Is Irwin Kula America’s rabbi?
It’s a question Kula quickly dismisses. But with his recent PBS special, a bestselling book and public speaking engagements scheduled through 2007, the New York rabbi might have earned the title by default.
That bestseller, “Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life,” seems to have struck a chord. Kula is now a regular guest on “The Today Show,” where he weighs in on all manner of thoughtful topics, like gratitude and forgiveness.
Kula will speak at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on Monday, Jan. 29.
His book and its theme — that life may be messy, but traditional Jewish wisdom can teach anyone to turn messes into something positive — has rubbed some in the Jewish community the wrong way. They feel Kula focuses too much on building up a non-Jewish audience at the expense of Jews.
Kula scoffs at the notion.
“We should close up the Jewish identity shop,” says the rabbi, who also serves as co-president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. “It’s not about identity. It’s about whether [Jewish] wisdom can respond to existential psychological questions all human beings have, whether in the backwoods of Africa or the Upper West Side. Jewish wisdom is not just for Jews; it’s for anybody.”
Kula’s book draws on familiar Jewish sources, from Torah and Talmud to later sages, but he frames his points in language he hopes non-Jews will understand.
So far, says Kula, the broader Jewish community hasn’t shown much interest. While his book has been reviewed in major newspapers across the country, including a Page One story in the New York Times, it “doesn’t get a blip” from Jewish media, he says.
“Their feeling is, it’s not a Jewish book,” notes Kula. “The only way is if it teaches Judaism. ‘Here are the Jewish holidays, lifecycle events, customs, and if you do these then you’re a good Jew.’ But I don’t teach people how to be Jewish — I use Jewish wisdom to help people become more deeply human.”
Kula says 9/11 was the “touchstone” that inspired him to reach out beyond the borders of the Jewish world. Recalling the weeks after the tragedy, he says, “There wasn’t one Jewish wisdom person with anything to offer. The fact that religious leaders from Jerry Falwell to Deepak Chopra had something to say, yet nowhere was there a Jewish religious leader, freaked me out.”
The rabbi made an impact on a PBS “Frontline” documentary, “Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero,” which aired a year after 9/11. In the program, Kula described his personal devastation, and then chanted in ancient Jewish trope the last words some 9/11 victims left on voicemails.
It was a singularly electrifying TV moment and helped propel Kula to national prominence. From there he began writing his new book with co-author Linda Lowenthal.
Kula’s first conscious encounter with “sacred messiness” came decades ago, at age 9, while fighting with his younger brother.
“I pushed him,” he remembers, “and he made a hole in the wall, which we hid with pillows. One day my mother pulled away the pillows. Then she came up with a bucket of art supplies and said, ‘I want you two to decorate his dent together.’ What I learned is, messiness can be transformed. What [Jewish] wisdom allows me to do is live with high levels of ambiguity and paradox.”
Kula cites Harold Kushner and Shmuley Boteach as perhaps the only other rabbis on the national scene reaching out across ecumenical lines. But Kula thinks he’s having an impact. “I get 200 emails a day,” he says, “with some writing ‘I didn’t know this is Judaism,’ or ‘I never spoke to a rabbi, but thank you.'”
And to the charge that Kula may have “dumbed down” Jewish wisdom to reach a mass audience, the rabbi has a ready reply.
“We have two yearnings: One for simplicity and one to understand complexity. That manifests in the tradition itself,” he says. “On one hand we have 20 volumes of Talmud that require much knowledge to penetrate. On the other we have a statement like Hillel’s [‘That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary’]. I can show you the desire for the sound byte in the 7th century.”
Irwin Kula will speak 8 p.m Monday, Jan. 29, at the JCCSF, 3200 California St., S.F. Tickets: $8-$10. Information: (415) 292-1233.
“Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life” by Irwin Kula ($23.95, Hyperion, 316 pages).