Episode 33: Neighbor: Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg on Collapse, Entanglement, Spiral Time & Minneapolis 2026

In episode #33 I talk with Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg about two terms that have been central to her lately: “collapse” and “entanglement.” We read from and discuss Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World, a book that helps think through these themes. Rabbi Jessica talks about what it’s been like on the ground in Minneapolis this winter, how confronting state violence and authoritarianism in real-time by caring for her neighbors has been both terrifying and profound in how it’s changed her sense of what “entanglement” really means. We discuss how accepting that we are in a time of collapse (of institutions, structures, and climate) might paradoxically help us get out of bed in the morning, rather than paralyzing us with fear. I bring up my obsession with “Longtermism” (not a fan), and Rabbi Jessica shares her thinking around “spiral time” in the context of the Jewish calendar, insisting that we can think long term while “holding the collective liberation of all people on the planet right now in our minds and hearts.” We end by talking about what both personal and collective grief can teach us, awakening us to the now.

Texts and people discussed:

Ross Gay, Inciting Joy: Essays

poupeh missaghi, “When Bombs Fall: Saying Yes to Life”

Aurora Levins Morales

Susan Raffo with Kelly Hayes, “‘Minneapolis Community Defense Is “Riding on the Learning Edge of a Whirlwind’” (Interview)

Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg, For Times Such as These: A Radical’s Guide to the Jewish Year

Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg, “Spiral Time in Collapse: Dvar for Erev Rosh Hashana 5786”

Émile P Torres, “Against Longermism” (Note: I mistakenly credited this essay to Sam Dresser. Dresser edited it, but It was authored by Torres in 2021.)

Anna Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins

Music by Ben Roberts : [email protected]

Comments and ideas to [email protected]