Angela Buchdahl, HEART OF A STRANGER: An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked Live here at the Whitby Hotel.
[0:05]We are so excited to welcome all of you here today to listen in person as I interview
[0:11]some fabulous authors including Rabbi Angela Bookdoll and I am so excited that she is here
[0:17]and we get to discuss her new book, Heart of a Stranger and Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith
[0:23]Identity and Belonging.
[0:24]Welcome.
[0:25]Thank you.
[0:26]Thank you.
[0:27]To admit, it sounds weird when you call me an author.
[0:30]I don't feel ready.
[0:31]I don't feel like I can own that title yet so much more comfortable with Rabbi than author
[0:36]but I'm very excited.
[0:37]You can definitely own it this book is amazing and we learn so much about you and it's
[0:42]just really fabulous including that your family comes from the lumber industry who do
[0:47]know.
[0:48]Woodworkers from Romania.
[0:49]Yeah.
[0:50]There you go.
[0:51]are famously the first Asian-American rabbi since 2001.
[0:57]You have so much about you that is not about that but about your background about who
[1:02]you are, how you got here and Judaism itself.
[1:05]Why now for writing this?
[1:07]Why did you decide to write this book now?
[1:10]I started this book to be honest five years ago.
[1:13]It took me a very long time because I was on sabbatical.
[1:15]I had a four-month sabbatical and it was in the middle of the global pandemic and I
[1:20]had four months with nowhere I could go.
[1:23]So I actually thought I've always wanted to write a book.
[1:26]Let's see if I can do this.
[1:27]I found an agent.
[1:28]I said my dream is to write a book that gives the wisdom of Jewish learning to like an
[1:35]accessible in an accessible way to a wide audience and she said that sounds great because
[1:40]I'm not sure that that book is going to sell and I said but all these spirituality books
[1:44]that are out there they're almost all from a Buddhist perspective and they're beautiful
[1:48]like Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle and Pima Todorana.
[1:52]These are beautiful books and they are Buddhism for people who aren't Buddhist.
[1:55]I said well where's that Judaism book that for people who might not be Jewish and also
[1:59]for Jews and so she said you know why don't you write a memoir because you've got this
[2:04]interesting unusual background and then you can sneak in the Jewish teachings.
[2:11]So honestly that was the goal and the book is formatted with 31 very short sort of narrative
[2:19]chapters that are chronological that tell how an immigrant from Tacoma Washington you
[2:24]know ends up a rabbi in Manhattan.
[2:28]That is a story I think and it had a lot of pitfalls along the way it was not an easy
[2:32]path but I also every single chapter has a little devartura which I will translate as like
[2:38]a mini sermon and it's based on one Hebrew word or concept.
[2:43]It's thematically linked to the story of my life and it comes from this idea that I learned
[2:49]from one of my main teachers Rabbi David Ellenson of Blessed Memory and he said all theology
[2:55]is autobiographical meaning like everything you've ever experienced your hurts your pains
[3:01]your loves your suffering that will influence the way you think about God and the world
[3:07]and the meaning of life.
[3:08]So those narrative chapters really inform the way I read the Jewish tradition.
[3:12]So that's that was the goal.
[3:15]I started this not really knowing where it would go I was lucky to find a fantastic agent
[3:19]to have the book sold to Pam Dorman books she's like a legendary editor and then I had
[3:24]to write this book while I was trying to be the rabbi of central synagogue so it took
[3:27]me four years.
[3:28]I worked with a wonderful writer Abby Pogerin who was like really like my main editor
[3:32]and I call her my book doula because she really like kind of helped me birth this thing
[3:37]and I wrote it because I wanted the world to understand something deeper about Judaism
[3:42]and who Jews are more than I wanted them to know my story.
[3:45]Well both pieces of the book were really fascinating.
[3:48]Thank you.
[3:49]Thank you.
[3:50]Thank you.
[3:51]One piece about the Jewish part you talk about Jews as the chosen people and why are they
[3:55]chosen and actually that they are chosen to help.
[3:57]Can you talk about that?
[3:58]Sure.
[3:59]The great misunderstandings of people who say oh Jews don't you think you're the chosen
[4:03]people or it does not what it says in the Bible that you're the chosen people and there
[4:09]is a mistake in sense that that means we think we're chosen to be better or chosen
[4:14]to be number one or chosen in some kind of supremacist way which I think is such a misunderstanding
[4:19]of it.
[4:20]I think we are chosen for a particular mission to live out a Jewish life that is meaningful.
