Tov! A Podcast About

This is an encore presentation of our very first podcast episode, about Chapter 1 of The Good Place after an introduction to our whole project! We're republishing it primarily for anyone who is just discovering Tov! in time for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year holy day, which is a time for exploring all the themes in The Good Place as they apply to our lives. As you'll hear in the episode, even though we're two rabbis talking we are not pushing Judaism here, just kicking it around together. Maybe you're someone who's using The Good Place as how you start the new year, with or without our podcast as a guide! If so we'd love to hear about your experience and bet others would too. If you are looking for a community to gather with for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur and don't know how to connect to one, drop us a note at tov@tovgoodplace.com and we'll find someone who will welcome you. Click here for show notes.

This episode is Jon Spira-Savett's attempt to collect my thoughts about how The Good Place illustrates, riffs on, critiques and expands on the Jewish concept of teshuvah (personal change as “returning”), especially as taught in the writings of Rabbi Moses Maimonides. What have I learned so far, and has it affected me in my life? This episode is an exposition in one voice and not a conversation, and for those who prefer just to read it the “script” is linked in the show notes.

Yet another “insider” conversation with someone from the Good Place team! Pamela Hieronymi is a philosophy professor at UCLA with whom Michael Schur spoke early on in the show's development. Pamela talks with Dan Ross and Jon Spira-Savett about some of the moral emotions, like envy, resentment, and blame; whether one can in fact try to be good and whether some people have limits on how good they can become; reframing the matter to center another's experience of being disrespected rather than the calculation of one's own rightness or blame; what effect death or immortality have on our moral lives. We of course discuss contractualism and why Pamela thinks it is both the best theory and an inspiring one, despite its sometimes dense presentation in the works of modern philosophers. We get her take on Maimonides and teshuvah (repair as “return), the Torah covenant as compared to modern contractualism -- and the moral superiority of horses! Click here for show notes and links to Professor Hieronymi's website and some selected articles and videos. Click here to listen to our first podcast on a specific Good Place episode, Chapter 1.

Rebecca Rosenthal, Dan Ross, Sari Laufer and Jon Spira-Savett roam around our reflections after this Jewish rewatch of the entire series! We four have been the most frequent co-hosts of Tov! We're joined by co-host Daniel Kirzane. Some of our topics include which main characters continue to resonate for us or strike us in new ways; aspects of the show that pleasantly surprised us “Jewishly”; things the creators of “The Good Place” explored that we wish Judaism had even more to say about; whether there's anything theological about the series; and of course even more! Click here for our podcast website.

Listen to or watch the recording of the live show here! Rebecca Rosenthal, Dan Ross, Sari Laufer, and Jon Spira-Savett will be co-hosting a conversation with some of our reflections on rewatching The Good Place with a Jewish lens, and we'll respond to your questions in the Zoom chat or the Facebook live feed, and we're happy to have you talk with us live on Zoom too! We can fit 96 more people with us on Zoom. Some of our other co-hosts will be on too. If you can't be there in real time but have something you'd like us to respond to, or if you have a recorded bit you'd like us to play, send us a note ahead to tov@tovgoodplace.com!

On The Good Place, friends and family arrive, and everyone wrestles with what to do there and whether or when to choose a final, peaceful end. Tahani stays as an architect, Jason and Chidi leave, Michael exits into life as a human, and Eleanor's sparks go into the universe and perhaps return to earth. On the podcast, Elliot Goldberg and Jon Spira-Savett invoke the Talmud's heaven-earth straddlers. We Jewishly problematize the water-wave metaphor, and marvel at the role other people play in discerning our personal destinies according to both the Talmud and Michael Schur! Though we're discussing the last episode of the series, we've got a few more podcast episodes to come so we can reflect on what we've learned. Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, our group finally gets to the actual Good Place, where they discover that an eternity of perfection has led to boredom and stagnation even for those who were moral giants on earth. So they propose a new option, that people can stay as long as they like and then choose when it's time to bring their existence to a peaceful end. On the podcast, Dan Ross and Jon Spira-Savett discuss our own tentative views about the afterlife. We run through a number of Jewish views of what happens with us in Olam Ha-Ba, the World to Come, from Maimonides' view to Dara Horn's. Mostly we talk about how we think our individual souls continue to exist somehow for the purpose of giving back to Olam Ha-Zeh, This World, and how others' souls continue to affect us. Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, it's time to pilot the new assessment system and and train its operators. Eleanor and Chidi are both afraid the other will have second thoughts about their relationship after reading their individual file, and Michael has trouble handing responsibility off to Vicky. On the podcast, Savannah Lipinski (new co-host!) and Jon Spira-Savett explore Jewish teachings about judging, and talk about what to take into account and what not to when we judge others and ourselves. We discuss Michael's situation in terms of when it's okay to focus on our own growth and fulfillment and when our role in a broader ethical project should be the primary frame. Click here for show notes.

