Today, as a published author, entrepreneur, ordained Rabbi, Cantor, and inclusive spiritual mentor, Rabbi Judy helps individuals embrace their past and uncover their fullest potential. She serves as the Senior Rabbi & Cantor at Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, where she fosters inclusive, supportive spaces for people of all backgrounds to connect, heal, and grow; her groundbreaking approach blends wellness, faith, and personal growth to inspire both individuals and communities worldwide.
In this enlightening conversation, Rabbi Judy shares her deeply personal journey, her insights on forgiveness, the meaning behind “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People,” and practical ways to turn chaos into calm. From releasing anxiety and depression holistically to transforming life’s challenges into opportunities for growth, this episode is packed with transformative wisdom you won’t want to miss. Be sure to tune in for this illuminating and heart-opening interview with Rabbi Judy!
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- How Rabbi Judy’s personal tragedy shaped her spiritual journey.
- The role of Kabbalah, sound healing, and somatic practices in emotional healing.
- Finding joy and meaning after loss.
- Forgiveness is an ongoing process that does not “let someone off the hook.”
- Rabbi Judy’s unique approach to personal and communal transformation.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS RABBI JUDY:
- How did losing your father at a young age lead you to explore spiritual and psychological paths in the hope of healing?
- What role does Kabbalah play in personal and communal transformation?
- How does sound bowl therapy help release and heal emotional wounds?
- Why do bad things happen to good people?
- Are suffering and challenges some sort of punishment?
Judy is offering a complimentary 30-minute call to Grief and Rebirth listeners to support anyone walking through a difficult time in life, offering perspective and strategies for healing: https://rabbicantorjudy.org/
GRIEF AND REBIRTH LINKS
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Eternity, and the Cosmic Importance of Everyday Life
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Rabbi Judy Greenfeld: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
Have I ever got an amazing woman who is both a rabbi and a cantor for you? Her name is Judy Greenfeld. She is an ordained Rabbi, a Cantor, and a Spiritual Mentor. She’s going to teach you all about what is the Kabbalah, which by the way, Madonna’s gotten into. It’s also called Qabala. She’s gotten into this very ancient advanced form of seeing spirituality. She talks about what it was like to lose her father to gun violence when she was a teenager and how that put Judy on a lifelong path of healing and spiritual exploration. I can’t invite you more enough to join me for this conversation. She’s wonderful.
I’m speaking to you from my studio in West Orange, New Jersey, and I could not be more delighted to have the pleasure interviewing Rabbi Judy Greenfeld who is not only a lifelong Entrepreneur, a Published Author and ordained Rabbi and a Cantor. Judy is also an inclusive Spiritual Mentor who guides people to embrace their past and discover their full potential. When she was just sixteen years old, Judy tragically lost her father to gun violence.
That traumatic profound experience ignited a lifelong journey of healing and spiritual exploration for Judy which included years of study and practice in somatic dance, dream work, meditation, sound healing, Reiki, and Kabbalah. Judy developed a unique healing approach to personal and communal transformation that empowers global communities through the synergy of wellness, faith, and personal growth.
She now serves as the Senior Rabbi and Cantor at Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. Beyond her rabbinical duties, Judy cultivates welcoming inclusive spaces where people of all backgrounds can come together, find support, and explore a path of self-discovery and shared purpose. I’m looking forward to talking with Judy whose work has been featured in Medium, the LA Times, the LA Daily News, and Women’s Day amongst others about her tragic experience navigating gun violence as a teenager.
Her enlightened insights about why bad things happen to good people and forgiveness, the ways we can turn chaos into calm, the holistic approach to releasing anxiety and depression, how we can alchemize our everyday challenges for our highest growth and more for what is surely going to be and illuminating wisdom filled interview. Judy, a warm heartfelt welcome to the show.
Thank you. I couldn’t be happier to be here and to speak with you and your beautiful following that I’ve heard so much about. I know that our goal and my prayer before we began was that we touched at least one person and bring them maybe out of a funk. Give them some hope. Fill them with the hope that has moved us to where we are.
Navigating Tragedy: The Impact of Gun Violence on a Teenager’s Path
I’m thrilled to have you here. I know one of the things that people will read towards the end of the interview is that you’re offering something in the way of a discovery call recession with you, which I have no doubt there are people reading who might want to make that call to you when chat with you for your tremendous wisdom and what you do. Let’s start. As I say begin the beginning by talking about your experience, tragically losing your father to gun violence and how did that lead you to explore spiritual psychological pass in the hope of healing. Tell us about your childhood their.
It’s a long way back. Sixteen is a very vulnerable age and I remember looking back and thinking I was grown up already. What’s so interesting is when tragedy hits, it’s like this you can worry about tragedy but when you’re in it or at least when I was in it, a voice comes to you. A warm feeling came into my body that said, “You’re going to be okay.” You express that and I felt that, too. I never have forgotten that.
I don’t know if it was a reach from the other side. I call it God. I call it higher wisdom, but I was coned in that. I do want to say that as painful as it was, I don’t think that I quite had the perspective of what happened until much later. I’m the youngest of five. My grandmother was there when it happened. She’s 96. God bless her. Even in the last couple of years, we’ve all gotten together with our children and her grandchildren. We have a large family to re-explore how all five of us navigated this and all in very different ways now.
That’s just who you are and what that did for me is, it expanded my consciousness to wonder if this was all there is. It’s just life. You get up in the morning, you have parents who live in a suburb. You go to school. What that did for me was to say I know now. I wasn’t afraid. There’s a whole other side, a whole other dimension, a whole other aspect of life that I’m now going to understand.
Can I ask you, Judy, how did that gun violence happen to your dad?
