Tag Tuck and Rachel Schmelkin

[00:07] TAG TUCK: Hi, I'm tag Tuck. I'm 46 years old. Today's August 10, 2022. I'm in Lincoln, Nebraska. My partner's name is Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin and I'm really excited to get to have this conversation with my friend today.

[00:28] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Hi, I'm Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin I'm 33. Today is August 10, 2022. I'm in Arlington, Virginia. Today I'm having a conversation with Pastor tag Tuck, and he's a friend and a colleague and my one small step conversation partner.

[00:50] TAG TUCK: So, Rachel, why did you want to do this interview today?

[00:56] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I really just wanted an excuse to talk to you, and we don't find enough time to catch up and have these conversations, so I figured, why not? What about you?

[01:13] TAG TUCK: Really? The same. You're right. We don't have enough time to have these conversations. I think we had them more often a couple of years ago when we both lived in Charlottesville. And so the chance to. The chance to catch up and. And not just catch up about. About the weather and where we've been, but about things that are really important to both of us and to do this, I don't know. To do this work that we've done together before is exciting. Rachel, I am going to read your bio. There are many things I could say about who I am, but at the moment, I feel most tuned to my identity as a mom, a rabbi, a Jew, a Democrat, and a feminist. I have a three year old son named Eitan and a three and a half month old daughter named Lila. My husband works for a demanding law firm, and our sweet rescue dog, omets, gets the short end of the stick these days. I've spent the past few months on parental leave, nursing Lila nonstop and learning how to parent two children at once. Over these past few months, I've experienced immense joy and blessing and also pain and fear around recent political events, namely overturning of Roe versus Wade. I'm scared for what this will mean for my daughter, and I'm scared for what it could mean for me were I to become pregnant again. I spend the majority of my professional time working to decrease toxic polarization. I deeply care about this work. How do I remain committed to crossing divides while holding so much anger and fear? This question weighs heavy on my mind and heart.

[02:59] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Tag, I'm going to read your bio out loud. Pastor the PCA grew up in southern Indiana, married to a korean american woman, served as a saxophonist in the United States Air Force, stationed in Germany when our children were toddlers, began planting a church in Charlottesville, Virginia, just before the Unite the right rally took place, got connected to the one America movement through Andy Hanauer, currently living and working in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the church where we were married.

[03:37] TAG TUCK: Okay, well, what in my bio would you like to know more about?

[03:44] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I didn't know that you got married in Lincoln, Nebraska. And I'm curious how you ended up back there.

[03:52] TAG TUCK: Right. Wow. Yeah. That's a great question. Uh, so you and I both. Thing that people listening might not know is both you and I went to Indiana University at different times. Right. I think that's one of the things that we know about each other. So, uh, my wife, uh, Gina, and I met at Indiana University. We were music majors, and, um, fell in love there. Uh, it was, it was, it was wonderful and exciting, the way college love can be. Where we dated and broke up and dated and broke up, and Gina ended up going on staff for a year with a campus ministry in Lincoln, Nebraska. And so at that point, we were several states apart. I was finishing up my degree in Indiana. She was working in Lincoln. And that was when we finally really, that was when the rubber met the road. I was like, wow, I really don't want to live in a different place than her. So. So after I graduated, I ended up in Lincoln. We got married, and we found this church. We were looking for a church, and I started looking for a church. In the phone book in those days, had the yellow pages. And I found this church that was about nine blocks from my apartment. And it was listed in the yellow pages under, under Bible church, under christian church, under evangelical church. I think it was even listed under friendly and Presbyterian and Reformed. And so I realized as I was going through the yellow pages, that I was putting the doctrinal statement of the church together. And I was like, oh, well, these are kind of like the things that I was looking for in a church. And it was, you know, within walking distance to my apartment. So she and I ended up there. Really, really were cared for. Well, at this church. The pastor did our premarital counseling, and a couple in the church kind of took us under their wing our first year of marriage, and we ended up watching their three children while their fourth one, while they went to the hospital, and their fourth one was born. And then that was a very formative two years in our life. And then I joined the air force as a musician, and that took us to Virginia, that took us to Germany. And then it was from there that we ended up in seminary in St. Louis, and then back to after seminary, back to Virginia, where you and I met. And when we met at the time, I was planting a church in Charlottesville, and essentially, the COVID pandemic put us out of business. We kept that going as long as we could, but then when it. When we realized we weren't going to have the momentum to keep it going, we decided to just gently land the plane. And I started to look for my next call, and. And the pastor who married us gave me a phone call, and he said, hey, I heard your church plant didn't work out. I'm really sorry. And I said, thank you. That really means a lot coming from you. And then he said, are you available? And I said to come and work for you. Yeah, totally. So, yeah. So we've been in Lincoln since last October, and it really has been great. It really has felt like. Really has felt like a homecoming for us.

