A virtual event presentation by Noam ZionAbout the Event: In this class, we will address the question: How will you celebrate your seder in a time in which so much is lo b’seder (not in order), in a time of war, collateral damage to civilians, endangered hostages, and various kinds of worldwide antisemitism? The problems will not be resolved by Seder night, but we must celebrate as Jews have celebrated Pesach in the worst of times. But we must also acknowledge the profound experiences of the last year and the new questions raised. Joy and yet remembrance are essential in this seder. To respond to that urgent existential need for Israeli Jews, Mishael, and Noam Zion have issued this new Haggadah. Come and hear how the authors have imagined Seder 2024 and learn about how their new Haggadah may be a valuable resource for your American Jewish seder. Note the new Hebrew Haggadah, published March 17, 2024, was produced to reflect updated issues of Israeli civil and military society with its struggle with the massacre, its ongoing unresolved trauma, and its deep struggle between despair and hope. An English Seder Supplement 2024 will be shared with all participants.About the Speaker: Noam is now emeritus at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where since 1978 he has been a senior research fellow and educator. He earned a graduate degree in general philosophy at Columbia University and the Hebrew University while studying Bible and Rabbinics at JTSA and the Hartman Beit Midrash.His popular publications and worldwide lecturing have promoted Homemade Judaism – empowering families to create their own pluralistic Judaism during home holidays – Pesach, Hanukkah and Shabbat. His most popular publications include A Different Night: The Family Participation Haggadah; A Different Light: The Big Book of Hanukkah; A Day Apart: Shabbat at Home; The Israeli Haggadah: Halaila Hazeh; and A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices (published together with his son). But his most recent book written with his son came out on March 17, 2024, Haggadah Yisraelit to reflect on the latest events of October 7, 2023.His most recent academic research encompasses a trilogy on the intellectual history of philanthropy entitled Jewish Giving in Comparative Perspectives (2013) and a nine-part series on Talmudic Marital Dramas (2018). In 2021 Jewish Publication Society published Sanctified Sex: The 2000-Year Jewish Debate on Marital Intimacy. ★ Support this podcast ★

A virtual event presentation by Chancellor Shuly Rubin SchwartzThe event was co-sponsored by Temple Emanuel About The Event: American Jewish Women have made enormous strides over the past century, opening up new avenues for women to engage meaningfully with Judaism and Jewish life. In so doing, they have enriched not only their own lives but also American Jewry and the Jewish tradition as a whole. Together, we will explore this transformation and its impact on us all.About the Speaker: Shuly Rubin Schwartz, Irving Lehrman Research Professor of American Jewish History, a groundbreaking scholar of American Jewish history, and a visionary institutional leader, is the eighth chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary. She is the first woman to serve in this role in its 135-year history.Chancellor Schwartz is devoted to building on JTS’s unique strengths as a Jewish institution of higher learning that trains future leaders through deep study—with both head and heart—of Jewish texts, ideas, and history. In JTS’s thriving community, students develop the creative ability to imbue others with the intellectual, cultural, and religious sustenance that our tradition offers, and they enrich every community of which they are a part. Previously, Dr. Schwartz played a central role in shaping and strengthening JTS’s academic programs while teaching and mentoring countless students. From 1993 to 2018, she served as dean of the Albert A. List College of Jewish Studies, JTS’s undergraduate dual-degree program with Columbia University and Barnard College. In 2010, she was also named dean of the Gershon Kekst Graduate School. In 2018, she assumed the provostship, while continuing as dean of the Kekst School. Chancellor Schwartz was one of the first women on the JTS faculty and played an instrumental role in introducing Jewish gender studies into the curriculum. As a scholar, she brings to light previously overlooked contributions of women to Jewish life and culture over the centuries and continually expands our understanding of American Judaism. Among her publications is the award-winning book, The Rabbi’s Wife, a penetrating examination of the role of rabbis’ wives in the development of American Jewish life.  ★ Support this podcast ★

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz interviews Rabbi Yehuda Albin on the importance of Jewish learning. As the founder of The Ember Foundation and TORAHUB, Yehuda has “built” a synagogue and school without walls. Since moving to Chicago in 1994, he has personally touched hundreds of people with his engaging educational style. Raised in Scarsdale, NY, in a Reform home, and educated at Bowdoin College, he earned his rabbinic ordination during a decade of Torah study in Jerusalem. ★ Support this podcast ★