Turn around what's happened to you and make it your strengths rather than your weakness. Share on X
My parents were going to see a play in downtown Cleveland. They were going to their car and were held up by three Black kids who had were angry at Whites. He was held up with a sawed-off shotgun and they were being robbed. One of the kid’s gun went off and my father died. In that moment, my mother was holding him. She also became a grief therapist. She went back to school, became a grief therapist, and didn’t quite have the experiences that you had, Irene. However, she was open to them because, in my experience, she was always open to what I was experiencing.
From her, I learned one lessons that Judaism teaches. Through resilience and turning around what’s happened to you to make it your strengths rather than your weakness. That you are put on the planet to help another human being. You could get a PhD, a doctorate, and all of that in grief but unless you’ve gone through it, you can’t teach it or take somebody to their next level. It’s something that when you have a client, they want to know you’ve walked in the slop that they’re walking in.
I want to comment about how fortunate you are to have a mother who was so open-minded and such a wonderful role model for what she went through instead of shrinking and going to some swamp where that became the drama for the rest of her life. She opened and grew from it, which is so amazing and admirable.
It’s huge. It happened in ‘75. This was new to women. Going into the ability into the psychology field to do what she did. You’re like her in that way but a lot younger. I have learned, what you do with this? Grief places you in very helpless and hopeless position. It’s very lonely. You don’t think anybody understands. It takes you out of real life. As it’s going on, you’re almost feel like this outsider watching life go by and you’re thinking. Even getting jealous of people who have their fathers who have happy lives. “How come it didn’t happen to them?”
This opens this chasm in your life that you must fill. Maybe, again that is what you come into this lifetime with, “I’m a true believer and that we all have purpose.” That tragedy does to find some of our purpose. Even the Jewish people as a whole probably carried the most resilient of any group of people that I’ve ever seen. In our DNA, we come from that mentality that I have leaned on as I’ve gone through different tragedies later in life, because life is always going to give you some trauma or tragedy that you have to navigate. As a result, each time you navigated, you realize that our life is filled with that. Probably the reason I went into the field that I did, once I realized it’s also one of the most beautiful moments to meet another human being because they are vulnerable, open, and more expanded. It’s a joy to be with people at those times.
Unlocking Kabbalah: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Souls
I would think the people in your congregation are very fortunate to have you in their lives. What a blessing. Speaking of blessings, could you explain because I know you studied Kabbalah. I know that even Madonna studied Kabbalah. There are a lot of people like, “What is Kabbalah?” Can you explain about it and how you’re study of Kabbalah helped you in your life and helped you with what you went through and helped you develop this unique approach you have, the personal and communal transformation.
I just mentioned something that is one of the pieces that I can expand on because Kabbalah and mysticism. In Hebrew, the accent is on the last syllable, just like Torah, Kabalah, but we’re in America, so we say Kabbalah. There’s also a Kabbalah that is starts with a Q, which is Qabala because it’s not just unique to the Jewish people. Although, the Kabbalah means to receive. You ask what it is. I wrote two books with a co-author Tamar Frankiel about body, mind, and soul. I didn’t see the things that Kabbalah teaches written, or I’d never heard the Rabbi’s talk about it. The reason why is because supposedly, you had to be 40 years old.
Talk about the patriarchy.
There was all these contingencies, and that was the best part of Judaism, the spiritual part. When I started studying, I was 40. I was pregnant. I broke all the rules and brought some light into it to take off the witchi-ness it was about. Kabbalah is understanding that we are energy. In my book, and I even have a picture of it. It’s about energy centers.
It looks like the chakra centers.
Exactly. What it is, is this is the Jewish chakra center. If I were to take a X-ray of my soul, that’s what it looks like. Your soul is energy. Each one of those little balls of light create a triangle, like this part is for wisdom, for your heart, and emotion, and the lower is for animal instinct. The one at your feet is what you manifest into the world. Kabbalah teaches us that we are not just this physical. We are dense. This is a spiritual but physical.
I call this our bodysuits.
It’s a manifestation. In my lifetime, I was a dancer, so I knew the physical body, the circulatory, and the muscular and all that, but this is even deeper than that. It is our soul. What is the soul? The soul is the energetic part of ourselves that sometimes when somebody will say something, you’ll feel your skin like the hair on your skin. You’re like tangled or all of a sudden, you hear something. Your heart opens and you begin to cry. That is your soul moving through you.
Even more so, I have people say, “I don’t understand, Rabbi. What’s a soul?” The soul is not something that is rational for us. It’s something deep that we feel. Judaism says that when we breathe, the name for breath is the same as it is for soul. There’s this little mini teaching in that. If you think to yourself, “I don’t feel my soul,” just breathe because the breath is the last thing that leaves you when you die. It’s a first thing that God breathed life into Adam and Eve. God breathes life into us. That’s the first thing when a baby is born. It cries and it breathes.
On another level, the soul being energetic points in our system, it also helps to teach us that we are incarnated into this physical body in order to find what our true selves are to find out each one of us comes into the lifetime with a purpose. Through energetic meditation, understanding, and going above everyday life knowing that we are a soul, that we are much more than just what we go through in this physical world and in linear world. We have a bigger purpose.
When you look at suffering, I’m teaching this and explaining through a lens that is spiritual and on a higher level, but it transcends our ego. Judaism is connected to God, because God transcends our ego. That higher self is always at work because it’s the thing that inside of you says, “This doesn’t feel right. I don’t like just going to work and making money and going home or I need more.” That’s a positive thing in your life that yearns.
Kabbalah and Reincarnation: Exploring Past Lives’ Influence
We all yearn. It doesn’t mean that you’re not satisfied. You yearn to understand what this lifetime is about, who you are, and have a life. It’s a mirror that will reflect to you. Your soul is filled with values and with wisdom. It doesn’t just come from a book. That is the wisdom that is in every artery of your body because we are born with wisdom.