No, the title isn't a question about your next laptop… On The Good Place, Janet brings everyone including the Judge and Timothy Olyphant into her void, where Chidi presents his concept for an updated afterlife based on multiple reboots and learning from one's prior lives. On the podcast, Rebecca and Jon talk about how we access and use our imperfect memories, and how Judaism tries to help us retrieve and use our memories for teshuvah -- via Yom Kippur and other practices while we're still alive the first time. We ponder Jon's off-the-cuff surmise that the Torah is Team Punishment and the Talmud is Team Learning, and reflect on how the Talmud addresses punishment through careful attention to the individuality of the one who was wronged and the one who did the wrong. Click here for show notes.

Both The Good Place and the podcast are pulling many threads together as the series moves toward its finish! On The Good Place, Chidi gets back all his memories from life and the afterlife, including the questions he has asked each friend, mentor, and partner along the way and how those conversations have informed his quests for truth and a soulmate. On the podcast, Dan Ross and Jon Spira-Savett talk again about Talmudic teachings connecting learning and goodness, this time bringing in other teachings about how the people we learn from affect the ethical ideas and commitments we develop. Picking up on the last episode of the show and the podcast, we add a couple more layers and meanings of the word teshuvah: finding answers by going back to the important people from our past, actively remembering and appreciating what we learned with and through them. Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, the Judge weighs Michael's arguments that the experiment has proved successful, and while they wait for the verdict, our humans and Janet hold a series of as-if funerals for each other. On the podcast, Sari Laufer and Jon Spira-Savett talk about their own experiences as rabbis who officiate at funerals, and entertain various intriguing variations suggested by the episode. Why wait until the end of life? Why have only one? Why not get out of the chapel and take it on the road, back to someplace you once lived? (There's that idea of teshuvah popping up again, from yet another angle!) Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Michael's last-minute attempt to salvage the experiment and win some extra points for the new humans puts Brent alone in a sinkhole. Simone and John decide to leave him there, but Chidi gets in with Brent and ends up face-to-face with him for the final seconds of the year On the podcast, Rebecca Rosenthal and Jon Spira-Savett discuss who might be our “enemies” and what we responsibilities we have to them, in a moment of need or as long as our lives are connected. Click here for show notes.

To coincide with Purim, the festival with masks and costumes, we talk with Kirston Mann, costume designer on “The Good Place”! Sari Laufer, Ilana Schachter, and Jon Spira-Savett talk with Kirston about what her work entails and hear her insights into how costume serves storytelling on television. We delve into the characters of Eleanor, Tahani, Janet and Jason in particular, and what she, the script, and actors all brought to the costume design process. We reflect all together on how what we wear can conceal, reveal, get in the way, help us do our job or help us change and grow. We zero in on some moments in the series where changes in dress are particularly significant. Kirston turns the tables and asks the rabbis some ethical questions about the story of Esther in the Bible. And of course much more! Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Michael tells Bad Janet about a week halfway through the experiment that made things worse because of Brent, yet despite the setback the team regroups. On the podcast, Leora Kling Perkins and Jon Spira-Savett mull over the Talmud-era debates on whether humans should have been created in the first place. Does addressing questions like that even matter for our actual moral lives? How can truth, about the big picture or another human being, coexist with hope? Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Tahani worries that her entertaining skills aren't a valuable contribution to the experiment, Michael goes up against Vicky wearing a Michael suit at Demon-Con, and Derek tries to fill in for Janet while Michael and Jason are off trying to rescue her from the Bad Place. On the podcast, Jon Spira-Savett talks with two college students, Sadie Meltzer and Lela Spira-Savett! First we talk generally about how they relate to The Good Place, and where they think Judaism fits into their ideas about personal ethical growth. Then we get Lela's and Sadie's perspective on this episode and dive into Reb Zusya of Hanipol's teaching that on arrival at World to Come, he expects to be asked not “Why were you not Moses?” but “Why were you not Zusya?” Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Eleanor and the others have to assess Glenn's claim that Michael is actually demon Vicky in a Michael suite -- and they have to help keep the neighborhood going in the meantime without Michael and it turns out without Janet, who has been kidnapped by the Bad Place). On the podcast, Elliot Goldberg and Jon Spira-Savett mull over ethics without God and critique King Solomon's approach to judging others when the most important evidence you'd rely on is ambiguous or just isn't accessible. Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Eleanor tries to orchestrate Chidi's growth behind the scenes by sending Jason to reveal that he is not a monk and to swear Chidi to secrecy. Yet it only leads Chidi to stomachaches. Tahani tries the same with John by bringing him to various VIP experiences so she can coax him to learn ethics, but eventually she has to figure out how to talk with him directly about his hurtful work on earth. On the podcast, Rebecca Rosenthal and Jon Spira-Savett delve into the Torah's mitzvah of hochay'ach to'chiach --  a delicate dance of direct feedback, sensitivity to how the other person receives it, and awareness of what is going on within yourself that prompts your feedback in the first place. Click here for show notes.