[4:26]I actually think that every people should feel they're chosen for some purpose in the
[4:30]world.
[4:31]Every one of us is chosen to do something in the world and I had this incredible experience
[4:36]which I described in the book just last summer where I got to go to Korea.
[4:41]I was born there.
[4:42]I've been there many times but it was the first time I went to Korea as a rabbi.
[4:46]Usually when I go to Korea I have to put the Jewish part like a way it doesn't like exist.
[4:51]I'm just this half Korean you know person visiting my family essentially but when I was
[4:56]there this time I was there as a rabbi helping open the first Israel education center
[5:00]at Seoul National University and I gave a keynote address and the keynote address was entitled
[5:05]from the chosen dynasty which is the last dynasty to the chosen people and I talked
[5:11]about these these the confluence of my Korean side and my Jewish side and for the first
[5:17]time all these ways they were coming together in this very unusual kind of like transformative
[5:23]life moment for me my parents flew out with me to to Korea for this and as did my sister
[5:28]and it was one of those moments where I felt like maybe this is the whole purpose of why
[5:34]I became a rabbi in the first place to build these bridges.
[5:37]That's amazing.
[5:38]Your life story has all these ups and downs along the way and moves and about your family
[5:44]and some of their really traumatic things that have happened in their past you also talk
[5:49]about the loss of your cousin and that was one of the most poignant moments of many
[5:54]poignant moments and how it affected not just you this sudden death but your mother and
[6:00]how she actually turned to Judaism then when it was your father who was Jewish can I read
[6:04]a little bit.
[6:05]Sure.
[6:06]You haven't earmarked you wrote at 22 and his name is Yuki.
[6:10]Okay.
[6:11]At 22, Yuki was at the cash register when the store was robbed at gunpoint he was shot
[6:15]in the head and died before the ambulance arrived.
[6:18]My mother had to drive up to Seattle to identify his body.
[6:21]His face was completely unrecognizable from the wound but the watch he proudly bought himself
[6:26]for Christmas was unmistakable on his wrist.
[6:30]I was living in scars day after college when my mother called me with the news.
[6:34]One of the rare times I have heard her weep.
[6:36]Yuki was her adopted son.
[6:39]She discouraged my coming home.
[6:40]I don't think she had room for my grief alongside her own.
[6:43]I curled up in bed alone and didn't move for days.
[6:47]Jacob who was my boyfriend at the time offered to stay at my side but I didn't want his
[6:50]comfort.
[6:51]I was furious at the world and then you go on to say my mom had no such language to express
[6:56]her broken heart.
[6:58]Buddhist principles of equanimity and acceptance couldn't hold the weight of her suffering.
[7:02]She told me days later that her first impulse in the face of this unfathomable tragedy was
[7:07]to quote cry out to Elohim, a Hebrew name for God.
[7:11]In her grief the language that bubbled up for my mother was Jewish.
[7:14]Her spirituality had always been quiet private but during her 20 years in the US her religious
[7:19]community had been Jewish.
[7:21]When she felt unmoored she reached for the ritual and reassurance of the tradition she'd
[7:25]come to share.
[7:26]Mom later confided that Uki's killing was the only time other than right before my
[7:31]bop mitzvah that she seriously weighed conversion though she hadn't always felt part
[7:35]of Judaism in daily life at this moment of grief she needed it.
[7:41]My mother never did convert she's still to this day a Korean Buddhist who comes to
[7:46]synagogue and I think this is one of the tension points I talk about a lot that is a theme
[7:51]threaded through my own life story which is that I think my mother thought Judaism had
[7:56]so much wisdom and so much to offer and that she loved the rituals and the holidays.
[8:02]I think as an immigrant Korean woman she came when she was about 35 years old because my
[8:07]father's Judaism was so cultural and not super religious.
