Judaism For The Thinking Person podcast

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コンテンツは Rabbi Nadav Caine によって提供されます。エピソード、グラフィック、ポッドキャストの説明を含むすべてのポッドキャストコンテンツは、Rabbi Nadav Caine またはそのポッドキャストプラットフォームパートナーによって直接アップロードされ、提供されます。誰かがあなたの著作物をあなたの許可なく使用していると思われる場合は、ここで概説されているプロセスに従うことができますhttps://ja.player.fm/legal。

Mind The Business: Small Business Success Stories

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Pushing Past Stagnation & Business Plateaus 30:21

約 12 日前30:21

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30:21

Hitting plateaus is a common milestone in business, but there’s a difference between stability and a rut. In the last installment of this season, we’ll dive into the ways small business owners push beyond plateaus and find new ways to achieve revenue growth. Jannese and Austin wrap up their time in Nashville, Tennessee with a wonderful visit to N.B. Goods to speak with owner Camille Alston . Camille details the times where she hit a wall with profits, the strategies she implemented to increase revenue, what worked, what didn’t, and the important lessons she learned in the process. You won’t want to miss this informative final chapter! Learn more about how QuickBooks can help you grow your business: QuickBooks.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Scholarly, Compassionate, and Practical Jewish Teachings on God, Prayer, Torah and Kabbalah with Rabbi Nadav Caine (ravnadav)

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Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Scholarly, Compassionate, and Practical Jewish Teachings on God, Prayer, Torah and Kabbalah with Rabbi Nadav Caine (ravnadav)

105 つのエピソード

#Society #Jewish #Religion #Philosophy #Rabbi Nadav Caine #Rosh Hashanah

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Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Passover as the Secret High Holidays: Making Your Rosh Hashanah Resolutions Real Halfway Through the Journey 8:18

約 28 日前8:18

8:18

There are two New Years on the Jewish calendar (in addition to the new years for trees and for flocks): Rosh Hashanah and First of Nissan (announced on Shabbat HaChodesh). The deep spiritual connection between the two is emphasized by reading the haftarah from Ezekiel, who sees the journey from the 1st of Nissan to Pesach as an equal mirror of the journey from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, and for whom Pesach is the real Yom Kippur. There is a deep and very practical message here: most of our Rosh Hashanah new years' resolutions may fall apart following Sukkot, but the best time to really enact those resolutions in a sustainable way is to use Pesach as the renewal of putting those resolutions into practice. Especially with the change and limitation on diet, the open discussion of what it means to serve God and your own soul during the Seder, THIS is the time to restart doing those resolutions. We're only halfway through the year: you've got six months of leaning into the homestretch, pulled by the gravity of the upcoming holidays. What are your new years' resolutions? How can you implement them during Pesach?…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Mishkan, Indigenous Wisdom, and the Right to Repair 10:38

7 weeks前10:38

10:38

We often fail to appreciate the virtues of the Shepherd period of Judaism, which preceded the Israelite period. In this dvar Torah, I focus on the virtues of sustainability and repairability of the portable sanctuary (Mishkan) over the permanent version (Temple), and I apply it to legislation before state congresses today.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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A People of the Book and a Generation That Has Never Read One 13:12

15 weeks前13:12

13:12

If you want to understand the crisis in education, look no further than Natalie Wexler's "The Knowledge Gap," one of the most important books of the past ten years. Is reading a skill you apply to any text, like stretching a muscle, or playing a video game, or is it, as our tradition defines it, something entirely different, something based on knowledge of the world, of life, and of relating to a larger story?…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Tower of Babel and the Problem of Identity-Based "Truths" 12:33

16 weeks前12:33

12:33

The plain sense of the brief Tower of Babel story is that dividing people up by their own languages is a curse that prevents cooperation (even if the Rabbis read the story differently). Using Coleman Hughes's essay on the Civil Rights hero Bayard Rustin, I wonder if the curse of our times is the identiy-based division of truths: is this modern paradigm a blessing of diversity or a curse for our much needed cooperation in solving our collective problems?…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Did Isaac Have Imposter Syndrome? Is it a Curse or a Blessing? 14:44

19 weeks前14:44

14:44

Isaac's entire story arc suggests that he continually sees himself as the opposite of how folks see him. But is imposter syndrome a curse, or a blessing?

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Misunderstanding Consent, Property and Patriarchy in Jewish Wedding Ceremonies 16:09

22 weeks前16:09

16:09

Using the text of Genesis chapter 24, Talmud Bavli Ketubot 82b, and the Conservative Movement responsum by Rabbi Pamela Barmash, I try to correct the pervasive misunderstings around the Jewish wedding ceremonies: Does arranged marriage (historically and today) exclude female consent? Is the Jewish wedding ceremony one of male acquisition of a female? Is the ketubah a wedding document or a prenuptial agreement that protects the bride and her property?…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Moving Beyond the Progressive Lens to True Religion (Yom Kippur 2024) 26:35

27 weeks前26:35

26:35

How do the ideals of progressivism become the idols of antisemitism? As a rabbi in one of the most progressive cities in America, I try to understand this phenomenon through scapegoat theory and through my own heartbreaking experiences. So what do we tell our college students? How do we heal instead of hurt? How do we get to the Thou? (Sermon, Yom Kippur 2024/5785)…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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We're All Looking for Empathy after October 7th, Including Me! (Rosh Hashanah Sermon 2024) 27:50