Isn’t it true that Kabbalah teaches about past lives or beliefs in that? When we’re talking about the wisdom that our soul has, it’s also coming from our past life experiences and what the lessons we’ve picked up along each of those ways.
There’s a belief that there’s seven heavens and we keep coming back to these lifetimes, if we’ve not achieved and discovered our sole purpose. Now, I don’t want that to sound like new age. I am trying to teach you what I went back to school to find out if it was true. I went back and I was in seminary for almost ten years. I started by becoming a Cantor through some music and was ordained then started a congregation. That congregation grew from 10 to over 100.
I had about 300 people, 100 families and family units. When I went back to seminary to become a Rabbi, I want to find out where this was said and is it true. These books are real and they happened in different times in history. You have commentary of the Talmud that talks about it. Those are our law books. When we go look at the constitution, you have law books and experiences of where they came from like you were measuring law versus weight.
That was a trial. Everything that’s in the Torah was put into trial and thought about so that in every 100 years, some of the laws changed because they didn’t work anymore. In these seven lifetimes, we’re learning because life is a curriculum. We’re constant learning about ourselves. Seven is also a numerical. In Judaism, there’s numerology and it’s called Gematria. Seven means creation. Hold that thought. I went to a funeral where this Rabbi who was not particularly spiritual had to contend with the loss of a baby and to see that. tiny casket was just heart-wrenching.
Life is a curriculum, and we're constantly learning about ourselves. Share on X
What he said, stuck with me through the rest of my life. He said, “We believe in seven heavens. That child may have been born into this lifetime for just a couple of hours because they completed.” That was so soothing for me. I don’t know if it was for anybody else, but I thought, “Wow.” My hair stood up on my arms and I thought, “We get to complete and our suffering opens us.” We don’t have a suffering religion, but our lives will have suffering in it. Even if everything seems perfect, they’re suffering. To be prepared and to frame it in a way that you can learn from and not get stuck in a loop is truly what we are taught and what’s the most important thing.
The Soul’s Journey Home: Understanding the Ultimate Purpose
What is the ultimate goal once a person reaches a seven-levels? Is it to evolve, then you stay on the other side? Is there a goal? What is the teaching about that?
There’s a beautiful prayer we say every morning that supports all of this and the Prayer Elohai Neshama says, “God, thank you for creating the soul in me. You breathed it in me. You keep it in me through my lifetime and you will take it when I’m finished.” Nissan Mendel, who writes about prayer, and an incredible teacher. He teaches that when the soul leaves the body, it goes back to source. From a purely rational standpoint, let’s imagine that there’s this big ball of energy that we can’t even imagine. That little piece of godliness comes down and comes into our bodies and grows because it is something to learn. When it’s finished, it goes back to source.
Now, if God is the all in the everything, that makes sense because every soul that’s lived in a body goes back and tells the story. Even in the first thing in the morning, the prayer is, “Thank you, God, for returning my soul to the physical body.” That’s already how we know that when we pray, Judaism is soul base. That idea, where do we go? The idea of completion, we think life is this incredibly beautiful experience and I hope we all do. Some don’t feel that way, but Earth is hard because it does have so many challenges.
It could be the toughest school.
When we go back to God, that’s fun. It might be a great thing, and I can coach another soul. I do believe in that. I know that there’s so much love when you feel contacted by that voice that we talked about or that soul from our loved one that touches us in a way. That love is Indescribable. Months ago, my cousin who I hadn’t seen in so many years. Maybe since I was fourteen. I grew up with him because there was a divorce in the family. There was a family splitting apart, but I loved him. He and his brother, we used to play with him all the time.
I had a very close relationship with them because my older sister and I were their ages, but I haven’t seen them in so long. He passed away, and over the years in Los Angeles, his son started to come to my synagogue. I loved his son so much because he looked just like him. I grabbed him up and brought him into my family. My kids are there. Some of my nieces and nephews also. We became very close. He told his dad all about me. I did speak to Barry, but he when he called me to tell me that his father was dying and when I’d be available. I literally hopped on a plane, and his father passed.
It was as I said during the fires in LA. I hadn’t seen them in so many years. They lived in Atlanta. This was so strange. As I was just on this path, there was no question like, “Should I go?” I just went. I was going up the escalator and I had my little bag with me. and I couldn’t quite get my bag to go in the right direction and I fell backwards. All of a sudden, there were these arms that was in the gentlest way caught me. It was almost like my cousin was there to catch me. It was the weirdest thing. I can’t explain it.
That’s such a beautiful thing.
It was so beautiful and soft. That could have been a disaster. Literally, the arms just felt like they fit perfectly around me. I don’t know who the stranger was. Thank you, but it was otherworldly.
It wasn’t a being behind you or some guy catching you on the end. Nothing like that.
I just fit perfectly. It was like, “I have that. That’s why I’m doing this.” I was so happy to feel that again because when you do lose a loved one, it is a blessing to dream about them. It’s usually like you had this experience but everyone’s like, “I’ll see my father or somebody that I’ve lost,” and their radiant. I think that’s the truth. As you said, my husband was a shell. I’ve been with many people as they’ve passed, my father-in-law’s.
Their essence is no longer in that body. When I saw Saul next to me in the car accident, his essence of left. It was very stark to me because everything that was the beauty of who he was through his personality that shined through his eyes and sparkled in a smile was gone. It was just a shell.
That is an amazing awareness and a light that goes on that we are assured that there is something more than this. One of my students had a hard time connecting because you have to work with words. One of my teachers said, “It’s your life force.” A plant has a life source that they get from the sun or whatever. Our soul is our life source and that word worked for her. It’s not this thing that’s so untouchable. It’s not woo-woo or new age. It’s very real and very beautiful. It’s very connected to you.
