Barbara Thiede

We often hear about “radical amazement” in Jewish circles. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, z”l, coined the phrase. “Awareness of the divine,” he wrote, “begins with wonder. … Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is therefore a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.”

Over ten years after my first conversation with Lex Rofeberg, now senior educator and the co-founder of Judaism Unbound, I’ve realized that there is also such a thing as radical acceptance.

Back in 2014, Lex was working as an Education Fellow for the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life. I was the student rabbi for a small congregation in Concord, NC. He was looking for Jewish Renewal community to work with as part of his internship; I was thrilled to have the help.

Both of us were interested in all forms of Judaism, forms largely left unexplored by mainstream university courses and seminary settings. We appreciated rabbinic traditions without declaring rabbinic Judaism Judaism-per–se.

What did we make of a stele that described Yom Kippur in almost meditative terms from the Kaifeng Jewish community? What did either of us find fascinating about the drum regarded as the ark by the Lemba, a South African tribe? What might the Ethiopian Jewish festival of Sigd suggest about interfaith work is a natural outcome of Jewish practice? (A holiday, Lex later discovered, that lands on his birthday…)

Likewise, we were both attracted to a wide variety of Jewish writings that extended well beyond Tanakh and Talmud. We wanted to know what other ancient texts offer us, and that included anything from the short Book of Tobit to Jubilees, a richly developed work of quite some intricacy.

Both of us are now ordained rabbis, though neither of us defaults to the title. We are devoted to conversations around Judaism or Jewish practice with anyone who is interested to be rewarding. We do not aim to convert. We do not aim to convince. We aim to unpack.

Just one look at the wide-ranging of topics that Judaism Unbound has addressed, the incredible diversity of its podcasts, its programs, and its classes, makes clear how dedicated its leaders are to radical acceptance.

A good portion of Judaism and Jewish practice has been constrained by the need to create boundaries and fences, to define who is and who is not Jewish and who can and who cannot participate, share, and celebrate what Judaism offers.

But when we begin with open hearts, with radical acceptance of what diverse Jewish communities have offered in the past, what contemporary communities offer in the present, and what those alongside us want to offer the future, we are all the richer for it.

I’m so proud to be among the teachers for Judaism Unbound’s spring Unyeshiva schedule. I hope to practice radical acceptance in my teaching; I can guarantee that everyone who works with and for Judaism Unbound will be behind that effort.

To those of you I am soon to meet in God’s Bod: An Anatomy of YHVH, The Israelite Deity, welcome!

To those who are interested in enrolling, I have a coupon for 20% off the incredibly reasonable tuition to offer: 20GODWITHBOD25

To those of you who find the term radical acceptance intriguing, I suggest you check out each and every course the Unyeshiva is offering – now and in the future.

Here’s the link: Unyeshiva Spring 2025

Dictators, fascists, and oligarchs are indeed engaged in a hostile government takeover (HGT).

We know it already: appeasing a vengeful, dangerous, and narcissistic individual never works. Such an individual is now engaging in bullying the world, and in the process, he has already bathed his hands in the blood of children.

There will be more meaningless death unleashed at his and his supporters’ hands.

Those happily wielding the wrecking ball rely heavily on exhausting us. They love our anxiety. They love our depression. They want us to be frozen in fear.

Russel Vought, co-author of Project 2025 and now the director of the Office of Budget and Management (OMB), has said the quiet part out loud: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work… We want to put them in trauma.” (Italics mine).

Apathy, indifference, and exhaustion on the part of the people helps sustain and nourish the power of those who rule them.

Perhaps you will want to argue that you and I have no power.

Remember the Muslim Ban unleashed during the first weeks of Trump’s first presidency? Brendan Ballou was, at the time, a young lawyer in the National Security Division of the Justice Department. He writes:

My colleagues and I didn’t manage to stop the travel ban from being implemented, but we did narrow its scope to a handful of countries, whereas at one point it included whole swaths of the world.

Throughout, public protest on the travel ban was enormously helpful. Where we might otherwise have felt like lonely voices in a bureaucracy, public outrage gave us courage and the knowledge that we were, in fact, working in the public interest. Advocacy on the outside made advocacy on the inside possible. While protesters, online and in the street, had no way to know it, their work was enormously influential.

But let us assume the worst. No call we make, no action we take, no organization we donate to has a prayer against the forces arrayed against us.

Emanuel Levinas wrote: “To know God is to know what to do.”

May we, in knowing God, know what to do. Stop burning our planet. Protect the weak. Care for life.

Make calls (here is a website that helps): https://5calls.org/
Take action (here is a site that gives you easy actions to take with one email a week): https://chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.com/
Donate: Here is a list of organizations fighting the hostile government takeover (HGT): https://www.advocate.com/politics/anti-donald-trump-charities

Author: Barbara Thiede

Radical Acceptance: Judaism Unbound and the Unyeshiva

Appeasement is Not the Answer