[07:14] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: That's so great.

[07:16] TAG TUCK: Yeah.

[07:19] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Is there anything in my bio you'd like to know more about?

[07:24] TAG TUCK: So many things. Always so many things.

[07:31] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Here.

[07:31] TAG TUCK: Let's go one step deeper. Tell me what it means. Tell me what it means to you. To. That you are a feminist.

[07:39] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Hmm. People don't usually ask me to define that. I think. I believe that women should be able to do anything that men do, and that we should be able to do it in, like, the way that we. In the way that we feel called to do it. The way that feels right to us to do it.

[08:12] TAG TUCK: Without. Without that being mediated through a man's oversight or something. Or I.

[08:24] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Yeah. Or that I shouldn't have to try and make myself more male. More like a male. Whatever that means to people in order to be respected or have authority. So if I want to cut my hair short and wear a pantsuit, great. But if I don't, I should be able to do that, too.

[08:49] TAG TUCK: You shouldn't have to. I'm hearing you say I shouldn't have to become. I shouldn't have to look like or act like a man in order to receive respect.

[09:02] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Is that right? To the extent that there's. Yeah, to the extent that there is, like, anything real about what being a man is, but did not have to succumb to societal expectations around what that would be.

[09:20] TAG TUCK: Sure. That makes sense. That makes sense. Okay, I'll go up one level. What kind of jumped into the deep end of the pool right there? Hey. I didn't realize you had a second child.

[09:33] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I know. I figured you probably didn't.

[09:37] TAG TUCK: How's motherhood going?

[09:40] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: It is, like, the most. It's the most amazing, incredible thing in the world. And it's the most challenging and exhausting thing in the world. And I think having. Going from going from one child to two children has been more of an adjustment than I expected it would be.

[10:03] TAG TUCK: I hear that our kiddos, my experience was that our kiddos were the ages of your kiddos when we were in Germany. And there are great days. There are great days. Kids are great. And there were days where I hear you when you say, is the most challenging thing. Yeah. I'm waving my parental pom pomsheen at you.

[10:32] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Thank you.

[10:32] TAG TUCK: And go get them.

[10:33] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I need that.

[10:39] TAG TUCK: Oh, let me ask you this. Who has been the most influential person in your life, and what did they teach you?

[10:50] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I know I'm supposed to choose one.

[10:54] TAG TUCK: I give you permission to choose two and a half if you need to.

[10:56] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: It's too hard to choose one. So I think that my husband is actually, if not one of the most, but the most influential person in my life. And I think he teaches me. He teaches me every day. But I think maybe the main thing he teaches me and has been teaching me from the very beginning is to remember, to try and see things from other perspectives. I remember when we first started dating, he really, really pushed me on the israeli palestinian conflict, and he and I would get into big fights about it, actually. And now, like, now we just. He's my conversation partner. All things that are hard. And then the other person I would say is Rabbi Sissy Koran, who was my rabbi and my role model. She actually passed away in May of 2020, right after the pandemic started from breast cancer. She officiated our wedding and just washing an incredible example of someone who is a compassionate rabbi, who cared for her family and, like, took. Took her role as mother very seriously, but also her role as rabbi very seriously, and I miss her.