29 weeks前27:50

27:50

As a Conservative rabbi in one of the most progressive cities in America, it's been an incredibly painful year of feeling unable to ask for empathy from my own fellow Jews, as I see this year's events as Good vs Evil, and so many of my congregants want me to be condemning Israel while declaring moral equivalencies. And I know they, too, need from me what I cannot give them: validation for their perspective. This sermon is my way of coming to terms with all of it.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Writing G-d and the Danger of Idolatry 17:06

34 weeks前17:06

17:06

This dvar Torah uses the amazing article by Rabbi David Golinkin on the history of the halakhah and the practice. It can be found at: https://schechter.edu/must-gods-name-be-written-in-english-as-g-d/

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Did a Biblical Outlaw Understand the Arab-Israel Conflict Better than Today's Students? 11:57

41 weeks前11:57

11:57

It is commonplace to hear today's Israel-Arab Conflict portrayed as an example of Settler-Colonial European Jews settling in the nation-state of indigenous-dwelling Palestinians. This is a modern invention and is not how the conflict was understood by local Arabs a hundred years ago, who did so in rational terms that match the Biblical arguments between the Israelites (Gideonites) and local Ammonites in Judges chapters 10 and 11. Using the recent scholarly work of Jonathan Marc Gribetz as well as Alex Stein's Love of the Land substack, I show how the ancient outlaw leader Yiftach understood today's situation better than student demonstrators, colonial marxist professors, and Western Hamas apologists.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Biblical Battle of the AI Priesthood Lineage 6:33

49 weeks前6:33

6:33

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Amalekites, Gaza and the End of Megillat Esther on Purim 14:54

1 year前14:54

14:54

As Purim became a holiday of tremendous festivities and lightheartedness, the Rabbis knew that the end of the Megillah in Chapter 9 has a dubious quality, that of a massacre on Haman's people. Is this a happy ending, a desirable ending, that of massacre, that of Jews finally (and really for its time, only possible in the Jewish imagination but not in practice) having power? So the Rabbis created a requirement that on the Shabbat morning before Purim, one must read about the Amalekites. In this podcast, I present traditional commentary and observations given the context of the fighting in Gaza.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The 19th Century Reform Rabbi Who Changed Physics 9:11

1 year前9:11

9:11

The most influential rabbi you've never heard of? Based on an episode of the RadioLab podcast ("Relative Genius") and a biography in the Jewish Encyclopedia -- https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12611-rebenstein-aaron -- I tell you about the extraordinary Rabbi Aaron David Bernstein who likely accomplished more in his lifetime by himself than your average Ivy League university!…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Israelites Left Egypt Armed: Gender & Chauvinism Preceding October 7 16:10

1 year前16:10

16:10

In the second verse of Parashat Beshalach (the flight from Egypt and the crossing of the Sea of Reeds), the Torah states that the Israelites fled fully armed. I explore the traditional commentaries on why, and connect this to the haftarah (story of Deborah and Yael) and to the intelligence failures in Israel caused by male chauvinism.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Who Gets to Be a Spokesperson for Israel? The Soft of Heart and Slow of Speech 13:46

1 year前13:46

13:46

The focus of the American and international conversation about the Hamas attack and its aftermath has been "Ceasefire or No Ceasefire" by which people mean (since there was a ceasefire prior to Hamas's breaking it) whether Israel should cease its counter offensive due to civilian casualties. Who gets to be a spokesperson for Israel at this time in our communities and in the world? Interestingly, the Torah portions of Vaera and Bo --where we are when the war stands at 100 days-- raises the classic ethical question: Why did God prosecute a full 10 plagues upon the Egyptian population when it seemed like Pharoah might yield earlier? Why does God intervene --it seems-- in the hardening of Pharoah's heart so that the full span of destruction continues? In this Dvar Torah, I note the context of this Torah discussion. This is the first time Am Yisrael --the nation of Israel-- ever has a spokesperson! That phrase, that this kinship-related tribe of Hebrews, or Bnei Yisrael, are actually a Nation, is spoken first in the Bible by Pharaoh. And God appoints Moshe as the spokesperson, and Moshe turns it down, so Aaron becomes a spokesperson. Why turn it down? Who today gets to speak for the nation when the antisemite demands a response? I note two important textual clues. First, Moshe is called by God to be a spokesperson for the "Sh'fatim Gedolom" --the "Great Judgments upon Egypt" (the plagues)-- and replies that his "S'fatayim" (lips) aren't up to it. (Though one is tav and the other tet, the words look strikingly alike in the Torah!) Midrashically, the trouble is not a speech impediment, it is an impediment to explaining the plagues to the hostile audience! When God doesn't accept that excuse, Moshe says he has "hardness of mouth" and "hardness of tongue/speech" -- the same word "hardness" that describes Pharaoh's heart! This surely tells us a lot of the deep meaning connecting the two.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Tikkun Olam and Redeeming the Hostages 16:56