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Marc GitlerAbout the Event: From Jesus to Shabtai Zevi to the 7th Lubavitcher Rebbe, over the past 2000 years, numerous people, or at least their followers, have fashioned themselves the long sought-after Messiah.But how does one prove that he or she is the true Messiah? While the messianic figures of the past pointed to various events, wonders, and symbols to demonstrate their authenticity, there is one idea that every claimant shares: direct lineage from King David. But what is special about King David that Jewish tradition believes him to be the father of the Messiah?*Source Sheet: https://smallpdf.com/file#s=a2f5d65c-59c2-4f93-928c-3dc05ebb1981About the Speaker: Marc Gitler is the visiting Rabbi of Aish SanDiego. A recipient of the Wexner Fellowship, he was ordained at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. The founder of Fast for Feast, he lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife Sarah and their four children.The event was presented in loving Memory of David SchwartzThis class is in memory of Rabbi Gitler’s nephew, David Schwartz, who was recently killed fighting in Gaza. ★ Support this podcast ★

A virtual event presentation by Dr. Nadav Shifman BermanAbout the Event: In this class, which would take place just before Purim 5784, we shall focus on one important term in the Scroll of Esther, namely “Dat“, and ask: Is Judaism a “Religion”? What are the main modern currents, mainly in Protestantism, which arguably pushed toward defining Judaism as a religion? And what exactly is at stake, for understanding Jewish theology, thought, and practice?About the Speaker: Dr. Nadav Shifman Berman is a research fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Haifa. Nadav’s research explores Jewish Thought vis-a-vis Pragmatism on the one hand and vis-à-vis Agape on the other. More broadly, Nadav’s research investigates the dialectic between pragmatism(s) and fundamentalism(s). In collaboration with Prof. Tal Z. Zarsky of the University of Haifa, Nadav leads an ISF-funded project on intersections between Law, Technology, and Jewish Thought. Before his IDF service, Nadav studied at Yeshivat Ma’aleh Gilbo’a (shiluv 4). ★ Support this podcast ★

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz has a conversation with Tara Strong. A renowned actress known for her talented voice work in animation & now for her powerful voice for justice for Israeli hostages.Tara Strong began her acting career at the age of 13 in Toronto, Canada. She landed several TV, film, and musical theater roles as well as, her first lead in an animated series as the title role of "Hello Kitty." After a short run at Toronto's Second City theater company, she moved to Los Angeles with an extensive resume that included her sit-com and well over 20 animated series. Upon arriving in Hollywood, she quickly made her mark in several TV and Film projects, such as "Party of Five," "National Lampoon's Senior Trip," "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," and more. She has an iconic voice-over career, including roles such as Bubbles in "The Powerpuff Girls," Timmy Turner in "The Fairly OddParents," Dil Pickles in "Rugrats," Raven in "Teen Titans," "Batgirl," "Family Guy," "Drawn Together," "Ben 10," Melody in "The Little Mermaid 2," "Spirited Away," etc. She is Miss Collins on Nickelodeon's "Big Time Rush" and the current voice of "Harley Quinn." She is Emmy nominated, a Shorty Award winner, Twilight Sparkle in "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and currently playing "Unikitty" in the new hit series. She appeared in the Hallmark Christmas movie, "A Very Merry Toy Store." She has 350,000 Twitter followers and has used her social media to raise several hundred thousand dollars for kids with cancer and animal rescue groups, as well as using her commanding voices for her anti-bullying platform. She lives in Los Angeles. From between 2000 and 2019, she was married to former actor and real estate agent Craig Strong. However, the couple went their separate ways in July 2019 and, eventually, they formally divorced in January 2022. They have two sons together.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Amazon Video X-Ray ★ Support this podcast ★