[12:39] TAG TUCK: I hear that.

[12:43] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: What about you? Oh, and what's my husband's name? My husband's name is Jeff Schmelkin Yeah, I should have said that. You know, who's the most person in your life?

[12:58] TAG TUCK: Most influential person in my life. I feel like I'm just copying you. If I say my spouse, if I say Gina's name, certainly. I mean, but, you know, she's certainly the most lasting friendship that I've had. And I appreciate you saying. Talking about how your husband, how Jeff is your conversation partner. Gina is certainly that for me. She's definitely the person who will challenge me on ideas. And I think now, after 22 years of marriage, there's no one. There is no one on earth who knows me more or better than my wife. And so she. I always say that she's my toughest critic and my biggest fan. That's. That's. That's definitely true. She pushes me to be a better version of myself than I. Than I would be otherwise. So I think about that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I'll stick with one. I'll stick with. I'll stick with my. I'll stick with Gina. Okay. Hey, here's another one for us. Could you briefly describe, in your own words, your personal political values?

[14:16] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Yes, I am identify as a democrat. I. I'm strongly pro choice and pro LGBTQ marriage and rights, and I am a zionist, but a Zionist who is willing to criticize Israel and the israeli government and dreams of Israel being the place that I want it to be and think it should be and not the place that it is right now. What about you, Tag?

[15:10] TAG TUCK: My personal political values? You know, I always. I have trouble with that because I think a lot of times, you know, people expect. People expect. People expect evangelicals, that evangelical has become more of a. I think I would generally describe myself as an evangelical at this particular place and time in America. And now that term has. Has been freighted with so much political stuff that it's hard for me to say, oh, I'm an evangelical, and to mean it theologically or to mean it as a clergy person without it carrying a lot of political stuff. So I feel like if I describe my political values that to some, it may seem very. May seem very squishy. They may be like, are you any of those things? Are you. Are you really any of those things? Or are you just kind of saying that? So I guess I will say. I guess I will say I'm generally republican. I am genuine, generally a free market capitalist, generally an evangelical christian in the sense that you find it on the news. But I don't see my. I don't see the. My political values as at the. At the center or core of who I am. I don't see who. I don't see who I vote for as the. As the main marker of my identity. I guess I would. I guess, though, if we're speaking in generalities, you talked about being pro choice. I would call myself pro life. And. Yeah, and I guess, also, in that sense, I guess I end up being, then, in the non affirming camp, if we want to talk about things in terms of affirming and non affirming in terms of LGBTQ issues. So I'm probably generally in all of those categories but I don't plant the flag super far right. As many that I've run into.

[17:44] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Yeah. And I think we can. I recognize, too, in the things I say about my political values, that all of these phrases and word choices are supercharged right now, too.

[17:59] TAG TUCK: Yeah.

[18:00] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: And there's no nuance. Right. In saying I'm pro choice or I'm pro life. There's not a lot of nuance that is able to exist in just those words.

[18:13] TAG TUCK: Very much so. And I, you know, I think that's one of the things that. One of the things that I count dear and sweet about our friendship is that I think for both of us, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I know from my end, I had sort of a preconceived idea of what a female rabbi, a liberal female rabbi may be like. And that's not. You're so much more than the. Than the sum of my stereotypes. And I guess my. I think we've had enough relationship now that I think I defy some of those. Some of the stereotypes that maybe you had.

[18:54] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: For sure. I'm glad you reminded me about the Indiana university connection, too.

[19:00] TAG TUCK: Right.

[19:01] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I knew it, but I forgot it. And it's also just. It's such a good reminder that we walked around the same college campus, we sat in classes in the same building. We would probably be sitting on the same. We'd be sitting together at an IU basketball game, cheering and screaming our heads off for the same team.

[19:23] TAG TUCK: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[19:30] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Maybe that can be a goal, that we'll go to an IU basketball game together.