1 year前16:56

16:56

As a Dvar Torah for Vayigash (Joseph's revealing himself to his brothers following Judah's speech), I explore the mitzvah of redeeming our captives and the limitations on the law "for the sake of Tikkun Olam." The conversation among American Jews about Gaza centers around "Ceasefire or No Ceasefire? What kind of Jew am I if I don't support stopping the bombing?" while the conversation in Israel is "Exchange terrorists for hostages? What kind of Jew am I if I don't bring my sister/brother home at any cost to an Israel bereaved beyond measure?" In an amazing synchronicity with the Torah reading, the entire drama of all the parashiyot of the Joseph saga lead up to whether Judah will say for his brother Benjamin what he wouldn't say for Joseph, that he will do anything rather than fail to bring his brother home to his bereft father, an Israel who cannot bear further trauma. What kind of Judah/Jew am I if I don't bring my brother home to my heartbroken Israel? And there is Israel (Jacob), saying he will enter Sheol (the underworld) if he is forced to endure another son never coming home. The redemption of Jewish captives is one of the hightest mitzvot in Judaism. Why? And why does the Talmud and Jewish Legal codes say that one only refrains from doing so for the sake of Tikkun Olam?…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Halakhah and Aggadah: The Ten Stories We Tell PART TWO 9:23

1 year前9:23

9:23

PART TWO of this Yom Kippur 2023 sermon, in which I share the result of my personal and rabbi experiences of the last 15 years: that the longer we live, the shorter our eulogy becomes; that life (like scripture) is a combination of halakhah (direct description of human behavior) and aggadah (our stories in which God is an invisible character); that the main point of Yom Kippur is to learn how to retell our stories so that the way God has been communicating to us through our experiences becomes center stage, with the intimation explicit, the aspiration articulated, the perpective holy, so we live wearing the garments of holiness, with the perspective of shrouds and Unetaneh Tokef, as God writes the books of Avinu Malkeinu from the way we are telling our stories.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Halakhah and Aggadah: The Ten Stories We Tell PART ONE 16:34

1 year前16:34

16:34

In this Yom Kippur 2023 sermon, I share the result of my personal and rabbi experiences of the last 15 years: that the longer we live, the shorter our eulogy becomes; that life (like scripture) is a combination of halakhah (direct description of action) and aggadah (our stories in which God is an invisible character); that the main point of Yom Kippur is to learn how to retell our stories so that the way God has been communicating to us through our experiences becomes center stage, the intimations explicit, the aspirations articulated, the perpective holy, so we live wearing the garments of holiness, with the perspective of shrouds and Unetaneh Tokef, as God writes the books of Avinu Malkeinu from the way we are telling our stories.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Is There a Fear of God In This Place? Our Different Experiences of the Israel Gaza Conflict 14:16

1 year前14:16

14:16

Using the stories of Avraham, Sarah, and Hagar in Vayera, I voice what it's like to have utterly different experiences of the Gaza conflict with our coworkers, friends, and family members, some of whom seem to embody Dara Horn's prophecy that the world loves to pity the dead Jews of the past while finding the living Jews of today an inconvenience, an Other, and deserving of sanctimonious antisemitism.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Commandment of Shevut: How Do We Handle its Inherent Subjectivity? 18:02

2 years前18:02

18:02

In Deuteronomy, we are commanded to keep Shabbat as restfulness. Many are unaware that this does not just involve practicing the Shabbat observances and restrictions --Biblical and Rabbinic-- but the highly unusual special-to-itself halakhic category of "Shevut," usually translated as proactively keeping "the spirit of Shabbat." The category of observing "the spirit of Shabbat" is inherently subjective, and it can vary from person to person. For one person, reading a newspaper on Shabbat is a violation of the spirit of Shabbat, while for another it enhances the spirit of Shabbat. Going someplace for Shabbat dinner or lunch might enhance the spirit for one, but for another take away from the Shabbat spirit of the sanctuary of home. The issue has come to the fore with the electric car. Since an EV has no fire within in, and electricity meets none of the halakhic prohibitions, its use on Shabbat largely comes down the category of shevut. This has produces two approved Responsa of the Conservative Movement, which are largely hostile to one another. In one, anybody considering the use of an EV on Shabbat should be considered in violation of the law, and shevut should not be considered subjective, but actually somehow defined by a small group of rabbinic authorities others in perpetuity! (It's like saying, How dare you read your psychology textbook on Shabbat! That's homework! Even though you are allowed to read on Shabbat and you love psychology.) The other group decries this attempt to take over and monopolize our one subjective category. I explore the issues.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Kol Nidrei Ritual: Stepping into Your Future Self 24:59

2 years前24:59

24:59

Drawing on the traditional meaning of the Kol Nidrei --"All Vows"-- prayer, plus the Mishnah and Talmudic tractates on the Nidrei (Nedarim: Vows), plus the philosophy of Ritual Drama and the recent psychological studies about Future Selves, Rabbi Caine constructs a vision of what the Yom Kippur experience is supposed to be, a drama of our envisioning our future selves and playing those parts through Tefillah, Tsedakah and Teshuvah that connect to the Nidrei, our New Year's Resolutions.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Hineni Resolutions: I’m Ready but Are They? 19:52

2 years前19:52

19:52

My Second Day 5784/2023 Rosh Hashanah Sermon explores the New Year's resolution ("neder" as in "Kol Nidrei") in Biblical, Talmudic, and Contemporary Jewish spirituality. What is the one resolution in your life that is "If not now, when?" and what can the Talmud tell us about how to be successful at it?…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Genders Within God, and Within Ourselves! 23:26

2 years前23:26

23:26

My Rosh Hashanah 5784/2023 (first day) sermon examines the understanding of God's image as multiple genders in Jewish theology, mysticism, and Rabbinic midrash. What are the implications for transgender, nonbinary, and queer identifications? And equally, what are the implications for the self-understandings of everyday cisgender folk? Using the work of Joy Ladin, Charlotte Fonrobert, and Elliot Wolfson, in addition to classical and mystical Rabbinic sources, Rabbi Caine lays out the urgency of radical inclusion both with each other and with ourselves.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Three Covenants: God Cares About God’s Brand. Do You? 10:26

