Irwin Kula

 Irwin is an 8th generation Rabbi from New York City and a family man. Fast Company Magazine and “Religion and Ethics Newsweekly” (PBS), NBC-TV’s “The Today Show,” have all covered Rabbi Irwin Kula.

In 2006 Rabbi Irwin Kula has recently released a book called Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life and he is kind enough to share some of his Jewish Wisdom to the marketplace of ideas in the free world.

A Rabbi is an accredited teacher by other teachers. Rabbi Irwin Kula shares the Jewish Wisdom he has accumulated over the years. He talks about coercive fundamentalism with plenty of depth and how to access the wisdom. He shares that he is willing to take the Jewish Wisdom public.

In America the wisdom is not just for Jews. His book teaches how to love more deeply, how to be happier and more creative using an ancient tradition. Irwin talks about the messiness of life which is every where around us. He is not judgmental and finds understanding. Today we are filled with so much change and destabilizing factors we want to step back a little bit and find the meaning of the messiness in life. The messiness does not feel great when we are sitting in it. Men should understand the messiness and cursing around birth, it is hard work to stay in this and sit with the uncertainty we are able to learn and grow.

We yearn to know the truth about things. He talks about the Garden of Eden and the perfect life with no change being the first story in the Bible. The Bible is the first love story interpreted by fundamentalist the literal level. Psycho spiritual levels and all the Bible is the first record at those levels. We look at them as trivial Bible stores or we interpret them as exactly as we are supposed to do or we are bad people and we have been losing the wisdom of the stories.

Ministers, Rabbi’s and Priests can see religious traditions as tool boxes. The more we can get different tools in play from other religions and Rabbi Irwin practices what he preaches. He entered a church which is against the law for a traditional Jew. You will learn what happened when he spent 45 minutes in the Catholic Church. He likes sacred spaces and it has led him to many sacred spaces. Sacred = life intensity.

We talk about Mother Theresa and her Sainthood, which leads us to a conversation about judgment and why Sainthood is so complicated. Listen to Rabbi Kula reflect about the Jewish rapper Matisyahu, Matthew Paul Miller and hip hop reggae music and Jewish people wearing tattoos.

Rabbi Kula has a definition of God and is clear on that definition of God and he defines God in it’s fullest dimension and infinitude. He shares an exercise that will change your life every time you use the name God. To Rabbi Irwin Kula everything is God in drag.

Self Help and Fundamentalism, he is trying to find a niche between self help and fundamentalism and find the partial truths in all of them and do the tools work? He yearns for more self awareness and being compassionate for himself.

“It” is very complicated and not complicated at all, most of life you do not control at all but you do have to attend to it and everything is an opportunity. He talks about the multi-faith families and the loss and gain in the relationships.