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Jonathan Spira-SavettAbout the Event: The Talmud proposes that on Purim we enter a state of mind in which we no longer know the difference between the goodness of Mordechai and the evil of Haman. At a key moment in the Megillah, when the fate of the Jews seems to lie in the balance, Mordechai proclaims to Esther not-so-emphatically “Who knows? Perhaps it’s for a time like that that you have arrived at royal power.” What might the Purim story, its midrashim, and the practices of Purim teach us about moral certainty and uncertainty in a world with few moral anchors, where knowledge is unstable? Are moral certainties and moral clarity the same thing? What lessons can we draw for the world of 2024 and after October 7?*Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/552507?lang=biAbout the Speaker: Jon Spira–Savett has served for nearly fifteen years as rabbi of Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua, New Hampshire, and is co-host of Tov! A Podcast About “The Good Place” and Jewish Ideas. Jon has taught social ethics, bioethics, and environmental ethics in Jewish day schools, supplementary programs, teen philanthropy projects, and wider community adult education projects and he serves on the ethics committee of Southern New Hampshire Medical Center in Nashua. Jon’s general writings and recordings about Torah and current events are on his blog at rabbijon.net. He is the immediate past president of the Nashua Area Interfaith Council, co-convener of the Greater Nashua Housing Justice Group, and co-founder of “How To Be President”, an initiative to transform how we learn about candidates by asking better questions. Jon was ordained and received his M.A. in Jewish education from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and is an active alum of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship. He did his undergraduate studies at Harvard College. Jon grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is a proud alum of the Talmud Torah of St. Paul, to which he owes his interest in ethical philosophy, text study, and Hebrew language. ★ Support this podcast ★

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Dr. Yehuda MirskyThe event was co-sponsored by Temple Emanuel About the Event: Liberalism is in crisis everywhere, and everywhere the crises bear similarities and real differences. We will look at what has been going on in Israel, to understand it on its terms, as a Jewish and Democratic state, and about liberalism’s vicissitudes around the world.About the Speaker: Yehudah Mirsky is a Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University and is on the faculty of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.  He was, in the Spring Semesters of 2022 and 2023, a Visiting Professor at Harvard University.  A native New Yorker, he lives in Jerusalem with his family and is both an active scholar and committed activist.His scholarship and teaching focus on the intersections of politics and religion, the historical and theological underpinnings of liberalism and human rights, and, in recent years, on ecological ethics. He teaches courses in Jewish Thought (medieval and modern), history of Zionism and the State of Israel, and political and ethical thought. He served in the US State Department’s human rights bureau during the Clinton Administration as a Public Affairs Officer and Special Advisor and has written on religion, politics, and culture for The New York Times, The Washington Post, New Republic, The Economist, Foreign Policy, New Lines and many other publications.  He also was an aide to then-Senators Bob Kerrey and Al Gore and worked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the ACLU, and other NGOs. An ordained rabbi, he was the chaplain with the Red Cross after 9-11. In Israel, he was in the early 2000s a Fellow at the Van Leer Institute and Jewish People Policy Institute and was among the founders of the grass-roots Yerushalmit Movement for a pluralist, livable Jerusalem. Currently, he is deeply involved in the protest movements against the current governing coalition's attempts to undo Israeli democracy, working with both the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv wings of the movement. He is also a longtime student of Arabic and Islam.  His Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution (Yale, 2014) won the Jewish Book Council’s Choice Prize. It appeared in 2021 in a revised Hebrew edition as Rav Kook: Mabat Hadash (Kinneret) which was named by Ha-Aretz as one of the 50 best books of 2021. That year also saw the publication of his Towards the Mystical Experience of Modernity: The Making of Rav Kook, 1865-1904 (Academic Studies Press). B.A. Yeshiva College, J.D. Yale Law School, Ph.D. Harvard University ★ Support this podcast ★

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz sits down with Dara Horn to talk about the rising anti-semitism on American campuses.Dara Horn is the award-winning author of six books, including the novels In the Image (Norton 2002), The World to Come (Norton 2006), All Other Nights (Norton 2009), A Guide for the Perplexed (Norton 2013), and Eternal Life (Norton 2018), and the essay collection People Love Dead Jews (Norton 2021). One of Granta magazine’s Best Young American Novelists, she is the recipient of two National Jewish Book Awards, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, the Harold U. Ribalow Award, and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize, and she was a finalist for the JW Wingate Prize, the Simpson Family Literary Prize, and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Her books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books, Booklist’s Best 25 Books of the Decade, and San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of the Year, and have been translated into eleven languages. Her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, and The Jewish Review of Books, among many other publications, and she is a regular columnist for Tablet. Horn received her doctorate in Yiddish and Hebrew literature from Harvard University. She has taught courses in these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College and Yeshiva University and has held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard. She has lectured for audiences in hundreds of venues throughout North America, Israel, and Australia. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children. ★ Support this podcast ★