2 years前10:26

10:26

As we begin the journey to High Holidays, I look at Matot the end of the Book of Numbers, where God is fastidiously concerned that we get right our relationship with the God of Judaism and, even deeper, the true God of the Universe. When these fall short, we are asked through the Biblical spirituality of vows, do we even care about our own word and how we show up in this world? This is a teaching for approaching the journey of weeks to the High Holidays.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Is the Book of Numbers about Remote Work? 13:41

2 years前13:41

13:41

Parashat Beha'alotkha begins with a memo to all the Israelites that doubles down on the top down hierarchy of Aharon and Moshe at the top, and then it continues with a series of amplified grumblings, complaints, and a continuation of the deterioration of the communal project and institution --now one year in-- that Exodus and Leviticus championed. The crux is that the top down structure operates through directives, orders, and job descriptions, and with each person now operating out of their tent-and-family --unlike before when slavery, Sinai, and mishkan construction were in person collective activities. It is an apropos description of the change from in-person to remote-work that we have experienced in the last four years, and the insoluble fractures it is causing are not only not resolved, but continue to tear apart the fabric of collective identity for the next several parashiyot in Numbers. How fitting we are reading this when the top tech companies, who created and sustain remote work, claim they can no longer function operating that way themselves.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Be Someone Else: Victor Turner and the Subversiveness of Ritual Performance 13:29

2 years前13:29

13:29

The longest parashah of the Torah's is Numbers' Naso, which begins with the theme of the tabernacle of roving ritual performance, like a traveling theater group, and then describes four ritual dramas that take publicly: the financial penitent, the jealous husband, the addict, and the arrogant prince. What do these have in common? Rather than seeing ritual function to impose comformity and social roles, I examine this through the theory of Victor Turner, who posited that rituals actually subvert conventional roles, and in a theatrical way, use fixed theater scrips and actions to subvert them, and you.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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”Make Yourself a Wilderness” To Receive Torah 10:51

2 years前10:51

10:51

The Rabbis are understandably preoccupied with why the Torah was given bemidbar Sinai, in the wilderness of Sinai, rather than in the Land of Israel. Entire commentary collections are devoted to this one profound fact. In fact, the fourth book of the Bible, Bemidbar, even means "In the wilderness" and often occurs just before the holiday of Shavuot, where we collectively re-experience the gift of Torah happening in the wilderness. A teaching developed that the meaning of the Torah being "a gift from the wilderness" means that in order to receive Torah and wisdom in your life you need to "make yourself a wilderness," meaning that you make yourself a holy receptive vessel through becoming a midbar , a wildnerness. I teach some traditional teachings of practicing that in your own life.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Jubilee and the Passing on of Generational Wealth 10:25

2 years前10:25

10:25

In this teaching, I note how there are two sorts of social legislation that emerge out of the Holiness Code of Leviticus (as well as other places): the kind that is aspirational --invitations to become a holy people through holiness of giving, holiness of speech, holiness of conduct, holiness of caring-- and the kind that is deeply uncomfortable structural change -- i.e. so aspirational that you really want to just leave it "in heaven" as an unreachable ideal. An excellent example of the latter is the Jubilee Year, or Jubilee Reset, when not only does the Land receive extra ecological dispensation (terrifying for an agrarian culture), and not only are most debts forgiven (also terrifying to the economic system), but the Biblical basis of capital, the Land itself, is returned to an original apportionment. I compare the Jubilee Reset of capital once every 50 years to the Estate Tax, a way to prevent generational wealth from accumulating so far that the society cannot overcome the class divisions it creates of structural poor and structural privilege. In America, the Estate Tax is easy skirted with comically massive loopholes, while the generationally wealthy claim through propaganda that it should be eliminated because it is somehow targeted at farms, rather than the real problem of generational inherited wealth. Leviticus ends warning of societal collapse if we leave the Jubilee as an ideal rather than practical policy. What would society look like if we actually had a law that one cannot leave more than 50 million dollars to each child?…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Two Forms of Action: Embodying the Kabbalistic Forces of Netzach and Hod 8:51

2 years前8:51

8:51

In honor of Lag B'Omer, I succinctly recount the Jewish mystical practice of embodying God's attributes during the period of Counting the Omer. Specifically, in the transition to the week of Lag B'Omer, we transition from practicing in our lives the form of leadership that involves pushing people, and yourself, to get through tasks, the kind of action in which you feel you're carrying people to the finish line so the team gets there, to a different mode of leadership from God's attributes, the leader who says little at the team meeting, and then when they need to, utters just a few humble words (like "Isn't who we are really about X?") that change everything. Netzach (pushing through) and Hod (winning by stepping aside, like in martial arts) interplay.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Torah In a Minute: What’s the Big Deal About the Lunar Calendar? 1:24

2 years前1:24

1:24

Hope you're not having an Ecclesiastes month....