[19:33] TAG TUCK: I think that that would be awesome.

[19:36] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: If I ever decide I'm not afraid of COVID which I still am afraid.

[19:39] TAG TUCK: Of COVID I gotcha. I gotcha. It's still not something to. You know, I'm glad to be at the point in the pandemic where we are, but I have to remember not. I have to remember not to forget about it. And that's. Yeah, that's important. That's important. All right, well, I think we're free to ask some of our own questions and to kind of take this conversation wherever we want it. You know, I was in counseling a while back, and the counselor would say something like this. He would just stop. We would do the intro stuff, and then he would say, what should we be talking about? I always thought that was a great. I thought that was a great opener. So what should we be talking about?

[20:31] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Well, you know, I think that when Andy Hanauer suggested that we do this one small step story, core experience. He was thinking back to a conversation that we had at Monsoon Siam in Charlottesville, my favorite restaurant, where we talked about. What a strange conversation to have over lunch, in a way, but we talked about antisemitism. I don't think I realized until more recently what that. What impact that conversation had for you, where and where you took it. I don't. I don't know. I don't think I. Maybe I did know and I didn't. I don't know. Maybe pregnancy brain has just taken over my life, but I don't think I knew where that conversation went. So I thought we should go back to.

[21:28] TAG TUCK: Yeah.

[21:29] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: That conversation a little bit.

[21:31] TAG TUCK: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, you're right. That conversation did impact me greatly. And I can. Yeah. I'm going to try not to choke up. As I. As I think about it. It impacted me greatly, because at that point, it was very clear that we were friends. It was very clear that we had, you know, had. Had broken down some stereotypes that we might have about each other. We're at lunch. We're having a great lunch in a great town, and it feels like, okay, we're going forward, and it feels even longer ago now because we've had the pandemic in between that. But the thing that I remember. The thing that I remember so clearly is we're sitting down, we're talking. There were sort of two things that stand out in my mind about the conversation. One that you mentioned, some of your christian friends that you had didn't totally understand what was in their own set of scriptures that would come across, that would land on you as anti semitic, and you would bring things up, and they just didn't know it was in the Bible. And we were talking about that. And I think I was kind of like, well, what are you talking about? And we started to talk about it, but then you showed me a photograph from the unite the right rally that happened in Charlottesville in August of 2017. And the picture was a picture of a guy, like, in riot gear, as I recall. And he. And he had a sign, had a protest sign, and it said something derogatory about jews, and it had about five Bible verse references from the New Testament on it.

[23:17] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I think it was. I think it was a picture of the KKK.

[23:25] TAG TUCK: Oh, it was that route. It was.

[23:27] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I think so.

[23:27] TAG TUCK: It was the other terrible event that happened in our town.

[23:30] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I don't. I could. Maybe my memory is wrong, but I. I believe that the KKK members were standing in their white gowns and hoods and holding up signs with a number of Bible verses on them.

[23:44] TAG TUCK: Yeah. The thing that the. Well, what struck me about the fact that it was signs with Bible verses on it was the fact that immediately where my mind and heart jumped to was, they are misusing this book. This is a misuse of the Bible. But then a second thing happened. Normally, I know that I have done this, and I think a lot of folks in my tribe tend to do this. We go, oh, if you see a person who calls themselves a Christian misusing the Bible, I just want you to know that they don't belong. They don't belong to. They don't. But if they don't say it the way I say it, they don't belong to my tribe. They don't. Those people don't belong to my tribe. These people don't belong to my tribe. This evangelical that you saw saying something that. And sometimes I feel like evangelicals can be great at excommunicating each other and just saying, oh, well, don't put that on me because that belongs to that guy. When I saw this picture and saw those Bible verses for the first time, I decided not to go with that play in the playbook. I think. I honestly say at that point, I love you too much as my friend to. To just do that. Cause I could tell that it hurt you, that that hurts. But I also. But I also hold the Bible as. And the New Testament specifically as an important piece of sacred scripture for me. And so I thought, well, if. If there's something, if there's a misuse, it needs to be corrected by a proper use. And that's not a short. That's not a short conversation. That's not just a wave of the hand. And it. And if I explain it to you, then it'll just stop hurting you. Right. So for me, I had to do some. I had to do some soul searching. I had to go back to those passages and that thing. And what I ended up. I ended up writing a lecture that I gave at a local. At a local senior center that had a lecture, that had a lecture regularly brought in folks and clergy to do a lecture series. And so I gave this lecture kind of going through that. And my tact in writing the lecture was to. To do it as an evangelical, speaking to other christians who say, oh, yeah, the Bible is ours. And it's like, well, hey, how do you use it? And how do these words come out? And what do they might land on? They might land on someone in a different way, in an anti semitic way. So I challenge, kind of a challenge inside the tribe to think about that and think about how we. We use those things.

