combination of these things.
[24:15]Have no illusions about the pain of it all,
[24:17]and write what you know and say yes to every opportunity.
[24:22]And since I began the answer on such a carpeting note
[24:25]to that question that there's not one fun thing about it,
[24:29]I will say, and this happened to be two days ago.
[24:31]This is a little, I don't know.
[24:33]It's emotional for me writing a book,
[24:36]especially one who's intimate as this.
[24:38]Other than holding my children in my arms,
[24:41]when they were born,
[24:42]there is no feeling like holding your book
[24:46]when the publisher sends it to you,
[24:48]and you're the first, and you open that carton,
[24:51]and you hold that book.
[24:53]There's no feeling like it on earth.
[24:56]I dreamed about it.
[24:57]I was in the writing program at Northwestern as an undergrad,
[25:00]and this feeling of I am a writer,
[25:06]is a very deep and beautiful and powerful feeling.
[25:09]It is not the same as I am a parent.
[25:12]I am a mother, I am a father.
[25:15]But it's in the same universe,
[25:18]and it's pretty amazing feeling,
[25:20]and to know, to know that you've helped people,
[25:24]what else really, what else could one ask for, than that?
[25:28]It's amazing.
[25:29]You're such a good speaker.
[25:31]You're such a great writer.
[25:33]I wish I could just join your congregation.
[25:36]You're in plenty of room on the project.
[25:37]You're in.
[25:38]Yeah, maybe I'll do a virtual,
[25:40]I'll join my third temple.
[25:43]You're in.
[25:44]Anyway, thank you so much for all of your time.
[25:47]Thank you for this amazing and so helpful book.
[25:49]Even by the way, the article you wrote recently
[25:51]about surviving the holidays with grief in your life,
[25:54]that was also super useful.
[25:55]So thank you for all of it, and I hope to stay in touch.
[25:58]Thank you, Stevie.
[25:59]I deeply appreciate what you're doing, and thank you.
[26:03]My pleasure.
[26:04]All right, bye-bye.
[26:04]Thanks.
[26:05]Bye.
[26:07]Thanks again to Tim Tebow and his book, Bronco and Friends,
[26:10]a party to remember for sponsoring today's episode.
[26:13]Go check it out at TimTebow.com, slash Bronco and Friends.
[26:17]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[26:19]to Read Books.
[26:20]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[26:23]at Zippy Owens, and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:26]Also sign up for my newsletter at zippyowens.com
[26:28]and sign up for my virtual book club
[26:30]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[26:32]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at The Texture Sound
[26:35]for the Sound Editing.
[26:36]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[26:38]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.