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Golden Calf and the Present Government in Israel 18:15

2 years前18:15

18:15

Drawing on many articles, from the New Republic to Thomas Friedman, I use Nachmanides' commentary on a verse from the Golden Calf account, the verse that recounts Moshe's reaction to witnessing the events unfolding, with unflinching criticism of Aaron's (supposed) leadership, and using a rare Hebrew word to describe the scene, that sounds like the Nation is becoming Pharaoh. How apt. Text of some of the sermon is available here .…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Jewish Law, Head Covering, and Knowing Before Whom You Stand 22:14

2 years前22:14

22:14

Using Rabbi Jane Kanarek's 2019 CJLS (Conservative Movement) halakhic responsum, I explain the complex development of Jewish head covering for both men and for women. Though my conclusions from the sources are a bit different from Rabbi Kanarek's --who does not address issues of relative cultural gender standards-- I, like her, agree that the vast majority of Jews are uneducated to the halakhah of head coverings in awareness of God's presence and in representing the community before God -- a basis that is essentially independent of the familiar domains of female gender modesty and male Jewish identity. Interestingly, today there is a movement of Jewish women under 50 to wear Jewish scarves and headbands, apparently in recovery of Jewish gender price and identity, but I believe many who do so are unaware of the complex roots that separate principles of hair covering and head covering.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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God the Stutterer, God the Reluctant 8:14

2 years前8:14

8:14

I've always wondered why we repeatedly pray to God to be willing to grant us Shabbat, etc. What does it mean to be willing, or to be capable of exercising one's will? Free will and the exercise of will always comes up when trying to understand Pharoah's will and heart-hardening in Shemot, and so I use sources there to answer the question. The conclusion touches on how our relationship to God is different from our relationship to Torah. God, like Moshe, may not always be speaking or willing, but the Torah always is.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Unalloyed Joy of Grandparenting 13:39

2 years前13:39

13:39

There are virtually no references to grandparenting in the Torah, until, by sharp contrast, we are told in Genesis 50:23 that Joseph got not only to grandparent but great-grandparent as well. I reflect upon this startling exception using two articles from the New York Times, including a recent one that describes the recent increase of adult children in their 20's becoming roommates with their grandparents.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Oppenheimer: The 20th Century ”Joseph” 13:44

2 years前13:44

13:44

Using the interpretations of the Rabbis (including Nachmanides and Sefer HaYashar) to understand Joseph's assimilation (in name, dress, etc.), I compare him to the American hero very recently in the news!

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Achieving our Dreams while Living with Anxiety 17:02

2 years前17:02

17:02

Yaakov's famous wrestling scene and renaming as Yisrael --one who wrestles with God and prevails-- is often understood as Yisrael wrestling with God as his opponent. The Rabbis point out how problematic this is, since the opponent is listed as a "man," not as God. Therefore some of the Rabbis see it this way: the wrestling opponent looks identical to Esav, being his guardian angel (Rashi) or his projection, and wrestling "with God" ( im elohim ) means wrestling with God as a supportive ally. Yaakov clearly is the Patriarch of Anxiety, and in this climax, we see a powerful message: one does not vanquish anxiety, but rather "one who prevails" is one who does what they love (say, acting, healing, teaching, parenting, etc.) while experiencing panic and anxiety at the same time. This is the powerful message which is both true according to science and according to Torah.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Eco-Burial and Jewish Law 18:07

2 years前18:07

18:07

Is it right to use arable land --often very expensive in populated areas -- for graves, then pollute the environment by keeping them "dignified" through maintenance and pesticides, with the hollow promise of "perpetual care," and say this is all required by Jewish Law, when Jewish Law itself is the source of the requirement for eco-decomposition and of prohibitions against costly burial? I explicate the sources using the Conservative Movement's oficial responsum, "Alternative Kevura Methods" by Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky, which can be found at bit.ly/3tMa4RG…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Listening Like It’s Shivah 10:48

2 years前10:48

10:48

In this ten minute teaching I used to begin the 10 Days of Awe, I connect several teachings. The first is the Rabbinic teaching that following a calamity upon a village, one should try to give the luxury rations to those who are used to luxury because being unaccostomed to hardship, their anguish might be even greater than others' though we are tempted to believe the opposite. The second is that during Yom Kippur, we approach ourselves and our relationships in a state of aninut, of affliction -- the same word used when one has suffered calamity, and the same word used when one is burying a loved one and then heading into the week of shivah grieving. The third is that it is forbidden to say, "How are you?" to someone who has just experienced aninut, and instead one must practice a special form of active listening. Following two years of calamitous pandemic, where many of us put on brave faces because we are scared to share our emotions due to our perceived privilege or we may not have suffered as much as others, we must acknowledge that our pain is nonetheless real, very real, and that the directives of actively telling our stories and actively listening are the imperative way forward.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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The Spiral of Progress/History 11:28

2 years前11:28

11:28

Is the Jewish concept of history that of linear progress, or that of Ecclesiastes' cyclical vanity? This teaching was delivered during a 12-Step friendly Serenity Shabbat.