To go back very quickly, Kabbalah is our way of seeing the soul and these energy centers just like the chakras. They mean and represent something. Instead of having just one up your spine, these are balancing themselves because we can’t just be one thing or the other. For example, the triangle that is that our heart, on the right side you have love, unbounding love, but if you only have love, then it could turn negative. On the left side, you have a container and a structure for love and ways of being able to have just enough love. It’s discipline.
When you are balancing that, it balances into the heart, which is T-ferot, which is where that right amount pours into the heart. Those moments are brief because we’re constantly trying to rebalance and that’s our life. Struggle and balance is our life. I said, if in the Torah or in the Bible, if God wanted us to just love God, why didn’t he just take us to Hawaii and say, “Let’s have a great time?” Held with struggle and overcoming that, which is who you are, Irene.
It’s who we all hope to be and we all need to be. A lot of people don’t understand or don’t get that you have these struggles but that’s not where you’re supposed to stay. It’s a journey and it’s just about the life journey that you have. Those are often lessons to take you. I can honestly say, weeks ago, I had a very tough day. I was thinking as I went through, I kept saying, “What lessons am I learning from this because there is someone in my life who’s going to learn from this lesson that I just had?”
Sound Bowl Therapy: Vibrational Healing for Emotional Release
Instead of saying, “What a terrible day. I’m going to tell the story to people for the rest of my life. It was a drama.” No. It helped me to process it and get through that difficult time. Now, that we’re talked about Kabbalah, I know you also got into sound bowl therapy. A lot of people don’t know what that is all about and how did that help you. I know that has to do with vibration. Anyone has ever listened to music or whatever, can transport you to many different places. How does sound bowl therapy help to release and heal emotional wounds? How do control breathing techniques calm the nervous system and bring a sense of peace? I know that you use both to help people.
When I went through my divorce, I was traumatized. I was married for 30 years and I thought this was it. I had gone through regular therapy. You name it. I had done it. The emotions that I felt after that, the heartbreak, and the breaking away of all these layers was just excruciating. I didn’t believe in speaking therapy anymore. I was just done. I realized that I found teachers who said, “You can move that motion through your body.”
Being a dancer and connected to my body, I decided that I wanted those emotions to move out, or as you had mentioned, you said the word alchemize your emotions. Being a society that did that between the twelve-step program and therapy, we were enmeshed in going, “What do I feel? How do I feel? How do I get out of the feeling?” There were so many things I was taught and I’m a good learner, but then you can’t rationalize yourself out of certain and out of grief.
It has to be almost a physical thing because your brain gets locked in place. This is where it’s interesting. You have a physical body, a muscular body, a circulatory system and a bone structure. There’s all these deep systems that you’re working on and this is probably the deepest because you start to realize that those organs and that circulatory system are affected by outside things and that’s your nervous system. The nervous system, when you go through trauma, it freezes. You freeze like an animal.
I can identify.
Every soul that's lived in a body goes back and tells the story. Share on X
Your brain freezes. Since there’s been the study of neuropathy, neurology, the psychiatrist, and how different drugs affect the brain. Now, there’s been this study to take a look at what happens to the brain during trauma. I thought to myself, and I started to work on that level because your brain changes during trauma. When you breathe, you are affecting your brain and you can feel that as a singer, I know that.
You learn to not just breathe like that or to grab breaths, but you receive breathing. I’m sure people who are athletes know this. Once you hit that sweet spot, you’re breathing it slow and steady because your body’s used to being at a very high frequency and then that’s when you start to hit your groove. I’m explaining in a couple levels of people can understand who have different frames of reference.
Singing and vibration can be two different things. I know that we’ve said, “If you listen to a certain Mozart. It evokes a certain feeling and if a certain musical make you feel agitated.” Also beautiful music or well composed music, but sound healing even goes beyond that which I found fascinating because vibration is cosmic. It goes into a universal language of planets.
The cosmos is the only can explain it. For any of you who even saw Close Encounters of the third, there’s some wisdom to that because anyone who studied music knows there’s certain sequences like a fifth or a fourth that is sacred. What does that mean? It means it evokes something more holy in you. The crystalline bowls that I’ve learned to play, I learned because of COVID. It was a very isolating time. I felt the energy was being pressed down. The only way that I could lift up that energy I thought, or I started to realize was through vibration.
These particular bowls, which are crystalline. They’re thin. They’re not the big white bowls. They are infused with herbs. They are amazing. They come from a certain place and are infused with metals that we need in our body and crystals that are used for healing. For example, let’s just say that our heart was in pain. The sound coordinates to the different notes on a scale. That’s how chakras are, too. People work with chakras vibrationally and with these bowls because it transcends the intellect. It’s working almost on a cellular level and cells don’t think, which is a relief.
The rest of us is doing it overtime.
That was very freeing. These bowls that are infused with it, when you hear their sound, it sounds like heaven. I found this woman who was doing this in LA and I got online. There were hundreds of us from all over the world. She is called the Copper Vessel. Her name is Susy Schieffelin, who I just adore. She has this whole community of sound healers. What was amazing is, I did these bowls for myself but they changed me. I then realized, “My congregation is here I am. Taking mine up.”
I realized people were so exhausted and all you need to do is lay there and receive. You don’t have to know what you’re doing, but what it does is it affects the brain and our bodies are also water. It affects the water in our system. Brain waves have been measured by biofeedback. When we’re like this, it’s you and me having this chat and we’re realizing that we can connect and all of that.
When we go to the next level, it’s a little slower and this is that meditation. It allows you to go inside yourself. Not with chatter. It’s very similar to when you are underwater. You go deeper and deeper and you look above. You can see the water, but the lower you go, the calmer it is. That calm place is what you will get to when you meditate, but the samples take you there right away.
That’s fabulous. Let me ask you, when you do the sound bowl healing, I’m sure you do it in person in your synagogue and all. Do you also do it remotely or it doesn’t work the same way?
