Authentic, Compassionate Judaism for the Thinking Person

We have grown accustomed to seeing Ethics and Holiness as virtually the same thing. I show that in order to properly understand Heschel's interlocking concepts of Blessing (berakhah), Faith (emunah), Awe (yirah), and Commandedness (Mitzvah), one needs to grasp that Ethics and Holiness are VERY different. This podcast has been edited to remove the Q&A, which sometimes found the material uncomfortable to their sensibilities.

The vast majority of work on Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is academic:  summaries, clarification, footnotes and so on. In this series of classes, I'm here to show you how to live Heschel's religious philosophy, not understand it. In this first lecture, I show how one begins this process by first gathering three philosophies: 1) Schleiermacher, 2) Pragmatism, and 3) Phenomenology. With these basics, one is ready to identify what connecting to God looks like, whether you've ever done it yourself, and how it creates and informs Judaism.

There are two New Years on the Jewish calendar (in addition to the new years for trees and for flocks): Rosh Hashanah and First of Nissan (announced on Shabbat HaChodesh). The deep spiritual connection between the two is emphasized by reading the haftarah from Ezekiel, who sees the journey from the 1st of Nissan to Pesach as an equal mirror of the journey from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, and for whom Pesach is the real Yom Kippur. There is a deep and very practical message here: most of our Rosh Hashanah new years' resolutions may fall apart following Sukkot, but the best time to really enact those resolutions in a sustainable way is to use Pesach as the renewal of putting those resolutions into practice. Especially with the change and limitation on diet, the open discussion of what it means to serve God and your own soul during the Seder, THIS is the time to restart doing those resolutions. We're only halfway through the year: you've got six months of leaning into the homestretch, pulled by the gravity of the upcoming holidays. What are your new years' resolutions? How can you implement them during Pesach?

We often fail to appreciate the virtues of the Shepherd period of Judaism, which preceded the Israelite period. In this dvar Torah, I focus on the virtues of sustainability and repairability of the portable sanctuary (Mishkan) over the permanent version (Temple), and I apply it to legislation before state congresses today.

If you want to understand the crisis in education, look no further than Natalie Wexler's "The Knowledge Gap," one of the most important books of the past ten years. Is reading a skill you apply to any text, like stretching a muscle, or playing a video game, or is it, as our tradition defines it, something entirely different, something based on knowledge of the world, of life, and of relating to a larger story?

The plain sense of the brief Tower of Babel story is that dividing people up by their own languages is a curse that prevents cooperation (even if the Rabbis read the story differently). Using Coleman Hughes's essay on the Civil Rights hero Bayard Rustin, I wonder if the curse of our times is the identiy-based division of truths: is this modern paradigm a blessing of diversity or a curse for our much needed cooperation in solving our collective problems?

Isaac's entire story arc suggests that he continually sees himself as the opposite of how folks see him.  But is imposter syndrome a curse, or a blessing?

Using the text of Genesis chapter 24, Talmud Bavli Ketubot 82b, and the Conservative Movement responsum by Rabbi Pamela Barmash, I try to correct the pervasive misunderstings around the Jewish wedding ceremonies:  Does arranged marriage (historically and today) exclude female consent? Is the Jewish wedding ceremony one of male acquisition of a female? Is the ketubah a wedding document or a prenuptial agreement that protects the bride and her property?

How do the ideals of progressivism become the idols of antisemitism? As a rabbi in one of the most progressive cities in America, I try to understand this phenomenon through scapegoat theory and through my own heartbreaking experiences. So what do we tell our college students? How do we heal instead of hurt? How do we get to the Thou? (Sermon, Yom Kippur 2024/5785)

As a Conservative rabbi in one of the most progressive cities in America, it's been an incredibly painful year of feeling unable to ask for empathy from my own fellow Jews, as I see this year's events as Good vs Evil, and so many of my congregants want me to be condemning Israel while declaring moral equivalencies.  And I know they, too, need from me what I cannot give them: validation for their perspective.  This sermon is my way of coming to terms with all of it.