[26:30] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: You know, I think it's also important, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that we also had that lunch shortly after, I want to say, the horrible mass shooting in New Zealand, where the shooter had referenced a number of Bible verses in his manifesto. And the horrible thing is, I can't remember for sure if it was New Zealand or if it was the Poway Chabad synagogue shooting in which the shooter did the same thing. But I also think that that was part of the impetus for the conversation. And then back to my husband, Jeff, being my conversation partner. He and I were having really deep conversations at home about how these new Testament verses were being brought into these manifestos that than were being written before people went and committed these horrifying atrocities. And so I think I had this sense of, like, I actually have friends now who have influence and have the power of their voices and their speech. And I also have to be willing to bring this up with them because I don't have the power here. These pastors have the power here. And it's these pastors, congregants or parishioners sitting in the seats who could maybe hear these Bible verses spoken about in another way and down the line. Could that prevent another horrible thing from happening?

[28:13] TAG TUCK: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the. Rachel, I don't. I don't teach on the New Testament use of the Old Testament, or I don't speak with the same words about the theology that I. That I believe without imagining that you're in the room listening. And I have some different. You know, the way I talk about even someone like Martin Luther, who is pretty big in my tradition, is different because we've taken the time to think about these things together. Yeah. The idea, the truth, that ideas have consequences. Right. In my tribe, in the reformed Presbyterian world, Martin Luther is sort of the beginning of a line of reformation heroes. And he is. That there is a very real sense in history that he did something that sent reverberations hundreds of years, you know, into the future from where he was, and that I. That I am actually thankful for. And yet there's a very real sense that at the end of his life, there were also some other ideas and thoughts that he put out there that sent other reverberations. Reverberations that I think if. If Martin Luther under. If Martin Luther himself understood how some of those things ended up unfolding a few centuries later, he's rolling over in his grave. And, yeah, I think he would be. I think he'd be repenting in sackcloth and ashes, really, on some of those things. So, yeah, so I think about that, and I think about how guys in my tradition talk about different aspects of our theology. How would this sound if someone who's not in our particular tribe is in the room? What is it? What will it sound like to them? And do you need to explain those things? You know, do you explain those things more?

[30:41] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: What's an example of something that you might have said, if you feel comfortable sharing, what's an example of something that you might have said before, frame in a specific way now?