[8:11]There was a way that she thought like a convert to the religious part but I can never
[8:15]be kind of culturally Jewish if that's kind of what it's about and so there was a hurdle
[8:20]for her that she never could kind of get over she thought even if I convert maybe I'll
[8:24]never be seen as fully Jewish and then I think held her back and I always felt a sadness
[8:29]that that was her experience and that she couldn't fully embrace what maybe would have
[8:34]been a very meaningful kind of faith tradition to like fully immerse herself and she's still
[8:39]very much a part of my Jewish life but so that's been a part of my own commitment as
[8:43]a rabbi to make sure that that is not the Jewish world I'm building for the next generation
[8:48]and you know it might be because you're a Korean immigrant it might be because you come
[8:51]from some small town where there aren't any Jews it might be because you're a different
[8:56]person of color or whatever it is there are so many different ways people feel marginalized
[9:00]or they can't be accepted and I think that we can do better as a Jewish community of
[9:05]seeing our peoplehood as beyond racial identity you talk about your father too and
[9:10]I'm so sorry for the fact that happened to you and someone you loved but you talk about
[9:15]your father and how in so much of his life and adherence to Judaism it is the rituals it
[9:20]is the practice of it less than the belief in God necessarily can you talk about that because
[9:26]people think being religious means believing even more strongly in God but maybe that's
[9:31]not the case yeah I can't really remember my dad ever talking about
[9:35]God and I think if you are in the Jewish tradition it's maybe not that unusual to hear
[9:41]people who say yeah I'm to be a good Jew and not necessarily believe in God and yet what
[9:47]I saw my dad do were very faithful acts every day like he had this ritual every month
[9:53]where he would sit with like all the envelopes of all the requests for charitable donations
[9:57]and he would just go through and like write.
[10:00]We didn't have a lot of money. He would write $5 and $10 checks to like muscular dystrophy and the
[10:05]March of Dimes and the Tacoma youth symphony and all these organizations
[10:11]We would put the $5 in the J&F box for a tree to be planted in Israel
[10:15]These were like, but it was a habit of sedaca that he just saw as like this is what I do as a Jew and he did go to services every week
[10:22]But it wasn't about God. I mean, maybe you've heard this joke, but it's like Goldberg goes to synagogue to talk to God and
[10:30]And Feinberg goes to synagogue to talk to Goldberg. My dad
[10:35]My dad didn't go to talk to God. He went to talk to schmooze
[10:38]He was the last one out of the own egg. He stayed at services till the very end till he talked to every single person
[10:43]But that's also a kind of faith. That's a kind of
[10:48]Spiritual language that maybe where you see God is in the face of other people and so I learned a lot about what it means to be a
[10:56]Faithful person through my father even though it really wasn't very much about God
[11:01]So you talk in the book about this crazy moment in history where there is
[11:06]Gun on your voicemail and what you did after and I don't know if people know what happened
[11:11]We could just talk a little bit about that and how the ripples of that fear and intensity and responsibility affected you afterwards
[11:20]Mm-hmm
[11:21]Three years ago. I thought the most surreal thing in my life had been that I was a Jeopardy question
[11:28]What is a rabbi with my face on it? And I was like that's the most weird thing that's ever happened to me
[11:33]I'm like this person who nobody ever thought I was Jewish and now I am the Jeopardy answer to what is a rabbi
[11:39]Okay, that is crazy two weeks later and it the reason why I bring that up is because two weeks later
[11:44]It might have been because of that crazy Jeopardy question
[11:47]But a gunman who was from England traveled all the way to America
[11:53]He went all the way to Coliville, Texas not a lot of Jews live there
[11:56]But he picked Coliville because it was 20 minutes
[11:59]It was the closest synagogue to a federal prison where his mission was to free a Muslim terrorist
[12:06]named a fia Siddiqui and to release her from this federal prison and
[12:11]He had done Google research to find what he thought was the chief rabbi of America and for some reason that was me
[12:18]so
[12:19]He took four people hostage in a synagogue a rabbi in three others in Coliville and
[12:26]held them at gunpoint and said
[12:29]You're gonna get rabbi Angela booked all on the line and she is going to make a few phone calls and
[12:35]She's gonna get a fia Siddiqui out of prison. She's gonna bring her here to this synagogue. It's 20 minutes away
[12:40]And if she does that, nobody has to get hurt and so I am getting this call from
[12:47]This terrorist from England who has decided that I have the power to do this and when I actually
[12:54]Protested on the phone and said I don't know that I have the power to do this
[12:58]He said don't be ridiculous all Jews have power and you're the rabbi of a big synagogue in New York
[13:04]You just need to make a few phone calls and get her here
[13:08]Otherwise, I had these four people held at gunpoint and I also have bombs in New York and Brooklyn and I can kill a lot of people
[13:15]Now I didn't know how much of this was true
[13:18]I I was quite certain at this point just from having both talk to the rabbi that was there and hearing the voices in the background and hearing from the police that they had already