Yes. I was shocked. I learned this online and I thought I couldn’t meet with people in person.
That’s amazing. It’s online and it’s happening from so far away, yet the vibration is still coming in to you to help you heal.
That’s what I find amazing. Your body will absorb what it needs just like a vitamin. I was surprised because the bowls are 432 hertz. What that means is, their vibration is a little bit lower than when we listen to music. Our musical systems have ramped up the vibration of music, and 432 hertz is the sound that we may not even be aware that we’re hearing of the forest and of the beach.
Do you know how you just feel great when you come? It’s because your body’s been absorbing 432 hertz. What happened years ago, all orchestras used to tune their instruments to the note A at 432 hertz. When music became digital, it changed and now we can’t do that anymore. If I played my bowls with an orchestra, they would sound slightly flat.
You just want me something interesting because I grew up playing the violin. I remember we always tuned my violin. I would have the A and the whole orchestra with tuned to that. I’m dating myself, but I didn’t know that it’s changed that way.
I don’t think many people know that. I find it fascinating. These bowls, what I find happens is that when you receive information from the intellect, when you go then do a sample experience, it starts to drip into your entire body. You know from your experience what you learned in that horrible crash and that moment will stay with you for life. You have lessons that are beyond from that physical experience. I’m a real kinetic learner, so I have to feel things. When I learn it going in fully with my full body, mind, and soul. I have lessons to teach. I don’t need another book. It’s there.
Rabbi Judy’s Approach: Blending Tradition with Diverse Modalities
Judy, with all of these different things that you’ve learned, speaking of Kabbalah, sound healing, meditation, dream work, Reiki, and somatic dance. You have this very unique approach to personal and communal transformation based on all that, which not only does it help with physical pain, but emotional pain that includes both physical and spiritual practices for anxiety and depression.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone with anxiety and depression of this world. We’re all walking around that seems to be with some form of it. How do you use all of your alchemized, integrated systems to help people who come to you and think, “I’ve come to a synagogue and I’m going to get this.” It’s not your typical synagogue and you are helping people with all these different modalities which is so wonderful.
Thank you. I have to say I don’t just come out with everything. When I was hired by the synagogue, it’s a straight reform synagogue. I also have been doing this for so many years. I’ve written two books, one called, Minding the Temple of the Soul and the other one called Entering the Temple of Dreams. Years ago, when I wrote these books cracked open or cracked the glass ceiling of letting people know that I had a different awareness that I was bringing through.
Judy has the most truly become my spiritual practice, using the ancient prayers and all those things. Now, I know how to use that stuff that it does transform and elevate me. When I’m elevated that’s lifting your vibration. It’s creating an energy in my body. It’s all interlinked. We’re living at an incredible time where science, religion, medicine, and psychology is all the same thing. It all let us know that we’re on the right track because what we yearn for is to know who we are, and what we’re meant to do here.
What I have done by integrated, I’ve spent years trying to figure out the language, how it’s not weird and how it doesn’t scare people. I don’t use the modalities all the time. Sometimes, I come off as a straight Rabbi. Not bring any of this in. I get a sense for what people can handle and what is healing for them because that’s my job. That’s what I want to do. I want to bring a sense of comfort, healing, and letting you know that you’re not alone.
Anyone who is out there, that isolation is worse than anything. It’s feeling like, “I’m the only one. Why me?” To find out that you’re not alone is wonderful and to be able to open up and talk about it is almost you’re dispersing the stuff. There are compassionate people around you. Judaism puts compassion right up front. You need to be compassionate. You need to learn what that is. It’s not just taking on everybody’s stuff.
Kabbalah is our way of seeing the soul as these energy centers. Share on X
It’s being able to help transform it. My approach depends. This synagogue is different from Los Angeles. Imagine, I don’t do want to come off as being, “She’s the California Rabbi.” I did let them know that I had other talents than just being a straight Rabbi being able to dive in and all those things. That’s what makes me a holistic leader because I’ve gone through ten years of seminary where it was straight. I can read the scripture. I know what it’s saying, but it also has the ability to take it to another level.
What I learned in Rabbinic school and Rabbis don’t tell you this. Maybe because they didn’t want to let everybody know that they could understand what was being said. When you study, you have to study on four levels. The first level is called P’shat. It’s the story. For example, you study Noah and his arc, so you have to know that story. There’s another level called Remez. Remez is looking at the metaphors because a lot of the Bible, Torah, the old stories are metaphor to start to put them together and to understand, “Why an arc? Why animals?”
The Earth was having problems, and there was no compassion for other people. Psychology will tell you that if you want to develop compassion, get an animal. Think about COVID. The minute you look at a little screen with a dog, your heart opens. In this cocoon, the arc was alone and it’s a creation story. When you hear that it becomes very interesting.
The third level is called the Derash. It’s the story I’m telling you now, where I can put this together. The fourth level is Sod, the secrets, Kabbalah, and numerology. The little places where maybe one of the letters is bigger than the other. It’s what I call the text winking at you. Every time I approach a Torah portion, there’s 54 of them. You do one a week. Sometimes, they’re doubled up. I feel like I’m in an archaeological dig. It’s so much fun to find out. There’s many brilliant teachers from the Talmud and from ancient times that we’re exploring all of this. That’s all they did all day.
To know that ancient wisdom isn’t there. It’s there because it’s true. It’s not covered over by all the stuff that we experience in our world. That’s my approach, and my approach is to tell the truth because there’s some things I don’t like in Judaism. You also need to know that Rabbis explore different laws. There’s a board of Rabbis that, for example, with the gay and the lesbian community. They have changed a lot of the text where it said things that it shouldn’t have said.
It was very patriarchal.