[30:54] TAG TUCK: Sure. Absolutely. Well, I would say two things. One, there's a book that Martin Luther wrote at the end of his life that none of us ever talk about. And it's sort of a, it's kind of like an afterthought. If someone knows about it, it's kind of like, oh, whatever. And, but he wrote a book that was called on the Jews and their lies, or something like that is how it, how it translates. And it's, I mean, if we wanted, we want to be really honest, I think we would call it anti semitic in that sense. He's trying to make a theological point, but he presses it too far, and that, and that ends up, that becomes a nascent. I believe that from my standpoint, looking at that understanding, that that becomes a nascent anti Semitism that works its way, that's an undercurrent that ends up getting attached to the Reformation. I think that reformed people, now reformed Christians who claim the heritage of the reformation, now need to understand that and without rejecting the actual theological parts of the reformation that we think are the most important to be able to slice off those other pieces. So one of the ideas that ends up getting talked about, and I'm sure you'll be familiar with this, is this idea of a replacement theology that the New Testament, that New Testament Christianity replaces the Old Testament. And, and the word that I, the word that I go to more now that I reach for is I never say replacement anymore. And I read, I, if I, if I read someone writing about something and they say something like that, that's really not, that's really not an accurate, that's really not accurate. The word that I go for is an unfolding. And I believe, I believe that if you understand Paul in the New Testament, he's trying to say something about a fulfillment that includes Jews and Gentiles. And I believe that that really is the heart of reformed Christianity. But the way we talk about those ideas, if we're not clear, if we don't put those out there and talk about how the Hebrew Bible unfolds into what is the New Testament and hold out how Jesus, who is a jew, puts forth those same ideas, we can do a lot of damage. So, yeah, so instead of reaching for replacement, I reach for the word unfolding and hold on to that idea that, the idea that Paul talks about making one new man out of the two, both Jews and Gentiles. And I know that there are some things about that that maybe offensive in Judaism, but it's one thing if you just say, hey, I don't think, I don't think the way you think the story ends is the way the story ends, as opposed to me saying, I'm crossing out your story, it doesn't count anymore. And I'm going to take your scriptures and I'm going to treat them. So many times I say to people, I think a lot of evangelical Christians treat the Old Testament like a doorstop. They say, oh, we shouldn't throw that away. But the thing that really counts as the New Testament, and even though the Hebrew Bible is three quarters of both the Old and New Testament, in Christianity, you gotta know how to use that part of the book in a way that's Christian if you wanna do what Jesus says. Sorry, I'm preaching there a little bit, but these are the kinds of things, I just talk about this in a different way now, um, inside my own church and in my own preaching.

[34:38] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Will I shake you up too much if I tell you I have a scholarly article about Paul's anti semitism? Now that I need to send to you?

[34:46] TAG TUCK: Send it. Send it, sister. I, you know, Paul's been accused. I don't think anybody, I don't, I, I don't know that Paul could get accused of anything worse than he has been in the last, you know, four or 500 years. I think he takes a, I think he, I think he takes a pretty big beating. But I still count myself as a person who stands on the side of Paul because I think ultimately, I believe ultimately in the depths of, the depths of it, that he himself, being a jew, is not anti semitic and doesn't mean for that to happen. But I understand how two millennia of, of ink spilled and history lived can, could muddy up the windshield pretty easy. But this is why. But this is. But, but you're, so send me the article and I want to read it. I want us to, I want us to think and talk about it afterwards.

[35:46] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: And I'll have to review it, too.

[35:48] TAG TUCK: For sure. For sure. You know, one question is, so hearing me kind of tell some of this story, how I was hearing about the impact that you've made on me, how does that affect your work now?

[36:07] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I think that's one question. I mean, I think, but I want to say before that, that I think knowing you has also had an impact on me and the way that I speak about things as well. So, you know, I mostly surround myself with liberal democrats. I'm in a progressive jewish community, and I feel strongly committed to what that means in terms of my values, both the way that Judaism speaks to those values. And, yeah, I have to think more about what I'm trying to say. But I also am concerned about the way that my fellow liberals speak about republicans as a whole or conservatives as a whole or evangelical christians as a whole. And I think that we're in scary territory right now, especially since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Don't get me wrong. I am freaked out. I am really freaked out. I'm really worried. And I plan to be actively participating in ways to get abortion rights access back. And I'm really worried that we talk about people who are pro life, whatever that means to people who are pro life, as enemies, as evil, as terrible, as people who maybe even want to inflict pain on women. And I know that that's, I know from, from being a friend of yours, from being pastor Tom Breeden's friend, like, I know that that's not true. I know we see it differently. I think. I hope that there's maybe more gray area. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm over optimistic about that, but I hope that there's maybe some gray area where we actually don't see it as differently as we think we do. But I think that, like feeling like we're at war and using those metaphors, which I hear is a really dangerous place to be. And I know that would not be a popular thing to say in some of the communities I'm part of.

