Are Modern Social Justice Values in the Torah?
What are the most common commandments in the Torah? Shabbat? Kashrut? No, it's repetition after repetition about caring for the stranger, th...
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Authentic, Compassionate Judaism for the Thinking Person
Scholarly, Conservative Jewish Teachings on God, Prayer, Torah and Kabbalah with Rabbi Nadav Caine (ravnadav)
Episodes
20 of 103 episodesDo Jews Outside Israel Have a Say? The Bewitching End of Numbers
Almost every part of the last two sections of Numbers seems obvious, and usually offensive, from war, to borders, to women, and so on. I pic...
The Biblical Meaning of "Holiness" - That Isn't Yours!
I have watched ridiculous ways of explaining why things are right and wrong to small kids --which indicates that most adults have no clue th...
DO NOT Forget on Passover! In Praise of Biur Chametz
This year's traditional teaching on a Law of Passover (per the tradition of Shabbat Hagadol). For a download of the text I'm referring to: h...
Israel and Iran: Malachi, Xerses, and Liza Minnelli
The Iran War began at Purim (about Persia, now Iran) and now we're at Passover with Persia yet again as we are required to read Malachi. The...
Why Jurgen Habermas Died Between Exodus and Leviticus
There is a loss that takes place between the end of Exodus, with the people donating materials and building the tabernacle in small groups e...
The Visual Language of Norms in Judaism -- And We are the Poorer for Losing It
This is a Drash on Parashat Tetzaveh, an Exodus portion about the priestly clothing that usually elicits shallow reflections on clothes. Ins...
Forced Labor was Used to Build the First Temple?
For parashat Terumah, the Rabbis pair a Torah reading about Terumah, donation from the heart, with the account of Solomon's building of the...
10 Commandments or 10 Speakings? Speech as the Center of Our Worship
The 2nd Commandment says not to make a chiseled thing part of our worship, yet the 10 Commandments actually are a chiseled thing! In this po...
Seeing ICE Through Scripture (from local rally)
My remarks from a local rally.
Jacob's Blessings and Aging Out of People Pleasing
Drawing on the book "(Un)kind: How 'Be Kind' Entrenches Sexism" by Victoria Smith and Ellen Scherr's essay "The Neuroscience of Why You Sudd...
Agriculture, Economic Collapse, and the Joseph Story
At the end of Genesis, Joseph centralizes the agricultural system of Egypt, saving the country from collapse due to upcoming years of bad cr...
The AI Gods Taking Away our Souls and Our Community
My Kol Nidrei 2025 Sermon on how our phones are amplifying the centrifugal force of the pull of our individual lives, sacrificing the centri...
Parashat Toldot: Is Imposter Syndrome a Fault or a Gift from God?
This is a revision of a podcast I released several years ago. It focuses on Isaac as the patriarch of Imposter Syndrome. In my own life, I'v...
What Can the Rabbinic Debate about Noah Teach Us About Equity?
I relate the debate from Bereishit Rabbah to This American Life episode 550.
Maimonides' Laws of War & Talking About Gaza
Most of us have been avoiding the painful conversations with friends and family over Gaza. Why? It seems like we have no common frame of ref...
Getting "Miracles" Right in Judaism and in Our Lives (Yom Kippur Sermon 2025)
Miracle may be the most misunderstood concept in Judaism. While some Jewish sects officially (like Chabad), and most Jews unofficially, cons...
Parashat Behaalotkhah: Grievance and Getting the Leaders We Deserve
In this long section of the Torah, where Miriam and Aaron are disciplined by God for challenging Moses, where Moses tries yet again to resig...
Pinchas and Superman as our Mirror
Rabbi Irwin Kula reminds us that when we engage deeply with Torah, it can serve "as our mirror" which illuminates our inner complexities, st...
Abraham Joshua Heschel Second Class: Ethics vs Holiness
We have grown accustomed to seeing Ethics and Holiness as virtually the same thing. I show that in order to properly understand Heschel's in...