[13:27]Had people on the scene outside that this was actually real. I felt like I was in some
[13:33]horror movie and
[13:35]It was a terrifying experience. I felt on the one hand that I was being given this
[13:42]enormous responsibility for four people's lives and
[13:46]In reality, I was powerless to actually help them
[13:49]I did my very best to calm him down to tell him that I was gonna make the phone calls just to buy time
[13:55]I had of course 911 on the other line and the FBI eventually ended up coming and
[14:02]Sitting with me and I'm waiting and I did get a second phone call from him an hour later in which he said so
[14:09]What's happening and I was terrified? I I just said I've made all the calls just give me a little more time
[14:16]I know we're gonna bring her to you. I just had to try to save their lives and
[14:21]this standoff went on for 10 hours and
[14:25]Eventually eventually at some point there was a moment where the rabbi saw he had a chance where the gunman didn't
[14:31]Have his finger right on the trigger. He threw a chair. They ran out and the FBI shot the terrorist
[14:37]It's hard to imagine what would have happened if they hadn't survived that and I
[14:42]Already had to actually go into therapy. I mean it afterward. I can't imagine what it would have been like if they'd actually all died
[14:48]so it was it is a
[14:51]Crazy world where and I don't need to tell you that we're in a time where people who disagree are turning to political violence in a way that is beyond
[14:59]understanding and
[15:01]And where I learned that that's a kind of antisemitism that is not truly understood
[15:07]Interestingly the FBI director when this first came out said this was not an antisemitic incident and I thought
[15:15]Wow, do we only understand antisemitism is a person coming in saying I hate Jews
[15:21]I want to kill Jews
[15:21]Do we not understand that when someone says Jews have influence and power and control the world and I'm gonna make a phone call and you're gonna do that
[15:28]You don't understand that that's actually also not only antisemitism, but extremely dangerous antisemitism
[15:34]Four people's lives were on the line because this man grew up believing the Jews manipulate the world like that
[15:41]So that's a lesson that we're still grappling with today
[15:44]What do you do with all of this information?
[15:46]How do you get through it?
[15:47]How should we get through it in the times as you say are so
[15:51]divisive and terrifying like where do we go with that the New Year is approaching?
[15:55]What now? Oh my goodness. This has been the hardest year as a rabbi to prepare for these holidays to find the words
[16:03]To first of all to hold my community, which is extremely
[16:07]ideologically diverse together and to find some sense of hopefulness and moving forward and imagining that this year can be better
[16:14]I think that
[16:16]Jews understand our new year as not just a time of celebration which is great
[16:21]But actually it begins with an accounting. I think each one of us have to kind of search our souls for what are the ways that we?
[16:29]have
[16:30]Prioritized outrage over listening and what are the ways that we have demonized aside?
[16:35]We disagree with what are the ways that because of our own fear and threat we have actually pushed people away
[16:41]We each probably could take stock and then I think we need to keep building bridges like our lives depend on it because they do and
[16:50]keep listening to each other and listening in particular to people that we might disagree with that we might find even
[16:57]Politically abhorrent
[16:59]Try to understand why where people are coming from I think that you know my book is called a heart of a stranger and I grew up so much of my life
[17:06]both as an immigrant and as a
[17:09]Biracial Korean in the Korean community always feeling a little stigmatized on that side and as a
[17:15]Korean Jew with a non Jewish mother which meant lots of people didn't even think I was Jewish
[17:19]So I didn't feel like I was I felt marginalized in the Jewish community for most of my life as well
[17:24]So I felt like my whole life on some in some way
[17:27]I was an outsider a stranger in all these communities that I desperately wanted to be a part of of course
[17:33]I had wonderful people along the way who made me feel like I belong
[17:37]But I was always apologizing for the ways that I didn't feel fully authentically
[17:41]Korean or fully authentically Jewish or fully authentically American honestly all of these ways one of the things
[17:48]I started to understand when I
[17:50]Had conversations that were deeper with people is that everyone feels like they're a stranger for one reason or another
[17:58]They feel outside the communities. They want to be a part of you don't have to be a Korean Jew
[18:03]To feel that way. I would talk to Jews who came from the south and they said I feel like I don't really belong as you know
[18:10]I have this like southern accent or I grew up really poor and I felt like everyone in my congregation had money
[18:15]And I felt like I'm an outsider or I'm gay and I just felt like the community didn't accept me
[18:20]Fill in the blank and then I realized this wasn't just about the Jewish community that you could go into our American
[18:26]You know community right now almost every minority group feels marginalized and on the outside
[18:31]I were even living in a time when white Christian men feel like they're outsiders in America
[18:38]I
[18:38]Realized in some way and any me if people ask me how did you become the rabbi of such a big synagogue?