Also, very anti-gay and all of that. You have to update your Judaism. You can be buried in a graveyard if you have tattoos. That was taken from rules that are in the same level of as driving on Shabbat. It also break a lot of that myths that were taught and we thought were Judaism and they’re not. It was what the Rabbis wanted to tell you a certain time.
Rabbinic Evolution: Reinterpreting Judaism through Compassion, Inclusion, and Truth
What a blessing to be in your congregation. You must be opening up a lot of minds. I’m sure you’re speaking to those who know what they know and they don’t want to know anything else. You have those, too. They’re not going there and they still think it’s crazy, but you have other people that you’re opening a door for them and some of the light is coming in.
That’s wonderful. Let me ask you also. You talked about the process of forgiveness and tell us. A lot of people say, “What is this forgiveness? I’m going to let someone off the hook?” Could you in your heart forgive those three men? The one especially who killed your father How does that work? What is that about?
I also teach the months of the year and the holidays and how that is a cycle. It’s a cyclical religion. All of those holidays are taking us somewhere emotionally, spiritually, and physically. We learn those holidays in the different months because we are an agricultural people. Our calendar fits right into ancient calendar time because we also are governed by the Moon. We are not people of the Sun. We are guided by a Moon calendar, which is very feminine.
The reason I bring this up is because right before the high holidays, think of them as the 12:00. Right before in August, there is a holiday. The week before Rosh Hashanah, which is head of the year but it’s also a spiritual moment where you are figuring out who you have to forgive. A week before is a holiday called Selichot. At Selichot, sometimes if you go, you’ll see them changing the mantles of the Torah, but Selichot means forgiveness.
It’s the trailer version saying, “This is what’s coming up now, so start preparing.” Your job at Rosh Hashanah especially is to start forgiving because only through forgiveness comes freedom. We’ve heard this before, but the truth is, it’s a hard process. Maimonides is the great philosopher and Rabbi. He was a rabbi by night and by day, he was a pediatrician. He lived in the 1100s and in the Fustat and his palace, he was their pediatrician. He was brilliant.
He says that if somebody comes to you three times and ask forgiveness and you don’t give them forgiveness. You’re done, because three is a number of completion. That forgiveness will come and go, but the forgiveness is needed for your health because the only one who suffers is you, who’s looping the story and wanting to get like being in a trial and you want to be right. That’s so hard to give it, and you probably are right and that person isn’t thinking about you. That person thinks they’re right.
I find a brilliant that Judaism even created a holiday like a neon saying, “This is your work. Forget getting bored in synagogue. Forget praying all those prayers. Your job is to think about maybe the five people who you need to forgive or who you need to ask forgiveness from or what do you need to forgive in yourself.”
Those five people that you have to forgive, for one, they have to forgive. That doesn’t mean that what they did is okay. It’s about you letting go of it. Correct?
Yes. Also, that’s the fears of, “You’re letting them off the hook.” No. I asked people to replay with the word. It’s forgiving to God and that isn’t just that. I haven’t just said that. This is something that’s many people talk about and there’s books on this. I’m just bringing you the best of, but only in that way are you going to be willing to do it because of the fear that you’re letting somebody off the hook. It doesn’t mean you have to be friends with them again.
It means you come to a place where there’s no more of this energy that’s like angry and uncomfortable if you see them. It’s this calm. You almost forget what happened. Forgiving isn’t forgetting either. It’s being wise but it’s letting go. It’s letting go of your side of the toe-rope then they have to deal with their stuff because if you let go, God takes care of it. They will have their day.
You’re not going to be consumed with them. They’re not going to take up all space in your head, which keeps you from having joy and being your present moments.
It’s the stories. You end up in your stories and no one wants to hear them after a while. Even you get sick and tired of your story. The other thing is, that’s when you give in to the fact that there is some sense of justice. I do believe that there’s karmic justice. It’s also called something in Kabbalah, k’neged k’middah k’neged. It means that what goes around comes around. It’s a very ancient kabbalistic teaching to not worry about that. It’s not your job to bring somebody to justice.
I always say they’ll get it when they cross over. When they get their life review, they will feel what they did. That will be their lesson. I don’t have to wait for it to happen in this actual lifetime that it will happen. I have to let go of that. My thing is not to be consumed by it.
It was so interesting because I became fascinated with people like, “How did people from the Holocaust forgive?” I found this incredible woman named Eva Kor, who forgave Mangala. She had this little movie that was made. I brought her to my congregation because people were angry at her. “How could you forgive Mangala? How could you allow for that?” He caused the death of her twin sister, but what she taught was brilliant. It was, “Until I let go, I could not live my life.”
That’s a very high level. We can’t all get there. That being said, I don’t know if you can forgive everything. Number one, they won did write to my mother. I don’t know if you can forgive that. I don’t know if you can forgive rape. I wouldn’t say everything and the true law has to deal with. That churning and that letting go is crucial to our wellbeing. I believe the justice system should bring people to justice. It doesn’t always do that. I don’t even know if it’s doing its job anymore.
Only through forgiveness comes freedom. Share on X
Some of my faith is being shaken, but I do think the earth, the cosmos yearns for balance. It does. On a scientific level, there has to be something that balances out where everybody pays their due. The last thing I want to say is because we go through this process every year, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, then it ends into Sukkot. That whole experience is meant to let us know because I will say this to nine Jewish. I said, “Jewish people don’t go to hell. Their hell is their unfinished business.”
Your hell is the things that you know you have to come clean about. I kept secrets. I had an experience where I talked to another trauma. One of my teachers was a predator in Cantorial and Rabbinic school. I could not tell the story about myself for years and years. When I started to do those bowls, it came to the surface and I couldn’t live with the secret anymore. It was so scary. I know that I alienated a lot of people and I was not popular. I’m still not popular, but I don’t live with secrets anymore.