Judaism for the Thinking Person

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Learning from 12 Step: The ”El Anon” Theology of the Exile Prophets 2:12

2 years前2:12

2:12

The theology of the haftarot of the exile prophets like Deutero-Isaiah is hard for most people to relate to: "You are in exile, your life is full of tragedy, and I love you, I remember you as you were before, but I won't be getting you out of the situation you got yourself in, and which I warned you repeatedly about." This is the kind of "unloving" God that Christian theologians for millenia have accused Jews of having. Yet do those in Al-Anon understand it in a way they can teach us?…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Those in 12 Step Recovery are Our Teachers (Rosh Hashanah Sermon 2022) 25:25

3 years前25:25

25:25

For too long, Jews have associated the Recovery movement with Christianity, and we have seen those in recovery, or with addictions, as outsiders to Torah. This is far from reality. The main example of vows-of-change --the essence of High Holidays-- in the Torah itself is the vow to abstain from alcohol and other intoxicants, involving emulating priestly service and separating for a period from one's family and social triggers. The very process of High Holiday teshuvah is recognizing our wrong behavior, feeling bad about it, and then releasing that guilt feeling through doing a cheshbon nefesh --an accounting-- of exactly how we have harmed others and ourselves, then making amends, then embracing a different path, and then serving God and others. This is the teaching of 12 step. (Jewishly, the teshuvah steps are enumerated sometimes as 4, sometimes as 6, and sometimes as more steps, but they essentially mirror the 12 steps of recovery.) Whether the 12 Step Movement has roots in Christian founders is irrelevant: it embodies the sacred teachings of High Holidays. This sermon is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Twerski z"l, who died in 2021 from complications from COVID.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Chatter and Our Relationship with God through Our Relationship with Our Inner Voice 28:53

3 years前28:53

28:53

My Yom Kippur sermon in 2022. Using Ethan Kross's book Chatter along with Jewish sources and my own observations about life, I challenge us to form our relationship to God through our relationship with our inner voice, which these days tends to be taken over by CHATTER, the stress brought on by the takeover of our inner God voice through the Satan voice. It's time we challenge it head on.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Moses the Mother in Transition (Ilana Kurshan’s Teaching) 13:22

3 years前13:22

13:22

I share Ilana Kurshan's teaching on rabbinic midrash seeing Moses as a mother in transition, as they question whether, at the promised land border, God's refusing his entry is frustrating his desire to mother the people more, or frustrating his desire to claim "his turn" to actually have a life now that the children are leaving the nest. I include my own glosses, but make no mistake that this is Ilana Kurshan's teaching.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Eikev and the Torah of Ambivalence 14:03

3 years前14:03

14:03

In this d'var Torah, I discuss how parashat Eikev is the section of Torah most frought with ambivalences, from the text itself through the Rabbinic commentaries: blessing as bounty and overextension, independence and dependence, hardship and privilege, closeness and distance. I relate this to our lives directly in the examples of the college experience and of our relationship with God.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Ableism, Torah, and ”Greatness Comes from Being Lifted Up By Your Brothers” 9:26

3 years前9:26

9:26

How do we relate to the Torah's insistence that the kohanim who do the major rituals be without blemish or disability? Isn't that grossly ableist? I suggest the following. First, the Torah is not an idealistic description of a utopia of saints -- it forces us to recognize truths about human nature, and then create a society for real people like us, so it forces us to recognize our own prejudices and ableism, which are also active today. Second, there is a serious issue at stake involving the Offerings of Damaged Goods, which is a massive problem in our society today --which tells us a lot about ourselves and how we give. And third, I use the commentator Bartenura's commentary to offer a way the tradition is accepting human nature but leading us to how to refine it into inclusivity.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Judaism and Abortion: The Process of the Decision IS Religion 12:17

3 years前12:17

12:17

In this presentation, I present the Talmudic sources on Judaism's discussion of the status of the fetus, and I argue that what's been missing from the discussion --including the discussion of Jewish views -- is the fact that Judaism leaves open what the status of the fetus is between 40 days and full viability, but importantly assigns the process to the mother. Men have no say in it. In other words, the issue is not freedom of religion in the sense of one denomination versus another, but rather the freedom of the prospective mother to have her own relationship with God, as considers that in-between state of the fetus she carries, and what it means to her and to God as she makes her decision, and not let others tell her what it is or not. (One issue I wish I had made a bit clearer: around the 11 minute mark, I talk about the fact that Tractate Niddah specifies that between 40 and 80 days, the miscarriage is more than a normal period, and there is an ontological leap again starting at 80 days. The specifics here are that the woman at these two sections remains in a state of ritual impurity following the miscarriage, as she would for giving birth, because after 80 days there is even clear evidence of sexual organs. In other words, the Talmud is acknowledging that the embryo is developing into a fetus, and while a fetus is not a baby, it is still not a "nothing." In addition, many consider this stigmazing the woman to say she is in "ritual impurity," but recall the ritual impurity functioned as "maternity leave" and thus the Talmud is giving the woman maternity leave to recover from the miscarriage, it's not stigmatizing her.)…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Believing in Miracles (or not) in 5 Minutes 5:14

3 years前5:14

5:14

One of my "standing on one foot while answering a humungous theological question" podcasts. "Rabbi, what do we mean by miracles? What is up with the Red Sea splitting?" I give my on-one-foot 5 minute answer, but we should all go and study (as Hillel famously said after answering his on-one-foot answer) afterward. By the way, I refer to seeing a red butterfly in the answer: at a funeral and shivah I officiated at, it came up repeatedly that a butterfly would show up in their lives just at the time of remembering the widow's husband, who had a very special connection to butterflies.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Is the Wailing Wall an Orthodox Synagogue? The Kotel Agreement, Yuval Noah Harari and Anat Hoffman 21:29