This dvar Torah uses the amazing article by Rabbi David Golinkin on the history of the halakhah and the practice.  It can be found at: https://schechter.edu/must-gods-name-be-written-in-english-as-g-d/

It is commonplace to hear today's Israel-Arab Conflict portrayed as an example of Settler-Colonial European Jews settling in the nation-state of indigenous-dwelling Palestinians. This is a modern invention and is not how the conflict was understood by local Arabs a hundred years ago, who did so in rational terms that match the Biblical arguments between the Israelites (Gideonites) and local Ammonites in Judges chapters 10 and 11. Using the recent scholarly work of Jonathan Marc Gribetz as well as Alex Stein's Love of the Land substack, I show how the ancient outlaw leader Yiftach understood today's situation better than student demonstrators, colonial marxist professors, and Western Hamas apologists. 

As Purim became a holiday of tremendous festivities and lightheartedness, the Rabbis knew that the end of the Megillah in Chapter 9 has a dubious quality, that of a massacre on Haman's people.  Is this a happy ending, a desirable ending, that of massacre, that of Jews finally (and really for its time, only possible in the Jewish imagination but not in practice) having power?  So the Rabbis created a requirement that on the Shabbat morning before Purim, one must read about the Amalekites. In this podcast, I present traditional commentary and observations given the context of the fighting in Gaza.

The most influential rabbi you've never heard of?  Based on an episode of the RadioLab podcast ("Relative Genius") and a biography in the Jewish Encyclopedia -- https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12611-rebenstein-aaron -- I tell you about the extraordinary Rabbi Aaron David Bernstein who likely accomplished more in his lifetime by himself than your average Ivy League university!

In the second verse of Parashat Beshalach (the flight from Egypt and the crossing of the Sea of Reeds), the Torah states that the Israelites fled fully armed.  I explore the traditional commentaries on why, and connect this to the haftarah (story of Deborah and Yael) and to the intelligence failures in Israel caused by male chauvinism. 

The focus of the American and international conversation about the Hamas attack and its aftermath has been "Ceasefire or No Ceasefire" by which people mean (since there was a ceasefire prior to Hamas's breaking it) whether Israel should cease its counter offensive due to civilian casualties. Who gets to be a spokesperson for Israel at this time in our communities and in the world? Interestingly, the Torah portions of Vaera and Bo --where we are when the war stands at 100 days-- raises the classic ethical question: Why did God prosecute a full 10 plagues upon the Egyptian population when it seemed like Pharoah might yield earlier? Why does God intervene --it seems-- in the hardening of Pharoah's heart so that the full span of destruction continues? In this Dvar Torah, I note the context of this Torah discussion. This is the first time Am Yisrael --the nation of Israel-- ever has a spokesperson! That phrase, that this kinship-related tribe of Hebrews, or Bnei Yisrael, are actually a Nation, is spoken first in the Bible by Pharaoh. And God appoints Moshe as the spokesperson, and Moshe turns it down, so Aaron becomes a spokesperson. Why turn it down? Who today gets to speak for the nation when the antisemite demands a response? I note two important textual clues. First, Moshe is called by God to be a spokesperson for the "Sh'fatim Gedolom" --the "Great Judgments upon Egypt" (the plagues)-- and replies that his "S'fatayim" (lips) aren't up to it. (Though one is tav and the other tet, the words look strikingly alike in the Torah!) Midrashically, the trouble is not a speech impediment, it is an impediment to explaining the plagues to the hostile audience! When God doesn't accept that excuse, Moshe says he has "hardness of mouth" and "hardness of tongue/speech" -- the same word "hardness" that describes Pharaoh's heart! This surely tells us a lot of the deep meaning connecting the two.

