Judaism for the Thinking Person

The Middle Way: Conservative Judaism Without Apology

Conservative Judaism is pretty much always on the defensive these days.  We live in a world where all the legitimacy is ascribed to the Left or to the Right, and the voice of the Middle Way is discounted, even by those who are living it!  In the sermon, I try to show that the deepest religious path of spirituality, wisdom, and practice is The Middle Way.  In a world where conviction is shown in the extremes, we ought to embrace the holiness of truly believing and practicing The Religion of Hillel, not of Shammai.

Judaism and Buddhism: Enlightenment, Nirvana, and Shabbat

This is a summary lecture from a lecture series I did in Ann Arbor on Judaism and Buddhism: Examining Jewish Mysticism and Philosophy through the 4 Noble Truths.   What if we understand "revelation" as "enlightenment" rather than miraculous supernatural dictation (which is, after all, a thoroughly incoherent concept)?  What if the entire "teaching" (Torah) of Shabbat has to do with bringing enlightenment to the masses?

Did the Exodus Happen? Archaeology, Biblical Criticism, and The Torah As the Coming Together of Two Hebrew Peoples

A lecture in which I present the thesis of Richard Elliott Friedman's book on Exodus, which focuses on the two most ancient parts of the Torah (the Song of the Sea and the Song of Deborah), the historical trends in Biblical archaeology and criticism, and why the Torah could well be a story of two long lost parts of the Hebrew family tree coming together in Israel, possibly under a female leader.  The theme reflects the issues of our time:  overcoming tribalism to have a national vision based on values, and (surprisingly?) those values/Torah coming from those refugee cousins newly in the Land.

I've made an optional source-sheet of Biblical texts to go with this lecture.  See:

https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/178990?lang=bi

Why Are The Prayers Constantly Speaking of "When we lie down and when we rise up?" - A Practical Guide

If you were a literary critic analyzing the evening prayers, you would have to note how often the trope of going to bed and waking up is repeated:  Ahavat Olam before Shema, VeAhavta and VeHaya Im-Shmo'a after Shema, Hashkiveinu, and then Barukh Adonai  Bayom 'VaLayla on Weekdays or the Shabbat Psalm on Friday night.  Wow:  for a twelve minute service, you've prayed about going to sleep and waking up five times!) What is this all about?  And why is the most commonly studied volume of Talmud, Berakhot ("Blessings"), concerned greatly about the timing of nighttime and morning prayers as well?  In this podcast, I connect all of these with reflections about the psycho-physiological aspects of falling asleep and waking up, including theories about the function of prayer and a recent study on when one should be waking up.  I conclude with a very practical exercise for improving one's spiritual and physical health.

The Ten Commandments as Your Path to Encounter God Directly

We all know that the Ten Commandments are important, and many of us know that there's some way they're different from other "commandments," but we rarely get to the heart of the matter.  In this spontaneous presentation (and hence inferior audio quality), I try to convey exactly what this difference is, and why the Ten Commandments are truly a unique spiritual path of immediate connection to God's presence.  In addition to using real-world examples from my own life, I also explain the importance of Rabbi Abraham Joshua's theology without the typical poeticizing or trivialization of it.  We experience God at our own Sinai, no different from our ancestors, and yet we often walk away from our connection to God.  Why?  I try to explain in this very personal podcast.  

Q&A: Why is the Translation of "In the Beginning" Wrong? The First Word of the Bible

A question to the Rabbi: What is the literal translation of the first three words of the Hebrew Bible?  Why so some translations say, "in the beginning, God created..." and some say "In the beginning of God's creating..." and what's the difference?  A short piece of Torah study...

Why Doesn't God Build Up Moses' Self-Esteem? A Discussion about God and about Parenting

As some of my recent podcasts have been lectures, I decided to mix it up by sharing a Torah discussion in which I raise a simple question asked by Mechon Hadar's Dena Weiss:  At the Burning Bush, when Moses is too humble or scared to accept his mission, and Moses asks God, "Who am I to go to Pharoah?" why doesn't God say, "You're the one who killed an Egyptian to save a Hebrew from being beaten!  You're the one who, with no backup or support, took on a large group of male shepherds to stop them harrassing the girl shepherds!  You're the one who has made a life in a foreign land all on your own!  You're the one born with supreme gifts!?"  I ask our group, "If you had a child, wouldn't you point out how successful they've been in the past, that they have natural gifts and talents, and boost their self-esteem?  Why does God handle it so differently?"  As usual, I've edited out all participant answers (since they were not near the automatic microphone) but I've given summaries of each wonderful answer.  (Note that several children participated actively!  Wish you could have been there!)

What is Judaism, What is its Influence on Current World Affairs, and Why is Fundamentalism a Very Modern Movement?

This is my lecture to the World Affairs Club where they assigned me to present on the Influence of the Abrahamic Religion of Judaism on World Affairs as the first of a three part series on the influence of the Abrahamic religions.  While the topic is problematic (how does "religion" cause "history?"), I address the essentials of Judaism, focus especially on the rise of fundamentalism in the last twenty years as a result of the internet, and consider how fundamentalism itself is a "modern movement with an anti-modern rhetoric."  I also look at how seeing religion as the cause of, say, terrorism, fails to see the geopolitical context that leads to this phenomenon.  I apologize for my voice fading when I faced the Powerpoint slides on the screen [and I am happy to share the Powerpoint with you --just email me].  I did not include the 1 hour Q&A session afterward in which I addressed the U.S. endorsement of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, my polemic against the Anti-Semitic and destructive BDS movement, the Arab-Israeli peace process, and whether the world would be better off without theism entirely.  If you want the slides, just contact me and I'll send you the PDF.

Abrahamic Faith: Living in the Present and Future Moment Concurrently, and Having Nothing to Do with How We "All" Share the Father

"And because (Abraham) had a faithfulness in God, He reckoned it to him as righteousness."  Few lines in Torah have done more theological mischief than this verse of five Hebrew words in Genesis.  Is it really the essense of "Abrahamic faith" that "Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all share?"  Or is the latter an imposition on the text to suit personal motives?  Is Abraham's faith about obedience, or about being the first to have the correct theology [though it seemed Noah had that], or about something else?  How is his "faith" connected to the rest of his life, whether setting out on a risky self-made future, creating various covenants and negotiations, going to war, or offering his son Isaac as a potential sacrifice?  And what is his "religion" if he doesn't have Revelation yet and so isn't doing mitzvot?  In this Torah study [with questions edited out], we bring the perspective of scholars like Jon Levenson (Harvard) to enlighten what these words mean, what a "promissory faith"  is, and how it applies to our lives today.  

Kabbalah, the Amidah prayer, and the Spiritual Progression of Shabbat

If you can, download the KABBALAH & AMIDAH PDF and refer to it.  It's a three part folio I created that uses color to track Kabbalistically significant parts of the Shabbat Amidah prayers, and shows the progression of God sefirot/attributes/emanations on Shabbat.

In this presentation, I look at the Amidah, called "The Prayer" (ha-tefillah) in the Talmud, in its evolving Shabbat version.  This Amidah is an enigma inside of an enigma, a silent meditation inside of a public pronouncement, a fixed prayer which suddenly changes (in a revealed yet concealed way) on Shabbat.  Full of Kabbalistically significant references, I trace a mystical, cosmic progression that accompanies each and every Shabbat, from free-flowing Chesed Shabbat evening with a focus on Nature, intoxication, forgiveness,love, blessing, and the home, through Revelation/Power/Law/Direction/Distinction/Path on Shabbat morning, to Redemption/Balance/Wholeness/Oneness/Renewal Shabbat afternoon.