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For three years, this podcast has brought you a new episode nearly every single week, adding up to more than 160 stories designed to bring a little bit of joy and wisdom into your lives. For now, we're taking a little break – but Rabbi Leora Kaye has one final story to share.

How can we embrace Judaism from not only a queer perspective, but also a “political” one? Max Antman (he/him), a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, discusses how being a gay man influences his reading of Torah, how his Reform synagogue empowered his gay identity, and the sacred relationship between activism and studying Jewish text.

This week’s guest, Cantor Laura Stein, shares her perspectives on how we can best care for those around us, the (lack of) tension between being Jewish and being a lesbian, and how her spiritual leadership inspires her social work at Mount Sinai Hospital's Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery.

Judaism is in a constant state of reform, and our approach to LGBTQ+ inclusivity should be, too. Leonard Slutsky (he/him), a Union for Reform Judaism lay leader and college admissions counselor, shares his experiences as a gay cisgender Jewish man; how Reform Jewish spaces affirmed his gay identity; how Judaism inspires his work as a suicide hotline volunteer; and how our communities can better serve queer Jews of all backgrounds. “I feel that it’s my role as someone who has a great deal of privilege, especially within the queer community,” he says, “to use it and help support those who don’t have as much as a voice.”