3 years前21:29

21:29

At the same time as the Torah turns its pages to describe the creation and pattern of the Temple, with men, women, and children mixed together, and the haftarah describes the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem as the same, the Israeli government reneges on the Kotel Agreement to provide a separate space for mixed gender worship near the Wailing Wall, even while turning over the Wall officially to ultra extremist fundamentalist Jews who claim that the inclusion of women --or women leading prayer in the women's section-- is a fundamental affront to the original pattern (which is a lie). In this presentation, I quote extensively from three sources: the Haaretz article from 2020 called "What Yuval Noah Harari Thinks About Women’s Fight for Equal Rights at the Western Wall," David Golinkin's 2011 article "Is the Entire Kotel Plaza Really a Synagogue?" and Rabbinical Assembly's 2022 "Statement on Non-Implementation of Kotel Agreement."…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Self-Improvement, Judgment, and Seeing God’s Back 11:50

3 years前11:50

11:50

While Judaism demands that one does not judge oneself too harshly, nor live in a place of self-defeating criticism, nevertheless there's a vital role for self-judgment to play in our learning from the past to walk with God and expand our ability to channel holiness into the world. In fact, since God loves us as we are, and even provides a Shabbat that makes us feel that the world is made for us as we are, it is vital we judge ourselves, because that's not the job God wants, nor is it the job for others to do.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Clothing God? Sewing as an Act of Lovingkindness 11:44

3 years前11:44

11:44

The Talmud tells us that the first great act of God's love ( chesed , lovingkindness) was making clothing for Adam and his wife. Do we return the favor?

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Does God Have a Plan for Us? 7:53

3 years前7:53

7:53

Joseph's dreams seem to predict the future and his role in it. So does God have a plan for us?

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Lecture: Halakhic Sources, the Fetus, and the Morality of Abortion 48:41

3 years前48:41

48:41

The source sheet I'm reading from is at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R0Txiy6QvQiHo40hKSsHyafLernFjS8tXp0tJo7gPWA/edit?usp=sharing This is a lecture to give the listener the Rabbinic sources that create distinctions and legal status for decisions around the criminalization of elective abortion, as discussed in the Supreme Court hearings.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Patriarchy, Gaze, Voice and Intersectionality? Exodus and bell hooks 22:54

3 years前22:54

22:54

Here I tease out the following ideas of bell hooks: 1. Our society valuing power over others as the paramount value, and rooted in the psychology of men. 2. This value playing out in drama as "the protagonist" as the center around which others must revolve, and often the only one whose name counts. 3. Oppositional gaze: the one who owns their justice perspective is the one who has the power to gaze at injustice [like Moses having the privilege to "gaze" at the taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave]. 4. Intersectional identity: our society tries to have our identities of oppression divided up -- say, of black, immigrant, poor, and woman-- because that plays into the system rather than seeing them all at once, at the "intersectionality" of our identites. 5. Finding our voice as loving ourselves enough to feel that we are fully ready to put that full loved identify forward, rather than perpetuating the system by finding ourselves falling short. 6. When we love ourselves, we can love others --meaning holding their ability to change into their full self-love and changing selves-- rather than fall back into power contests. These are applied the first six chapters of Exodus as: 1) Pharoah's actions about power over men, so he declares genocide on male babies (since they are a threat to him); men beating each other and finding this normal, and even threatening Moses with turning him in to show their power over him since his superior power identity is what they see, not his trying to help them. 2) Who has a name besides Moses? Not Pharoah. Not the Pharoah's daughter. Not Moses' parents, nor his sister. Not the handmaidens. Chapter 3 is all about "What is God's name?" to teach us that rather than the protagonist structure (one is important not the others), we are all equal as characters in God's story, rather than ego driving our own story where others play their parts in relation to us. 3) Oppositional gaze: Moses first leaves the palace grounds as a bar-mitzvah age teen, and he GAZES at what is happening and sees injustice. He "looks this way and that" because, as the midrash tells us, he is wondering why others aren't gazing at the injustice as he is. 4) Intersectionality: Is Moses Hebrew or Egyptian? He's both, and splitting the two up allows others to deny his subjectivity and power. Are the midwives Hebrew or Egyptian? Is Pharaoh's daughter powerful (as nobility) or powerless (as a woman)? The parashah continually plays on these ambiguous and intersectional identities. 5) Finding one's voice: this is the parashah of Moshe claiming he is poor of speech so he cannot speak truth to power, and he overcomes it. 6) Are the signs, wonders, and plagues just another power contest --the value basis of patriarchal society-- or is God trying to give Pharaoh chances over and over again to change, the basis of love though one must leave the relationship if one is not being treated the same in exchange?…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Joseph‘s Brothers and Robert Bly‘s The Sibling Society 14:09

3 years前14:09

14:09

Robert Bly, one of America's great poets and poetry translators, recently died. In this presentation, I apply Bly's books of social commentary to the end of Genesis. Iron John described the effects of fathers turning over parenting duties to others --like the wrong-headed "kids learn from interacting with other kids" rather than with parents. It also argued for the simultaneous absence of initiative rites in American society. In The Sibling Society , Bly argued that American society represents an adolescent stage of development, not true adulthood. I apply both books to the entire end of the Book of Genesis.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Joseph, Hanukkah, and the Assimilation Narrative 13:45