It made me sick inside. It made me almost suicidal. At that point when it became so painful, I said to myself, “I’m more important than that man’s secret.” He’s a high-power. He still is. The canter still won’t acknowledge it. I had lawyers. I had to find my own lawyers and they say that they’re going to protect you but they don’t. It’s still ongoing and it’s still something I have to let go of. I did what I know to be true and important. I told the truth. For that, every day I love myself even more.
You breathe free within you, even though a lot of people in the 3D world are attacking you for your truth because you’re threatening to them. I understand. That leads me right to my big question of the Rabbi. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do we suffer and endure these challenges? Why did you go through that in the first place? What is all that about? Here you’re such a good person, did you need that? No.
Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? Finding Meaning in Suffering
Exactly. That’s the first thing we say. If somebody gets sick, it’s not because they did anything wrong. It isn’t. If there’s a tsunami, it’s not because a certain people have to go beg all of you out there who thinks that. No, that’s not the truth. However, like yourself, Irene, look how you came through a tragedy that very few people could ever be the way that you are. This brilliant light, that came out of you, bad things happen to all people.
That’s what we have. Some people feel like they’re unlucky. It’s your perspective. When somebody says, “It’s just a bad luck.” Guess what? You could look at everything as bad luck because as I said, you’re not living in Hawaii with millions of dollars. You don’t have the airplane to take you there. I don’t even think they’re happy. Bad things happen everywhere. That was my first question.
I remember right after my divorce I went to Israel. I went, “Why did that predator into my life and it caused my divorce? Why did that have to happen? I was working for you, God. I don’t want to pursue this anymore.” My orthodox friend who was not orthodox growing up, she said, “That’s not what it’s about. God isn’t doing this to you. Everybody has struggles. It’s what you’re going to do with this experience.”
We live in a world that’s very black and white. We look at people and let’s say they’re on the down and everyone runs away from it. I have one friend left when I got my divorce. Everyone thinks you’re going to catch your bad luck. Let me tell you, it’s just not the truth. It’s what our society does because human beings have to learn to be good people. They’re not born with that instinct. We’ve learned to be spiritual people. We’re animals.
You’re right. If you see a little toddler, they have to be taught. What is it the Rabbi say if you get a child until they’re six years old, because you’re training that little animal to be a civilized human being.
We all have to keep learning how to be civilized and kind. Not everybody gets an imprint as you did, Irene. You were imprinted. When people have bad things happen, that child gets sick. I went through years ago when my son got testicular cancer. You could probably say, “Judy, I don’t want to tell you how many surgeries I had”. I remember I was losing my faith. I thought, “God, I don’t want this one. This one, I’m sorry. I’m not doing it.”
I didn’t even know where to turn anymore. I couldn’t find a prayer. I couldn’t find a way. How was I going to work with this? I remember thinking being literally at the last house on the block, if that’s what it felt like, where I had to make a choice. You either get negative and you crawl under your covers or you start to get hope. You start to get your hands dirty and you sit with him. You walk through it in all of that pain. It changed.
Joy is being happy with your lot. Share on X
I shared about it. I talked to people about it. We walked through it together. I said at his side as he got chemo and he’s fine now. I didn’t know he’d be fine, but I have to tell you the hard stuff is nauseating. I’m a kicker and screamer. I don’t like it, but I just do it anyway. There’s no easy way. I sit here on the other side of a lot. I thank God every day for that, but we’re not immune. If you become a Rabbi, there’s no insurance package if you’re a good jew. No.
Anything like that. On the spiritual level, a lot of people teach at these challenges that we face is to learn lessons. You learned a lesson from what happened with your son because by tuning into love and staying positive, you didn’t fall apart, which was good for him. Also, you found out that there was another side to it that was a brighter side. You didn’t live in the darker place.
I want to say for anybody out there, I did for a little while. I can’t say that I just sprung up and was able to call on that higher self. Anybody going through depression, it isn’t easy. Sometimes you need medicine because maybe chemically something has happened. Sometimes you might try something and it doesn’t work. I have tried. I’m one of those people that don’t give up. I probably tried everything that’s out there.
That goes for Western, Eastern or whatever, because I’m a seeker. I do believe and even the Bible, if you look at it, we look at history from hindsight. We know we made it because we’re here. That gives me a lot of faith, believe it or not, but I’m not in those trenches. I don’t know what I would feel like if I was in the Warsaw get go. I don’t know how positive I could be.
I’m telling the truth because I want people to know that you Rabbis or your mentors or your teachers only know this because we struggle that hard. I’m telling you, Irene. She looks like, a ten-years-old because I don’t see any wrinkles in her face. She comes from so much wisdom because she has rolled her sleeves back and gotten her hands dirty because she refuses as I do to give in. We want to live this life.
I have a book now. My second book is called Good to the Last Drop. I have about 24 different stories of people who have been in the trenches and what they did with their lives and how they’re creating legacy now with the last chapter of their lives. It’s very much in keeping with what we’re talking about, Judy.
It’s a very inspiring read, truly. With that you’re so wonderful, so well-spoken, and articulate. You are offering something that is so wonderful for the members of our audience. I would be one of the first ones making a call. Can I have that complimentary call with you? Can you tell us about your special offer for our audience?
You can look on my website. There is a consultation opportunity. It is www.RabbiCantorJudy.org. You on can find on social media where I share many of those topics, many of the uplifting topics to let you know that you’re not alone and you have kindred spirit. You have people who want to give you strength that you walk through some of your dark times because you do have to take a walk through them. We don’t want you sitting in them. You have something to offer.
You’re also offering a complimentary 30-minute call to anyone who wants to chat with you.
I think it’s a fifteen minute. I have to double check. I may not have the answers for you, but I certainly might. I might be able to give you some direction. Also, my social media is Rabbi Cantor Judy. You’ll also find it on Facebook and you’ll just see Judy Greenfeld. There’s different ways of being able to tap in and I have a TikTok account. It’s same thing. Find me.