[18:44]I actually think that knowing what it feels like to be a stranger to have the heart of a stranger as I call it
[18:50]Which is not original. That's in the Bible by the way. I
[18:53]Barrow that beautiful term knowing what it is to have the heart of a stranger became my superpower
[18:59]It became my point of connection
[19:01]You feel like you're on that side. Let me tell you. I understand that. I'm not going to presume
[19:06]That you feel like you belong here, so let me help you and when I do that I feel like I belong a little bit more too
[19:14]Could we do that for each other?
[19:16]It's so hard
[19:18]so
[19:19]That's beautiful and that's just keep bringing up terrible
[19:27]Life which is like like let's get it all out here today
[19:29]But I was at Wesley LePattner's funeral and you just did such a beautiful job Wesley was a
[19:36]Mom and our community here who was fatally shot leaving work at 345 Park and you did such a beautiful job
[19:44]And you sang a beautiful song. Oh my gosh chosen by her daughter, which you know could barely get through the song
[19:52]Oh my gosh, and you are originally a canter and have the most beautiful voice which everybody should know
[19:58]You don't want to like sing a little bit, right?
[20:00]Give her a sing on the spot.
[20:01]Who should warn me?
[20:04]But of course I can do it.
[20:05]I just thought of it right now.
[20:07]It's like a joke in my singing group that we would all say like,
[20:10]people would say, would you want to sing something
[20:11]and you say, oh, I couldn't possibly.
[20:13]Oh, if you insist.
[20:14]Um, no.
[20:15]I, let's see, I feel like I should think of something
[20:19]for like holiday or the song that you sang from Wesley's daughter.
[20:23]Oh, gosh.
[20:24]I've been trying to remember what it even was.
[20:26]It was photograph that Ed Sheeran song.
[20:28]That's right.
[20:29]Let's find the words, let's see.
[20:31]Oh, you know what?
[20:32]I can just look it up in my Wesley Lippatt in our file
[20:35]because I had one for her.
[20:37]I mean, Wesley was a friend, a brilliant light.
[20:43]And yeah, that was such a devastating funeral.
[20:45]And I was in, I was not even in the country
[20:48]when I learned the news.
[20:49]And, um, and I was headed to Israel from France.
[20:52]And I had to come back for it because it was just too painful
[20:57]to not be there.
[20:58]Even though I wasn't actually officially her rabbi.
[21:00]But yeah, love and can hurt.
[21:05]Love and can hurt sometimes.
[21:09]But it's the only thing that I know.
[21:16]And when it gets hard, you know it can get hard sometimes.
[21:24]It is the only thing that makes us feel alive.
[21:33]We keep this love in a photograph.
[21:37]We made these memories for ourselves
[21:41]where our eyes are never closed and our hearts are never broken
[21:46]and times forever frozen still.
[21:50]So you can keep me inside the pocket of your ripped
[21:57]jeans, holding me closer to the rise, mead.
[22:03]You won't ever be alone.
[22:09]Wait for me to come home.
[22:16]Thank you.
[22:22]So moving, so beautiful.
[22:24]Oh, my gosh.
[22:25]Thank you.
[22:25]I would have brought my guitar if you'd warned me, but I think that's OK.
[22:28]Yeah.
[22:28]We'll have to close on that beautiful note.
[22:32]But I just wanted to ask one last question.
[22:34]Would you ask of your students often, which is what makes you you?
[22:39]And that to be a Jewish adult, you need to know the answers to that question.
[22:43]How would you answer that?
[22:44]What makes me me is I deeply believe in people.
[22:49]And I love.
[22:50]I deeply believe that people will be able to change this world
[22:54]and make it better.
[22:55]And that is why I do the work that I do.
[22:57]It's why I actually can feel hopeful in a time that
[23:00]feels deeply unho-ful.
[23:02]And that's why I'm grateful that we can share stories with each other,
[23:06]which is what book lovers do as we share stories.
[23:08]Because that's one of the ways we crack our hearts open and get to know each other
[23:14]in a way that we deeply need to know if we want to make the world better.
[23:17]So thank you for being part of that.
[23:20]Thank you.
[23:21]Thank you so much.
[23:22]Thank you.
[23:24]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi,
[23:27]formerly momstone have time to read books.
[23:29]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram
[23:34]at Zibi Owens, and spread the word.
[23:37]Thanks so much.
[23:38]Oh, and bye the books.