[38:59] TAG TUCK: I can agree with that. Well, you and I have both been in places where we've had this training to work against toxic polarization. It's one thing to be on the opposite side of an issue. It's another thing to use language that makes it sound like you're the bad guy, I'm the good guy, and therefore we are at war, and therefore we must do battle. And that language, that language takes us to places that ultimately, if we really sit down with it. We want to go, we don't actually want to go to war on this. And I think there's, I think you're right that there are, that there are places where we, we, we come closer to each other than we give ourselves credit for, but getting close to those lines are really, really hard. It reminds me of something that one of the trainings that we went to, the person who said, well, it just, it was in my mind, and then it just, it just went away. Nope. I lost it.

[40:18] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: About misperceptions or.

[40:23] TAG TUCK: Yeah, it was in my head, and then it just, I wish I knew.

[40:28] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: It was in your brain because I, like, I run these trainings all the time now, so I'm like, oh, which, which science concept, right.

[40:38] TAG TUCK: That idea of, it's, it's not a cross cutting identity. I mean, although that is, that's one. But the. No, it'll, it'll, you know what? We'll keep talking, and then it'll come back into my head. It'll, we'll be talking about something else, and it'll, it'll pop right back in.

[40:59] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I guess. I wonder.

[41:00] TAG TUCK: I know what it is. I got it. So in group moderates, that was the thing. In group moderates are usually the first to get ostracized. Right. So if you and I do the work of saying, hey, there might be more gray area here than we think. Hey, there are some liberal Democrats who have a point. I've been talking to my friend Rachel. There are people in my tribe who will say, you're out. Right? And similarly, you've gotten the same thing where you've said, hey, all conservative Republicans are not crazy. Whatever's. As people go, Rachel, you're out. You're selling us all up the river. And those voices, a moderating in group position, historically, those are the first people when things turn bad, those are the first people who get ousted from whatever position they're in.

[41:55] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: But calling actually in group moderates norm setters, because I think in group moderates makes it sound like you're supposed to be moderate. Right. So if I think of myself in that way and I didn't get beyond conflict, taught me that the organization beyond conflict suggested the term norm setter. Right. And because I'm definitely not moderate, I'm definitely liberal. You and I are definitely different on this issue. But being a norm setter can mean, how do I want to talk about this person? How do I want to talk about this group? We can be opposing that group. We can be opposing their views. And we can be trying to get the rights back that we think that we need, but also we can think carefully about the language that we use when we're doing that.

[42:38] TAG TUCK: Right? That's absolutely right. That's absolutely right. Oh, you know, we should talk about that. We've been going back and forth about the different trainings that we've been in, and I know that now in your role as a rabbi, you're not working per se in a synagogue, but you're working with the one America movement, which is different than the one american news network. I always feel like I kind of need to say that to some of my friends who may have seen me in my one america t shirt and wonder, yeah, but can you share more about the training, the different training that you do?

[43:12] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Yeah. So, first of all, it's. I kind of have the best of both worlds right now because I am doing some part time work at Temple Micah in Washington, DC. And.

[43:21] TAG TUCK: Awesome.

[43:22] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I do mostly music there, which is really fun for me and just brings me a lot of joy. And I work as the director for jewish programs at the one America movement now. So clearly, our time together in that cohort and us being involved in our capacity as clergy had a pretty big influence. So now I mostly with fellow jewish clergy, but also with Hillel's, which is like the jewish communities on college campuses, sometimes synagogues and congregations. I do trainings on the science of polarization, what's happening in our brains and our bodies when we're in a state of toxic polarization. I'm working right now on a training on group norms and how norms can create division, but how bringing out positive norms could decrease division. And I also do trainings on how to have conversations with people who think differently from you in a healthy and productive way rather than in a confrontational and upsetting way, which is what we've done together.