As a Dvar Torah for Vayigash (Joseph's revealing himself to his brothers following Judah's speech), I explore the mitzvah of redeeming our captives and the limitations on the law "for the sake of Tikkun Olam." The conversation among American Jews about Gaza centers around "Ceasefire or No Ceasefire? What kind of Jew am I if I don't support stopping the bombing?" while the conversation in Israel is "Exchange terrorists for hostages? What kind of Jew am I if I don't bring my sister/brother home at any cost to an Israel bereaved beyond measure?"  In an amazing synchronicity with the Torah reading, the entire drama of all the parashiyot of the Joseph saga lead up to whether Judah will say for his brother Benjamin what he wouldn't say for Joseph, that he will do anything rather than fail to bring his brother home to his bereft father, an Israel who cannot bear further trauma. What kind of Judah/Jew am I if I don't bring my brother home to my heartbroken Israel? And there is Israel (Jacob), saying he will enter Sheol (the underworld) if he is forced to endure another son never coming home. The redemption of Jewish captives is one of the hightest mitzvot in Judaism. Why? And why does the Talmud and Jewish Legal codes say that one only refrains from doing so for the sake of Tikkun Olam?

PART TWO of this Yom Kippur 2023 sermon, in which I share the result of my personal and rabbi experiences of the last 15 years:  that the longer we live, the shorter our eulogy becomes; that life (like scripture) is a combination of halakhah (direct description of human behavior) and aggadah (our stories in which God is an invisible character); that the main point of Yom Kippur is to learn how to retell our stories so that the way God has been communicating to us through our experiences becomes center stage, with the intimation explicit, the aspiration articulated, the perpective holy, so we live wearing the garments of holiness, with the perspective of shrouds and Unetaneh Tokef, as God writes the books of Avinu Malkeinu from the way we are telling our stories.  

In this Yom Kippur 2023 sermon, I share the result of my personal and rabbi experiences of the last 15 years:  that the longer we live, the shorter our eulogy becomes; that life (like scripture) is a combination of halakhah (direct description of action and events) and aggadah (our stories in which God is an invisible character); that the main point of Yom Kippur is to learn how to retell our stories so that the way God has been communicating to us through our experiences becomes center stage, the intimations explicit, the aspirations articulated, the perpective holy, so we live wearing the garments of holiness, with the perspective of shrouds and Unetaneh Tokef, as God writes the books of Avinu Malkeinu from the way we are telling our stories.  

Using the stories of Avraham, Sarah, and Hagar in Vayera, I voice what it's like to have utterly different experiences of the Gaza conflict with our coworkers, friends, and family members, some of whom seem to embody Dara Horn's prophecy that the world loves to pity the dead Jews of the past while finding the living Jews of today an inconvenience, an Other, and deserving of sanctimonious antisemitism.

In Deuteronomy, we are commanded to keep Shabbat as restfulness.  Many are unaware that this does not just involve practicing the Shabbat observances and restrictions --Biblical and Rabbinic-- but the highly unusual special-to-itself halakhic category of "Shevut," usually translated as proactively keeping "the spirit of Shabbat."  The category of observing "the spirit of Shabbat" is inherently subjective, and it can vary from person to person.  For one person, reading a newspaper on Shabbat is a violation of the spirit of Shabbat, while for another it enhances the spirit of Shabbat.  Going someplace for Shabbat dinner or lunch might enhance the spirit for one, but for another take away from the Shabbat spirit of the sanctuary of home.  The issue has come to the fore with the electric car.  Since an EV has no fire within in, and electricity meets none of the halakhic prohibitions, its use on Shabbat largely comes down the category of shevut.  This has produces two approved Responsa of the Conservative Movement, which are largely hostile to one another.  In one, anybody considering the use of an EV on Shabbat should be considered in violation of the law, and shevut should not be considered subjective, but actually somehow defined by a small group of rabbinic authorities others in perpetuity!  (It's like saying, How dare you read your psychology textbook on Shabbat!  That's homework!  Even though you are allowed to read on Shabbat and you love psychology.)  The other group decries this attempt to take over and monopolize our one subjective category.  I explore the issues.  