A hybrid event (in-person and virtual) by Dara HornThe event was co-sponsored by Congregation Or TzionAbout the Event: In her latest book, acclaimed author Dara Horn explores a pointed question: Why do far too many people seem to love dead Jews, but ignore the living ones? In 2022, the Holocaust continues to make headlines, fill our films and fiction, and generate extraordinary interest far beyond our community. Yet ignorance and indifference towards Jew hatred today seem to be higher than ever. What’s going on?About the Speaker: Dara Horn is the award-winning author of six books, including the novels In the Image (Norton 2002), The World to Come (Norton 2006), All Other Nights (Norton 2009), A Guide for the Perplexed (Norton 2013), and Eternal Life (Norton 2018), and the essay collection People Love Dead Jews (Norton 2021). One of Granta magazine’s Best Young American Novelists, she is the recipient of two National Jewish Book Awards, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, the Harold U. Ribalow Award, and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize, and she was a finalist for the JW Wingate Prize, the Simpson Family Literary Prize, and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Her books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books, Booklist’s Best 25 Books of the Decade, and San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of the Year, and have been translated into eleven languages. Her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, and The Jewish Review of Books, among many other publications, and she is a regular columnist for Tablet. Horn received her doctorate in Yiddish and Hebrew literature from Harvard University. She has taught courses in these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College and Yeshiva University and has held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard. She has lectured for audiences in hundreds of venues throughout North America, Israel, and Australia. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children. ★ Support this podcast ★

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz has a conversation with former professional basketball player Dan Grunfeld about the book he published in 2022, By the Grace of the Game about his multi-generational family journey from Auschwitz to the NBA. Dan Grunfeld is a former professional basketball player, an accomplished writer, and a proud graduate of Stanford University. An Academic All-American and All-Conference basketball selection at Stanford, Dan played professionally for eight seasons in top leagues around the world, including in Germany, Spain, and Israel. Dan’s writing has been published more than 40 times in media outlets such as Sports Illustrated, The Jerusalem Post, and NBC News. Dan earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2017 and lives with his wife and son in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works in venture capital. ★ Support this podcast ★

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Dr. Martin LockshinThe event was co-sponsored by BMH-BJAbout the Event: The Bible is full of commandments that say “do x” or “don’t do y,” almost always without specifying who is being addressed.  When the Bible says not to mistreat widows and orphans, was it addressing judges? Or the wealthy? Or all of us?About the Speaker: Martin Lockshin is a University Professor Emeritus at York University and lives in Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University and his rabbinic ordination in Israel while studying in Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav Kook. Among Lockshin’s publications is his four-volume translation and annotation of Rashbam’s commentary on the Torah. ★ Support this podcast ★

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Dr. Jeremiah UntermanAbout the Event: The polytheism of the ancient Near East conceived of the gods as natural beings who needed sacrifices and libations to physically sustain them. The ethical monotheism of the Torah created a revolution against paganism which would ultimately change forever the concept of religion. One of the key ways in which the Jewish prophets shaped this revolution was their unique understanding of the relationship between ethics and ritual.About the Speaker: Since 2013, Rabbi Dr. Jeremiah Unterman has been a Resident Scholar at the Herzl Institute and the Academic Editor of The Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel (since 2017). From 2000-2006, he was the Director of the Association of Modern Orthodox Day Schools and Yeshiva High Schools, and Adjunct Professor of Bible at Yeshiva University. He also served as Executive Director of the Toronto Board of Jewish Education and Vice-President for Education of the UJA Federation of Toronto, as well as Director of Education of the Hillel Academy of Ottawa. From 1992-1997, he was Executive Director of the Commission on Jewish Education and Director of Boston’s Hebrew College Hartford Branch, Connecticut.  He was the Director and Associate Professor of the Jewish Studies Program at Barry University (Miami, Florida) from 1983 to 1992.  He received his B.A. in Hebraic Studies from Rutgers University, an M.A. in Bible from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. in the Judaica Program of the Near Eastern Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley. He received semicha through private studies in Israel. He has authored two books, Justice for All: How the Jewish Bible Revolutionized Ethics, and From Repentance to Redemption: Jeremiah’s Thought in Transition, and over 100 articles in scholarly publications in the U.S. and Israel. He has lectured frequently at scholarly conferences in the United States and Israel, such as the World Congress of Jewish Studies, the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, and the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies, and at numerous universities in the U.S. and Israel. He is a citizen of both the United States and Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces. He lives in Jerusalem, Israel, with his wonderful wife, Judy. ★ Support this podcast ★

