Terry Gross

We'll talk more after a break.

This is Fresh Air.

The movie A Serious Man is also about, you know, like struggling with your faith.

Yes.

Because the Michael Stuhlbar character has conversations with rabbis, and he's kind of losing his faith because everything's going wrong in his life.

Right.

I know you were on Finding Your Roots, and you found out that some of your ancestors were religious leaders in the Pale of Settlement.

Right, right.

And the Pale of Settlement was, during the Russian Empire, it was a large area of what we now call Eastern Europe that was basically the ghetto for Jews.

Jews had to live within this expanse of land.

And so, so many American Jews, their grandparents or ancestors lived in the Pale of Settlement.

What did it do to your own faith or religious practice, if you had any?

I know you're born Jewish.

I have no idea how observant you are.

But what did it do to your level of observance to find out about people on your family tree being religious leaders?

Do you practice any, do you observe the holidays and the Sabbath and all that?

Like, how far do you go?

What you're saying reminds me of something that you've told another interviewer, which is you said, I have a huge ego with no confidence.

You want to explain?

I love that line so much.