Drawing on the traditional meaning of the Kol Nidrei --"All Vows"-- prayer, plus the Mishnah and Talmudic tractates on the Nidrei (Nedarim: Vows), plus the philosophy of Ritual Drama and the recent psychological studies about Future Selves, Rabbi Caine constructs a vision of what the Yom Kippur experience is supposed to be, a drama of our envisioning our future selves and playing those parts through Tefillah, Tsedakah and Teshuvah that connect to the Nidrei, our New Year's Resolutions.

My Second Day 5784/2023 Rosh Hashanah Sermon explores the New Year's resolution ("neder" as in "Kol Nidrei") in Biblical, Talmudic, and Contemporary Jewish spirituality. What is the one resolution in your life that is "If not now, when?" and what can the Talmud tell us about how to be successful at it?

My Rosh Hashanah 5784/2023 (first day) sermon examines the understanding of God's image as multiple genders in Jewish theology, mysticism, and Rabbinic midrash. What are the implications for transgender, nonbinary, and queer identifications? And equally, what are the implications for the self-understandings of everyday cisgender folk? Using the work of Joy Ladin, Charlotte Fonrobert, and Elliot Wolfson, in addition to classical and mystical Rabbinic sources, Rabbi Caine lays out the urgency of radical inclusion both with each other and with ourselves.

As we begin the journey to High Holidays, I look at Matot the end of the Book of Numbers, where God is fastidiously concerned that we get right our relationship with the God of Judaism and, even deeper, the true God of the Universe.  When these fall short, we are asked through the Biblical spirituality of vows, do we even care about our own word and how we show up in this world?  This is a teaching for approaching the journey of weeks to the High Holidays.

Parashat Beha'alotkha begins with a memo to all the Israelites that doubles down on the top down hierarchy of Aharon and Moshe at the top, and then it continues with a series of amplified grumblings, complaints, and a continuation of the deterioration of the communal project and institution --now one year in-- that Exodus and Leviticus championed.  The crux is that the top down structure operates through directives, orders, and job descriptions, and with each person now operating out of their tent-and-family --unlike before when slavery, Sinai, and mishkan construction were in person collective activities.  It is an apropos description of the change from in-person to remote-work that we have experienced in the last four years, and the insoluble fractures it is causing are not only not resolved, but continue to tear apart the fabric of collective identity for the next several parashiyot in Numbers.  How fitting we are reading this when the top tech companies, who created and sustain remote work, claim they can no longer function operating that way themselves.

The longest parashah of the Torah's is Numbers' Naso, which begins with the theme of the tabernacle of roving ritual performance, like a traveling theater group, and then describes four ritual dramas that take publicly:  the financial penitent, the jealous husband, the addict, and the arrogant prince.  What do these have in common?  Rather than seeing ritual function to impose comformity and social roles, I examine this through the theory of Victor Turner, who posited that rituals actually subvert conventional roles, and in a theatrical way, use fixed theater scrips and actions to subvert them, and you.

The Rabbis are understandably preoccupied with why the Torah was given bemidbar Sinai, in the wilderness of Sinai, rather than in the Land of Israel.  Entire commentary collections are devoted to this one profound fact.  In fact, the fourth book of the Bible, Bemidbar, even means "In the wilderness" and often occurs just before the holiday of Shavuot, where we collectively re-experience the gift of Torah happening in the wilderness.  A teaching developed that the meaning of the Torah being "a gift from the wilderness" means that in order to receive Torah and wisdom in your life you need to "make yourself a wilderness," meaning that you make yourself a holy receptive vessel through becoming a midbar, a wildnerness.  I teach some traditional teachings of practicing that in your own life. 