We will be providing all the information for everyone because after they read, they’re going to want to give you a call. My pleasure. Would you like to tell people, as we draw to a close, how does tapping into a personalized, spiritual or faith-based practice help a person to navigate the highs and lows of life? Why should people get involved in a spiritual or faith-based practice? How does that change their wives? There’s so many different belief systems at all.
The Importance of Community and Shared Experience in Healing
It’s not the answer, but I do believe that whether it’s faith-based or not. First, I want is faith-based. There’s the hope that they’re the highest person. It’s not one person running this. God is your employer, which is the most important thing. You need to find a group that you can talk to. You need to share what you’re feeling. As dark as you might think it is, it has to come out of you. Also, dispersed because to carry it alone will create depression and anxiety, even just to say to someone. “I’m anxious. I just want to hear your voice.” That’s okay.
We all feel anxiety, but the idea that it humbles you and makes you a person and part of this world. Nobody does it alone. I tiptoe through faith-based communities because you want to find one that is your match. They aren’t all your match, but it’s important especially after COVID to find people to be face-to-face with. I know that for myself. It has created a lot of isolation for people and that’s not healthy either.
It’s a form of healing, is what you’re talking about. Would you like to tell everyone why they should not stay in their suffering and why they should attempt to have the courage to heal their stuff?
Yes, because we need you. If you’re listening to Irene, you are filled with hope. You’re filled with good stuff and we need you to find what your true path is because we all represent what they say a letter in the scroll. All of our experience, strength, and hope is needed because you don’t know who you’re going to help. It’s needed in our world because we need a lot of choices. Different things help at different times. Be who you are meant to be, so that we get to learn about you and learn from you.
That’s beautiful. When people can be with their meant to be that means they’ve healed their backpack that they’re carrying filled with suffering, would you say?
They get to feel joy, which is what you tell us.
Speaking of joy, what is the Rabbi Judy tip for finding joy in life?
Letting go. Letting that stuff go and finding people to share with. There’s a lot of definitions that the Rabbis can give you about joy because at certain holidays, your commanded to feel joy. People have said, “I don’t want to be commanded to feel joy.”
“I feel lousy. Why do I have to do that?”
They say that our ancestors and our forefathers taught, how do you find joy? Joy is being happy with your lot. I’ve had people say, “I don’t like where I am. I wanted to be here. I wanted to be there.” The truth is a squirrel cannot be an elephant. Part of this is loving who you are in this moment. Whether you’re feeling bad or not, you’re still a beautiful being that has something to offer.
It’s sitting with yourself, even if you’re in an uncomfortable place. To be the best person in that uncomfortable place so you can move because you have to move. Movement is the only thing that brings help. Think of the difference between a stagnant pond and a moving stream. You must be that moving stream.
That’s beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much, Judy.
You’re welcome.
Your unique healing approach to personal and communal transformation has enhanced your mission to support others through all phases of life, guiding them towards self-discovery and shared purpose. Thank you for the remarkable ways. You are empowering global communities through the synergy of wellness, faith, and personal growth. I thank you from my heart for this illuminating wisdom filled interview on the show. As I like to say and as they say in Kabbalah, to be continued. Thank you, Judy. Many blessings.
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Thanks for reading the show. Remember, you can dive deeper into everything we’ve discussed by checking out all past episodes at IreneWeinerg.com. Don’t forget to follow us on social media at @IreneSWeinberg on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and wherever you love to hang out online. Plus, we’re on YouTube. Be sure to subscribe and never miss a video. For those of you reading, you’ll find links to my two books, Good to the Last Drop and They Serve Bagels in Heaven.
If you’re watching on YouTube, you can see those books listed right above, so don’t miss out. Here comes a special treat. If you sign up for audible as a first-time user using my link, you can get They Serve Bagels in Heaven for free. Finally, people often ask me what I read, what I use and what I recommend for healing and self-care. I have carefully curated a compilation of those items to share with you. You could head over to KIT.co/GriefAndRebirth to check them out. Thanks again. Until next time. Many blessings.
Guest Links:
- Judy Greenfeld’s complimentary 30-minute call to Grief and Rebirth listeners
- Connect with Judy Greenfeld on Instagram
- Connect with Judy Greenfeld on Facebook
- Beth Israel Synagogue
- Susy Schieffelin
- Minding the Temple of the Soul: Balancing Body, Mind & Spirit through Traditional Jewish Prayer, Movement and Meditation
- Entering the Temple of Dreams: Jewish Prayers, Movements, and Meditations for the End of the Day
Host Links
- Connect with Irene Weinberg on Instagram
- Connect with Irene Weinberg on Facebook
- Connect with Irene Weinberg on TikTok
- Good To The Last Drop!
- They Serve Bagels in Heaven
- KIT.co/GriefAndRebirth
About Rabbi Judy Greenfeld
Judy Greenfeld is a Rabbi/Cantor, lifelong entrepreneur, and published author dedicated to empowering forward-thinkers to evolve through ancient wisdom and modern wellness. At 16, Judy tragically lost her father to gun violence, a profound experience that ignited her lifelong journey of healing and spiritual exploration. Through years of study and practice in somatic dance, dream work, meditation, sound healing, and Kabbalah, she developed a unique approach to personal and communal transformation. Ordained as a Rabbi/Cantor, she founded Nachshon Minyan, a welcoming community for unaffiliated Jews seeking to rewrite their negative stories about religion, and now serves as Senior Rabbi/Cantor at Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. Beyond her Rabbinical duties, Judy’s mission is to cultivate inclusive spaces where people of all backgrounds can come together, find support, and explore a path of self-discovery and shared purpose.