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yankolwiz interviews Rabbi Sharon Brous, founding and Senior Rabbi of IKAR Sharon Brous is the founding and senior rabbi of IKAR, a trail-blazing Jewish community based in Los Angeles. Built in 2004, IKAR has grown into a diverse, dynamic, multi-generational community, one of the fastest-growing and most influential in the country. Brous has been named #1 Most Influential Rabbi in the U.S. by Newsweek/The Daily Beast. She blessed both President Obama and President Biden at their National Inaugural Prayer Services, and her TED Talk “Reclaiming Religion” has been viewed 1.5 million times. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. A New Yorker at heart, she’s grown deeply enamored of the sunshine and promise in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and children. ★ Support this podcast ★

A hybrid event (in-person and virtual) by Rabbi Sharon BrousThe event was co-hosted by Temple SolelAbout the Event: The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World, makes the case that in an era of loneliness, social alienation, and ideological extremism, our deepest spiritual work is finding our way to one other—in celebration, sorrow, and solidarity. Relationships of care and curiosity, Brous argues, are essential to both personal healing and social change. This is how we reawaken our humanity.About the Speaker: Sharon Brous is the founding and senior rabbi of IKAR, a trail-blazing Jewish community based in Los Angeles. Built-in 2004, IKAR has grown into a diverse, dynamic, multi-generational community, one of the fastest-growing and most influential in the country. Brous has been named #1 Most Influential Rabbi in the U.S. by Newsweek/The Daily Beast. She blessed both President Obama and President Biden at their National Inaugural Prayer Services, and her TED Talk “Reclaiming Religion” has been viewed 1.5 million times. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post. A New Yorker at heart, she’s grown deeply enamored of the sunshine and promise in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and children.The event was presented in loving memory of Dr. Sherman Minkoff ★ Support this podcast ★

A virtual event presentation by Dr. Mark NanosThe event was co-sponsored by Congregation Or Tzion About the Event: Most interpretations of Paul understand the apostle to argue that Jews who did not share their faith in Jesus Christ had lost their original covenant standing. Yet, at the same time, they maintain that there will come a time when Jews will believe (based on the same terms as Gentile sinners), and then “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:26). In this class we will trace some of the developments in Dr. Nanos’ lifetime journey, as a Jew, to read and then re-read the texts in Romans 11, wherein Paul sets out his view of his fellow Jews and discover alternatives for translating and interpreting these texts.About the Speaker: Mark D. Nanos is a widely known lecturer and author of many books and articles. He received his PhD from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and an Honorary PhD from the University of Lund, Sweden. His book, The Mystery of Romans, won The National Jewish Book Award in Jewish-Christian Relations in 1996 and he is a co-founder of the “Paul within Judaism” section at the Society for Biblical Literature. ★ Support this podcast ★

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz interviews Rabbi Daniel Askenazi, Chief Rabbi of Barcelona, Spain. ★ Support this podcast ★

A virtual event presentation by Rav Sarah MulhernThe event was co-sponsored by Temple Chai & Temple Emanuel        About the Event: Is there a value to being publicly identifiable as Jewish? Is there a value to looking more like our non-Jewish neighbors? In this session, we will explore how Jewish texts have engaged with these questions over time, and interrogate our instincts and experiences. We will focus on classical Jewish texts about distinctive Jewish dress to launch a broad conversation about the ethics of passing and outing oneself and when and how we wish to display our Jewishness or other identities to the broader world when we do not, and why.About the Speaker: Rav Sarah Mulhern is a Rabbi, educator, and community builder. She serves as the Rabbi of Silverstein Base Lincoln Park, opening her home and her heart to young adults in Chicago. She passionately believes that Torah matters and that Judaism can enrich human life and better society. Rav Sarah is also a nationally-regarded Torah educator, frequently teaching in a wide variety of Jewish adult education settings, particularly on topics of ethics, gender, and Jewish practice. As a rabbi, some of her areas of focus include grief support, feminist and queer niddah education, and crafting joyful halachic egalitarian life cycle rituals. She is deeply committed to inspiring traditional prayer and is a passionate shaliach tzibur. Rav Sarah was ordained by the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, where she also earned a Master's in Jewish Education, and received private rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Daniel Landes. She is an alumna of Brandeis University, Yeshivat Hadar, Pardes Institute, Drisha Institute, Beit Midrash Har El, the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, and the David Hartman Center Fellowship. She can be reached at sarahemulhern@gmail.com or @Rav_Sarah.*Source Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ROWtjcrXYoV_Gxzz-l184CLig_xVkAxv/view ★ Support this podcast ★