In this teaching, I note how there are two sorts of social legislation that emerge out of the Holiness Code of Leviticus (as well as other places):  the kind that is aspirational --invitations to become a holy people through holiness of giving, holiness of speech, holiness of conduct, holiness of caring-- and the kind that is deeply uncomfortable structural change -- i.e. so aspirational that you really want to just leave it "in heaven" as an unreachable ideal.  An excellent example of the latter is the Jubilee Year, or Jubilee Reset, when not only does the Land receive extra ecological dispensation (terrifying for an agrarian culture), and not only are most debts forgiven (also terrifying to the economic system), but the Biblical basis of capital, the Land itself, is returned to an original apportionment.  I compare the Jubilee Reset of capital once every 50 years to the Estate Tax, a way to prevent generational wealth from accumulating so far that the society cannot overcome the class divisions it creates of structural poor and structural privilege.  In America, the Estate Tax is easy skirted with comically massive loopholes, while the generationally wealthy claim through propaganda that it should be eliminated because it is somehow targeted at farms, rather than the real problem of generational inherited wealth.  Leviticus ends warning of societal collapse if we leave the Jubilee as an ideal rather than practical policy.  What would society look like if we actually had a law that one cannot leave more than 50 million dollars to each child? 

In honor of Lag B'Omer, I succinctly recount the Jewish mystical practice of embodying God's attributes during the period of Counting the Omer.  Specifically, in the transition to the week of Lag B'Omer, we transition from practicing in our lives the form of leadership that involves pushing people, and yourself, to get through tasks, the kind of action in which you feel you're carrying people to the finish line so the team gets there, to a different mode of leadership from God's attributes, the leader who says little at the team meeting, and then when they need to, utters just a few humble words (like "Isn't who we are really about X?") that change everything. Netzach (pushing through) and Hod (winning by stepping aside, like in martial arts) interplay.

Hope you're not having an Ecclesiastes month....

Drawing on so many articles lately, from the New Republic to Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, I use Nachmanides' commentary on a verse from the Golden Calf account, the verse that recounts Moshe's reaction to witnessing the events unfolding, with unflinching criticism of Aaron's (supposed) leadership, and using a rare Hebrew word to describe the scene, that sounds like the Nation is becoming Pharaoh.  How apt.

Using Rabbi Jane Kanarek's 2019 CJLS (Conservative Movement) halakhic responsum, I explain the complex development of Jewish head covering for both men and for women.  Though my conclusions from the sources are a bit different from Rabbi Kanarek's --who does not address issues of relative cultural gender standards-- I, like her, agree that the vast majority of Jews are uneducated to the halakhah of head coverings in awareness of God's presence and in representing the community before God -- a basis that is essentially independent of the familiar domains of female gender modesty and male Jewish identity.  Interestingly, today there is a movement of Jewish women under 50 to wear Jewish scarves and headbands, apparently in recovery of Jewish gender price and identity, but I believe many who do so are unaware of the complex roots that separate principles of hair covering and head covering.

I've always wondered why we repeatedly pray to God to be willing to grant us Shabbat, etc.  What does it mean to be willing, or to be capable of exercising one's will?  Free will and the exercise of will always comes up when trying to understand Pharoah's will and heart-hardening in Shemot, and so I use sources there to answer the question.  The conclusion touches on how our relationship to God is different from our relationship to Torah.  God, like Moshe, may not always be speaking or willing, but the Torah always is.

There are virtually no references to grandparenting in the Torah, until, by sharp contrast, we are told in Genesis 50:23 that Joseph got not only to grandparent but great-grandparent as well.  I reflect upon this startling exception using two articles from the New York Times, including a recent one that describes the recent increase of adult children in their 20's becoming roommates with their grandparents.

Using the interpretations of the Rabbis (including Nachmanides and Sefer HaYashar) to understand Joseph's assimilation (in name, dress, etc.), I compare him to an American hero very recently in the news!  I can't say more without ruining the suspense...

