Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Every week, on the seventh day—the Sabbath—observant Jews rest. They perform no labor and they dedicate the day to serving God. This idea, the Sabbath, has another application in the Hebrew Bible: God also commands […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  This week, Jews celebrate the holiday of Sukkot, during which it is traditional to read one of the most philosophically interesting books of the Hebrew Bible, Ecclesiastes. The narrator of the book, identified by Jewish […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Two liberal arts professors were intrigued by a habit of mind they detected in their students, especially their high-achieving ones. Despite material abundance and the freedom to pursue a profession or passion of their choosing, […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  The hallmark of the American constitutional system was the idea that all men are created equal. Of course, the American regime did not live up to that ambition for centuries, but the ideal of equality […]

The Book of Ruth tells one of the Hebrew Bible’s most beautiful and beloved stories—chronicling how a childless widow from a foreign land rises to become the ancestress of Israel’s greatest king. But as Dr. Leon Kass and his coauthor (and granddaughter) Hannah Mandelbaum demonstrate in their new book, Reading Ruth: Birth, Redemption, and the […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  The idea of social justice marks a cleavage in the American Jewish consciousness. Its advocates believe that social justice represents the very best ethical impulses of Judaism, and that the pursuit of social justice is […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  In the last week of January 2021, thousands of Israeli haredim protested and rioted in Bnai Brak, a predominantly haredi city located east of Tel Aviv. The rioters were angry at the government’s efforts to […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  For much of its history, the Jewish people hasn’t had a state. The Israel described in the Hebrew Bible had emissaries and military power, and the modern state of Israel has a foreign ministry and […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  American democracy is a nation of nations. Muslims, Christians, and Jews, women and men from every nation on earth have made themselves into Americans. Nevertheless, a unique majority culture developed within this nation of nations: […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  In November of 1945, the American Jewish Committee established a new, independent magazine of Jewish ideas, with the goal of explaining America to the Jews and the Jews to America. This month, Commentary marks 75 years of publishing about […]