A hybrid event (in-person and virtual) by Rabbi David KasherThe event was co-sponsored by Temple ChaiAbout the Event: We often divide the Torah into two categories: narrative and law. But the laws of the Torah themselves are often written in poetic language, inviting us to use the tools of literary criticism to analyze them. That poetic quality is prominently on display in one of the Torah’s most (in)famous legal formulations: An Eye for an Eye. A careful literary reading of this law in the Torah can reveal hidden layers of meaning.About the Speaker: Rabbi David Kasher serves as the Director of Hadar West Coast. He grew up bouncing back and forth between Berkeley and Brooklyn, hippies and Hassidim – and has been trying to synthesize these two worlds ever since. After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1998, he studied for several years in yeshivot in Israel before heading off to rabbinical school at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. He was ordained there in 2007 and returned to Northern California, where he became the Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel. He was part of the founding team at Kevah, a nonprofit specializing in Adult Jewish Education, where he worked from 2012 to 2018 and developed the Kevah Teaching Fellowship. He has served on the faculty of Berkeley Law, the Wexner Heritage Program, Reboot, and the BINA Secular Yeshiva, and also taught courses at Pardes, SVARA, The Hartman Institute, AJR, and HUC. Rabbi Kasher is a teacher of nearly all forms of classical Jewish literature, but his greatest passion is Torah commentary, and he spent five years producing the weekly ParshaNut blog and podcast exploring the riches of the genre. In 2018, he began work as an Associate Rabbi at IKAR, a non-denominational spiritual community in Los Angeles, where he teaches a weekly parashah class and has a new parashah podcast called Best Book Ever. He published an essay, ‘Eating Our Way from Justice to Holiness,’ in Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics (Academic Studies Press, 2019), completed a translation of Avot d’Rabbi Natan for Sefaria, and is the author of ParshaNut: 54 Journeys into the World of Torah Commentary.*Source Sheet: https://smallpdf.com/file#s=8b6eadb7-9fe7-4d78-9019-ce3b204d4c51 ★ Support this podcast ★

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz engages in an enlightening conversation with Rabbi David Kasher, exploring the divinity of the Torah.Rabbi David Kasher serves as the Director of Hadar West Coast. He grew up bouncing back and forth between Berkeley and Brooklyn, hippies and Hassidim – and has been trying to synthesize these two worlds ever since. After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1998, he studied for several years in yeshivot in Israel before heading to rabbinical school at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. He was ordained there in 2007 and returned to Northern California, where he became the Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel. He was part of the founding team at Kevah, a nonprofit specializing in Adult Jewish Education, where he worked from 2012 to 2018 and developed the Kevah Teaching Fellowship. He has served on the faculty of Berkeley Law, the Wexner Heritage Program, Reboot, and the BINA Secular Yeshiva and taught courses at Pardes, SVARA, The Hartman Institute, AJR, and HUC. Rabbi Kasher is a teacher of nearly all forms of classical Jewish literature, but his greatest passion is Torah commentary, and he spent five years producing the weekly ParshaNut blog and podcast exploring the riches of the genre. In 2018, he began work as an Associate Rabbi at IKAR, a non-denominational spiritual community in Los Angeles, where he teaches a weekly parashah class and has a new parashah podcast called Best Book Ever. He published an essay, ‘Eating Our Way from Justice to Holiness,’ in Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics (Academic Studies Press, 2019), completed a translation of Avot d’Rabbi Natan for Sefaria, and is the author of ParshaNut: 54 Journeys into the World of Torah Commentary. ★ Support this podcast ★