Episodes
Monday May 25, 2020
Monday May 25, 2020
On Erev Shabbat, May 22, 2020, the press was filled with the White House's call for people to go to church and synagogue right away, this Shabbat, the Shabbat when we Jews begin the book of Numbers, the parashah of counting. In this ten minute sermon, I reply to the president's call, using the wisdom of our Torah and our Sages as we consider what that would truly look like, and how we count in this time.
Wednesday May 20, 2020
Wednesday May 20, 2020
In his essay in The Atlantic, Adam Serwer proposes that our self-understanding of the social contract is revealed by the decision-making process about the pandemic, as he writes that “the pandemic has exposed the bitter terms of our racial contract, which deems certain lives of greater value than others.” I compare his views to that of the end of Leviticus and of The Book of Ruth, which both demand that shared resources are understood to come from God, and that we overcome our picture of earned inequality and instead the privileged share their blessings freely, not with strings attached that preserve serfdom and servitude. Honestly, hasn't the pandemic revealed that those in power view the economically deprived as needing to serve those able to telecommute? Aren't the terms of our social contract that their "liberty to work" and "be heroes" really is a self-serving rhetoric because we want them to serve us by putting their lives at risk? Leviticus would have us pay the nanny not to work, because she is an extension of family, rather than pay her a "bonus" to put herself at risk due to her "right" to work (which is really her need to feed her family). It's time to end the self-serving rhetoric that the poor should have the "freedom to work" and "they are our heroes" when what we should be doing is redeeming them by sharing our blessings with them and treating them as kinsmen.
Thursday May 14, 2020
Thursday May 14, 2020
In this lecture from my series on "The 8 Most Misunderstood Things in the Bible," I tackle Leviticus's preoccupation with "uncleanness" and "impurity" that seems to stigmatize and isolate women, the sick, and others. It's one of those things that make people pick up a Hebrew Bible and say, "This stuff is barbaric and misogynistic." I argue that this is likely the parade example of misunderstanding Torah, based on misleading translation and the human being's inherent penchant for presuming metaphysics (invisible mechanisms that operate like they're physical but we just can't see, hear, or touch them?). Using the philosophical therapy of philosophical Pragmatism (found in the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty), I present "tamei" not as "uncleanness" but rather as "time-out," a state in which one is required to take grief leave, maternity leave, medical leave, and, for one week a month, sexual leave. We can learn a lot from the Torah's insistence that these can only be norms that do not stigmatize individuals if they are required and not optional, and I apply that to our modern issues with people being presumed to return to work during grief, sickness, and maternity, and are stigmatized when they do not. At the end, I address two questions, one being that I am not dealing sufficiently with the bad-patriarchal bent of the Torah. You'll hear my answer at the end.
Thursday May 07, 2020
From Sinai to Nietzsche: Revelation Reimagined Correctly
Thursday May 07, 2020
Thursday May 07, 2020
In this lecture, I present one of my "Most Misunderstood Concepts in the Torah"... Revelation. What does it mean that God speaks to Moses? What is the revelation of Torah? I present the philosophical frame for this debate, beginning with Descartes and Kant and then the devastating critique of them by Nietzsche, and later Wittgenstein and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. How do we avoid the betwitchment of our language in such crucial areas as "I think means that I cause my thoughts" or "If I experience God, then God is an object of my experience?" How can we become closer to Torah through breaking out of our silly thinking and coming to a more subtle, meaningful, and common sensical identification with revelation?
The quotes used may be viewed by clicking here.