[44:37] TAG TUCK: Right. And, yeah, it is. It's definitely training that I'm grateful for.

[44:44] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I mean, we could, you know, we could one day whip out the actual conversation structure which we have, which goes through all of the different questions that we would ask. Right. And we could talk about, like, the overturning of Roe v. Wade in that format. But I almost feel like having participated in a conversation with a set guideline and format has taught us now we don't need it because now we know what kind of question not to ask and what kind of question to ask.

[45:13] TAG TUCK: Right.

[45:14] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: And what not to say. Right.

[45:17] TAG TUCK: And there's also a sense of. There's also a sense of if we if we want to, knowing what we want to talk about, if we want to go somewhere if we want to go somewhere deeper and we know that that particular question is going to be supercharged, we know how to set the. Set the parameters of our conversation so we can do that without pulling in everything and kind of blowing up the whole blowing up the whole conversation, which is super important. Just super important if we really care to know about each other and be able to talk to each other deeply and in essence, I would say to love each other. Well, in that, you know. Yeah, well, I see that our time is getting close. So I guess. I guess this is one of those places where it's sort of like maybe if our hand is on the doorknob, we need to kind of ask some of those last things. So I'll put it to you. Is there any, is there any, as we're, as we're starting to think about wrapping up, is there anything, here's your chance to kind of put it out there for me. Is there anything else you want to ask me particularly?

[46:32] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I think I'm just so glad that we've reconnected. And I think this is actually the start of a conversation. So I'm wondering, like, we should. We need to schedule a phone call. Like, I'll walk my dog while we talk, but, like, what should we be talking about next?

[46:51] TAG TUCK: Right. Well, we, you know, what do you.

[46:52] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Want to talk about next?

[46:55] TAG TUCK: I guess in light of the SCOTUS decision, I think we know what we need to talk more about next. Yeah, I wanted. I want to hear more about how this decision has impacted you. I want to know more about. I want to know more about you. You use the word freaked out. Yeah. And I want to know more about that. And I want to understand it. I want to understand it. And, yeah, I think that's probably the next thing we need to. The next place we need to go.

[47:32] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: I think so, too. And I want to understand how you're feeling about it as well. And I think, and I, and I'm even more curious now because pretty much immediately when it happened, I called Pastor Tom Breeden and was like, oh, my gosh, what are you. And Pastor Tom Breeden is also an evangelical pastor. He now works for the one America movement with me, as you know. And you're friends with him, too, right? Yeah.

[47:57] TAG TUCK: Yeah.

[47:58] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: His response, there were parts of his response that were exactly maybe what I would have expected and parts of his response that were not at all what I would have expected. And so I also want to make sure that I'm not above any of these assumptions and judgments. Right. I might spend more time thinking about them. I might spend more time than some other people, you know, remembering, oh, am I doing a metaphor? Am I to, you know, in a meta perception right now where I'm making an assumption about what someone else thinks or what someone else thinks about me, but these processes still happen automatically. And so I think the only way that I can be true to the work that I do and have integrity is to also check the assumptions that I might be making. And the only way to do that is to talk to people who don't have the same views as me. So I think that's, like, it's a next step for me, too.

[48:50] TAG TUCK: Wow. Wow. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying that. I'm excited, you know, we have to wrap our time up here, but I'm excited to have a next. To figure out when our next conversation is and to get our conversation going again. I'm really glad that you guys have landed in Arlington, and we're really happy to be here in Lincoln. But. But I'm sad that it's not as easy as just going to monsoon Siam and having a long, slow lunch and doing this work. But. But I know that you're committed to it, and I'm committed to it, and I'm thankful for this opportunity from StoryCorps to. To have rekindled this conversation for us.

[49:35] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: And we've created holy space and sacred moments virtually.

[49:43] TAG TUCK: Yes, we have.

[49:46] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: Well, thank you so much.

[49:49] TAG TUCK: Thank you.

[49:50] RACHEL SCHMELKIN: After this.

[49:52] TAG TUCK: Okay, bye.