3 years前13:45

13:45

These are my reflections upon Arnold Eisen's 2015 essay, "Joseph, Hanukkah, and the Dilemmas of Assimilation." Those who investigate the Hanukkah story quickly learn (simply by reading the Books of Maccabees in the apocrypha) that the events around the 186 BCE revolt of the Maccabees against the Hellenizing-Syrians do not involve a miracle of oil. Rather, following the decree by Antiochus IV that the Temple in Jerusalem be dedicated to Hellistic religion, the Maccabees first attack Hellenized Jews themselves, who show little to no resistance to the decree. (Josephus tells us, more or less, that the Greek sports stadium in Jerusalem was a far better draw to local Jews than the Temple.) The second part of the story involves the Maccabees attacking the Syrian-Greek forces themselves, and achieving victory. (Two hundred years later, living under the oppression of the Roman forces, and witnessing Roman massacres of Jews following rebellions, the Rabbis introduced the folktale of the oil to distract Jews from a story encouraging further rebellion against Hellenistic forces.) So, when we today read the original tale, it creates uncomfortable questions about assimilation. Aren't most American Jews going to sports games on Saturday rather than to temple? Aren't most American Jews unrecognizable from their peers, as Joseph was unrecognizable to his brothers? The simple narrative of assimilation states that American Jews were quick to assimilate for personal and social gain. In this presentation, I argue that this little-challenged narrative is oversimplified, wrong and damaging.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
The Incommunicability of Experience and the Rape of Dinah 16:58

3 years前16:58

16:58

[WARNING: The second half of the podcast discusses the rape of Dinah and I share an account of sexual harrassment from recent congressional testimony.] If the early chapters of Genesis are about where we come from, the second half of Genesis is about the experiences that change us, that make us who we are as adults, not through our own achievements but through what happens to us, from tragedy to transcendence, from rejection to love, from struggles with mental health, sexual harrasment, being cheated, to seeing God in a place. Little do we notice how in these chapters the experiences are incommunicable: the experience is the words of Torah --as in our lives they are experiences of the ineffable depths in which we are changed, in which we receive a new name-- but the figures don't speak of them to others, and certainly don't record their experiences in the self confessional blogs and interviews that dominate our media world today. And nowhere is this more poignant than the experience of sexual harrasment and rape, which I discuss using the reflections of Hadar's Rosh Yeshiva Aviva Richman.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Dara Horn‘s ”People Love Dead Jews” and the Erasure of Jewish Difference 15:23

3 years前15:23

15:23

In this sermon -- playing on the Rabbinic commentary that the name of the Torah portion that mentions Sarah's death is called "The Life [or Lives] of Sarah" because we should celebrate the lives she lead rather than think of her death-- I discuss Dara Horn's new book People Love Dead Jews , which argues that the non-Jewish world loves books about Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel because the stories of these dead Jews teaches us something universal and moralistic about ourselves, rather than challenging us to think of what Jewish lives are like, how they are different, how they might challenge us. How is it that Wiesel's Night went from its original form, a scathing accusation against the Euopean bystanders who let the Holocaust happen to a book about God's hiding? Because God's hiding happens in each of our lives, like a universalistic lesson about life's tragedies, and allows us to avoid the deep questions of Jewish difference and anti-Semitism. In this teaching, I also ask whether we Jews are guilty of this: inviting in our own Romantic visions of our ancestors --which allows us to live a two dimensional moralizing vision of them-- rather than embracing their difference, and practicing our own.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Changing our Relationship with Time from Productivity to Presence 20:24

3 years前20:24

20:24

It hasn't been very long in human history (two or three generations) that we live our lives according to a clock rather than according to the processes of our lives (waking up, milking the cow, putting the hay in the barn, taking the goats for their grazing...). This has changed our relationship to God, to ourselves, and to each other. We judge ourselves by our productivity, how much we can get done using this resource of time, how much demand we can meet from others before our next appointments. We live outside of time, in a negative relationship, rather than in time, in a positive relationship. Using Oliver Burkeman's book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals , I reflect on how the pandemic first connected us to a positive relationship with time, vis a vis the Sabbatical Year, but then jerked us back to the negative relationship, as demands for productivity --now virtually impossible and harder than before-- were placed on our backs. How can we live in time, not through the standard of productivity, but through the invitation of presence?…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
The Potentially Limitless Commandment of Honoring Parents As They Age 15:48

4 years前15:48

15:48

In this dvar Torah, I share Talmudic stories of rabbis trying to honor their mothers in ways that are both comical and also poignant in their alluding to our individual (and often lonely) struggles to honor God and them, especially as they age, with seemingly no yardstick to compare ourselves and manage expectations.…

Judaism for the Thinking Person

1
Combatting the Curses Against Israel with History, not more Scapegoating 29:29

4 years前29:29

29:29

The last sections of the book of Numbers deal with the local tribes, themselves fighting and displacing each other, refusing to grant the Israelite refugees safe passage through their lands. As a consequence of this moral failing, they lose the right to keep the land --an important message of Torah. In fact, coupled with their denials of safe passage, they hire the famous Near-Eastern Bilaam to magically curse the Israelites with fraught words justifying violence against them. It's like this entire section was relived in the years approaching 1948, when local Arab populations opposed Jewish refugees buying land and living peacefully in British Mandate Palestine, and instead attacked them. Ever since they resort to Bilaam curses, the use of factually incorrect curse words of "Genocide," "Apartheid," "Settler Colonialism," "Ethnic Cleansing," "Daily Massacres of Children," and "Not Indigenous" to scapegoat Jews and justify violence against them, not just in Israel but in intimidation and harrassment on the campuses in the U.S. In this Yom Kippur morning sermon, I name this reenactment of the end of Numbers and propose that Jews respond not with compaints about anti-Semitism, but with a campaign of history, along with a renewed consciousness that is not a victim consciousness but is a creator consciousness that is inclusive of Arabs, so we don't lose our moral authority in the Land.…