Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  It is often thought that the Hebrew Bible focuses on the human capacity for good rather than on urging prosperity; that, in other words, trade and markets―areas where rational actors seek to maximize their self-interest―are […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  When Elie Wiesel was 15 years old, the Nazis murdered his mother and sister and enslaved him and his father in Buchenwald. After the U.S. Army liberated the camp in April 1945, Wiesel went to […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  “We have arrived at a unique point in history,” a recent essay argues, “where many Americans love nothing more than themselves, and the only functioning organization that touches their lives is a corporation.” The author […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  The Jewish Agency for Israel is the largest Jewish nonprofit in the world. Founded in 1929, it incubated the state of Israel’s proto-government, and, upon the state’s declaration of independence, its officers became Israel’s ministers. […]

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.  The celebrated novelist Dara Horn’s new book, People Love Dead Jews, has an arresting title, one designed to make the reader feel uncomfortable. That’s because Horn makes an argument that tries to change the way […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Thirty years ago, in August 1991, riots broke out in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights, a neighborhood shared by African Americans and Jews, the latter of whom were mostly members of the hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  In the year 1970, the distinguished American writer Cynthia Ozick published an essay arguing that Jewish literature might succeed if it embraced and conveyed the rich particularism of the Jewish experience. In a famous metaphor, […]

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, […]