Yaakov's famous wrestling scene and renaming as Yisrael --one who wrestles with God and prevails-- is often understood as Yisrael wrestling with God as his opponent.  The Rabbis point out how problematic this is, since the opponent is listed as a "man," not as God.  Therefore some of the Rabbis see it this way:  the wrestling opponent looks identical to Esav, being his guardian angel (Rashi) or his projection, and wrestling "with God" (im elohim) means wrestling with God as a supportive ally.  Yaakov clearly is the Patriarch of Anxiety, and in this climax, we see a powerful message:  one does not vanquish anxiety, but rather "one who prevails" is one who does what they love (say, acting, healing, teaching, parenting, etc.) while experiencing panic and anxiety at the same time.  This is the powerful message which is both true according to science and according to Torah.

Is it right to use arable land --often very expensive in populated areas -- for graves, then pollute the environment by keeping them "dignified" through maintenance and pesticides, with the hollow promise of "perpetual care," and say this is all required by Jewish Law, when Jewish Law itself is the source of the requirement for eco-decomposition and of prohibitions against costly burial?  I explicate the sources using the Conservative Movement's oficial responsum, "Alternative Kevura Methods" by Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky, which can be found at bit.ly/3tMa4RG

In this ten minute teaching I used to begin the 10 Days of Awe, I connect several teachings.  The first is the Rabbinic teaching that following a calamity upon a village, one should try to give the luxury rations to those who are used to luxury because being unaccostomed to hardship, their anguish might be even greater than others' though we are tempted to believe the opposite.  The second is that during Yom Kippur, we approach ourselves and our relationships in a state of aninut, of affliction -- the same word used when one has suffered calamity, and the same word used when one is burying a loved one and then heading into the week of shivah grieving.  The third is that it is forbidden to say, "How are you?" to someone who has just experienced aninut, and instead one must practice a special form of active listening.  Following two years of calamitous pandemic, where many of us put on brave faces because we are scared to share our emotions due to our perceived privilege or we may not have suffered as much as others, we must acknowledge that our pain is nonetheless real, very real, and that the directives of actively telling our stories and actively listening are the imperative way forward.

Is the Jewish concept of history that of linear progress, or that of Ecclesiastes' cyclical vanity?  This teaching was delivered during a 12-Step friendly Serenity Shabbat.

The theology of the haftarot of the exile prophets like Deutero-Isaiah is hard for most people to relate to:  "You are in exile, your life is full of tragedy, and I love you, I remember you as you were before, but I won't be getting you out of the situation you got yourself in, and which I warned you repeatedly about."  This is the kind of "unloving" God that Christian theologians for millenia have accused Jews of having.  Yet do those in Al-Anon understand it in a way they can teach us?  

For too long, Jews have associated the Recovery movement with Christianity, and we have seen those in recovery, or with addictions, as outsiders to Torah.  This is far from reality.  The main example of vows-of-change --the essence of High Holidays-- in the Torah itself is the vow to abstain from alcohol and other intoxicants, involving emulating priestly service and separating for a period from one's family and social triggers.  The very process of High Holiday teshuvah is recognizing our wrong behavior, feeling bad about it, and then releasing that guilt feeling through doing a cheshbon nefesh --an accounting-- of exactly how we have harmed others and ourselves, then making amends, then embracing a different path, and then serving God and others.  This is the teaching of 12 step.  (Jewishly, the teshuvah steps are enumerated sometimes as 4, sometimes as 6, and sometimes as more steps, but they essentially mirror the 12 steps of recovery.) Whether the 12 Step Movement has roots in Christian founders is irrelevant:  it embodies the sacred teachings of High Holidays.  This sermon is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Twerski z"l, who died in 2021 from complications from COVID.

My Yom Kippur sermon in 2022.  Using Ethan Kross's book Chatter along with Jewish sources and my own observations about life, I challenge us to form our relationship to God through our relationship with our inner voice, which these days tends to be taken over by CHATTER, the stress brought on by the takeover of our inner God voice through the Satan voice.  It's time we challenge it head on.

