Welcome to the Times of Israel's What Matters now, a weekly podcast looking into one issue affecting Israel and the Jewish world right now.

I'm your host deputy editor, Amanda Borchelle Dan, here with Daniel Gordas, an author, a scholar, a rabbi, an activist sometimes at times of Israel blogger.

And Daniel, just to begin with, thank you so much for coming here.

Thank you.

Oh, Amanda, that's really a joy.

I am a regular listener to your podcast.

You do a fabulous job.

It's an honor to be on it with you.

Such a pleasure having you.

And I listed out all your various hats that you wear, author, scholar, rabbi, activist blogger, of course.

And I wonder how you see yourself today right now.

Which one is at the forefront?

You didn't mention Saba.

So I think I would have to put grandfather at the top of the list.

Probably takes more time than any of those other ones these days, which is a wonderful thing. But more professionally, I would say, I'm trying, I don't know that I

would pick any of those words, but in the work that I'm doing on the blog and the podcast, I'm

trying to actually open up a prism of, for people who live outside of Israel, mostly, not exclusively,

but mostly, to get a peek into the soul of what's

going on in Israel. So I would call myself sort of like a curtain puller aside, you know,

pull the curtains aside and let people peep in through the window. It's, I hope, based in some

scholarship, and I, there are moments that it has a kind of a quasi-religious mention here or there, though I stay far away from that usually.

Not really an activist or an advocate, but really just someone who deeply loves this country, who is very sad about what's happened and very optimistic at the same time, by the way.

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