I share Ilana Kurshan's teaching on rabbinic midrash seeing Moses as a mother in transition, as they question whether, at the promised land border, God's refusing his entry is frustrating his desire to mother the people more, or frustrating his desire to claim "his turn" to actually have a life now that the children are leaving the nest.  I include my own glosses, but make no mistake that this is Ilana Kurshan's teaching.

In this d'var Torah, I discuss how parashat Eikev is the section of Torah most frought with ambivalences, from the text itself through the Rabbinic commentaries: blessing as bounty and overextension, independence and dependence, hardship and privilege, closeness and distance. I relate this to our lives directly in the examples of the college experience and of our relationship with God.

There is a crisis for our middle and high school students that has reached desperate proportions: they don't believe in God and they see our tradition as having nothing relevant to say about what God could be to them. Typical of immigrant cultures, we have answered them for generations that they need not worry because it's a glorious thing that Judaism allows you to be an ethical atheist. Yet is this answer best for them, or, easiest for us? Our middle and high schoolers are riddled with anxiety, self-doubt, and hopelessness, and yet we don't give them the greatest tool for managing those: a relationship with God. Using the work of Bible scholar Benjamin Sommer, I explain how to teach them that their relationship with God is their relationship with their inner voice, just as it was for Moshe, utili

Drawing on the Rabbinic principle that Passover celebrates our freedom --which is a temporary state that leads to service in covenant, I use 12-step principles to state my thesis:  the only freedom a human being has is in choosing whom we serve and in choosing to live with God as the 3rd party in that service.

How do we relate to the Torah's insistence that the kohanim who do the major rituals be without blemish or disability?  Isn't that grossly ableist?  I suggest the following.  First, the Torah is not an idealistic description of a utopia of saints -- it forces us to recognize truths about human nature, and then create a society for real people like us, so it forces us to recognize our own prejudices and ableism, which are also active today.  Second, there is a serious issue at stake involving the Offerings of Damaged Goods, which is a massive problem in our society today --which tells us a lot about ourselves and how we give.  And third, I use the commentator Bartenura's commentary to offer a way the tradition is accepting human nature but leading us to how to refine it into inclusivity.

In this presentation, I present the Talmudic sources on Judaism's discussion of the status of the fetus, and I argue that what's been missing from the discussion --including the discussion of Jewish views -- is the fact that Judaism leaves open what the status of the fetus is between 40 days and full viability, but does importantly say that men have no say in it, and God transfers His authority to the prospective mother.  In other words, the issue is not freedom of religion in the sense of one denomination versus another, but rather the freedom of the prospective mother to have her own relationship with God, as she possesses the authority to consider that in-between state of the fetus she carries, and what it means to her and to God as she makes her decision, and not let others tell her what it is or not.  (One issue I wish I had made a bit clearer:  around the 11 minute mark, I talk about the fact that Tractate Niddah specifies that between 40 and 80 days, the miscarriage is more than a normal period, and there is an ontological leap again starting at 80 days.  The specifics here are that the woman at these two sections remains in a state of ritual impurity following the miscarriage, as she would for giving birth, because after 80 days there is even clear evidence of sexual organs.  In other words, the Talmud is acknowledging that the embryo is developing into a fetus, and while a fetus is not a baby, it is still not a "nothing."  In addition, many consider this stigmazing the woman to say she is in "ritual impurity," but recall the ritual impurity functioned as "maternity leave" and thus the Talmud is giving the woman maternity leave to recover from the miscarriage, it's not stigmatizing her.)

One of my "standing on one foot while answering a humungous theological question" podcasts.  "Rabbi, what do we mean by miracles?  What is up with the Red Sea splitting?"  I give my on-one-foot 5 minute answer, but we should all go and study (as Hillel famously said after answering his on-one-foot answer) afterward. By the way, I refer to seeing a red butterfly in the answer:  at a funeral and shivah I officiated at, it came up repeatedly that a butterfly would show up in their lives just at the time of remembering the widow's husband, who had a very special connection to butterflies.