Our second “insider” conversation with someone who worked on The Good Place! Todd May is a philosopher to whom Michael Schur reached out early in the show because of Professor May's book Death (The Art of Living). Todd talks and laughs with Jon Spira-Savett about a range of topics, including: motivation (of characters on the show, and of Jon); community and ethical growth; whether the show actually has anything to do with the afterlife; Kierkegaard in a nutshell; how the show gravitated in an Aristotelian direction over time; how Todd's writings about death connect with the show; how a professional philosopher thinks about the role of entertainment and clergy people in bringing big ideas to a wider public; Michael Schur's high standards; and the role of Jewish historical experience in cultivating a commitment to justice. Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, it's the start of a new and final season! Eleanor poses in Michael's role as architect and tries various plans to reshape Brent. When she struggles, the group loses faith in her and so does Eleanor herself, until a pep talk from Michael leads her to change her perspective (and her outfit). On the podcast, it's also the start of a new and final season, so Sari Laufer and Jon Spira-Savett start off by checking in on what we've learned through the rewatch and the podcast so far. Then we explore the concepts of the shadow side, masks, and mentors, which turn out to be three different approach angles on teshuvah. We find ourselves revisiting the biblical Purim story, where Mordechai can help Esther find herself because of a key moment where her destiny and her people's are on the line at the same time — much like Michael and Eleanor do yet again. Click here for show notes.

On the final episode of Season 3 of The Good Place, Tahani encounters John the gossip columnist, and Eleanor leans on the group as Chidi decides he needs to erase his memories of her when Simone arrives in the new experiment. On the podcast, Elliot Goldberg and Jon Spira-Savett return to the theme of friendship – through their experiences as “architects” in schools and camp, and revisiting a Talmudic-era teaching about what friends do for each other's life and moral development. Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Michael and Shawn battle before the Judge over whether the complexity of modern life, coupled with the four humans' progress, require a reassessment of the point system. Chidi comes up with the idea of a new experiment involving different humans, and the Judge tweaks the ground rules before ordering Michael and Shawn to comply. On the podcast, Daniel Kirzane and Jon Spira-Savett scamper widely across Torah and Talmud in our own tweak of the podcast's ongoing attempt to synthesize points, intentions, and teshuvah in an elegant way. We discuss whether life was in fact less complex in the past, and whether the way we ourselves (and others) tell our stories looking back can actually change the point value of our actions retroactively. Also, Daniel tells us about being one of the #tomatorabbis, supporting the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in a successful campaign that has transformed the ethics of tomato consumption in the past decade! Click here for show notes.

Our first conversation with someone involved in creating The Good Place, editor Eric Kissack! Eric talks with Sari, Rebecca, Dan and Jon about what an editor does generally, and what it was like to collaborate with Michael Schur for all four seasons. Eric reflects on some of his favorite episodes and moments, both professionally as an editor and as someone engaging with the show's themes. He shares what he learned about the ethical life through his involvement in the show. We compare notes on the creative and editing processes for TV creators and rabbis, and the use of humor in our respective professions when it comes to teaching about ethics. Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, the group arrives at the Good Place and encounters Gwendolyn and the Good Place committee, and Tahani tries to help Janet and Jason deal with the revelation about their prior relationship. On the podcast, Leora Kling Perkins and Jon Spira-Savett explore, apply, and wonder about the Talmudic concept of “righteous in one's generation”, which is initially suggested in a discussion judging Noah's action in the terrible world that preceded the biblical Flood story. If standards really are relative to the times, is there a way to know how demanding they should be? Click here for show notes.

For this week of Yom Kippur, the Jewish “day of atonement”, we bring you again our earlier episode that addresses the themes of the holy day and suggests a Good Place-style addendum to the traditions of the day! Look for a brand new episode from us soon, and then a special with our first show insider, editor Eric Kissack! On The Good Place the group spends a last night listening to music and dancing and reflecting individually and in pairs, before leaving the neighborhood and resolving to make their way to the actual Good Place. On the podcast, Rebecca Rosenthal and Jon Spira-Savett talk about teshuvah as looking back; consider Hillel's teaching about self, others, and the importance of now; and wonder if Yom Kippur wouldn't be better if it were less solemn and more of a dance party. Click here for the original show notes.

On The Good Place, it's the iconic “Janet(s)” episode! In Janet's void all the humans look like Janet; Chidi and Eleanor help each other find who they are and save the universe for now in the process; and Janet helps Michael find who he is as they meet the accountants whose computers tally up all humans' experiences. On the podcast, Rebecca Rosenthal and Jon Spira-Savett revisit some classic Jewish teachings about knowing yourself and finding out who you are. This episode pairs well with our own Chapter 4, where Rebecca and Jon first talked about the very same themes! Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Michael and Janet meet Doug Forcett, who lives his life as a happiness pump after discovering the point system; Eleanor deals with her own greater knowledge of the big picture; and Jason teaches Chidi Jacksonville-style pool, where you make up your own rules and point values. On the podcast, Shmuly Yanklowitz (rabbi/kidney donor who has corresponded with Peter Singer) and Jon Spira-Savett discuss how utilitarianism and Judaism speak to each other. When is the utilitarian calculus a compelling imperative in Judaism, and when do other Jewish principles override it? Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Michael gives Eleanor special equipment so she can see some of the reboots, to demonstrate to her that she has had free will and constantly acted in ways that Michael couldn't predict no matter how much he orchestrated. On the podcast, Elliot Goldberg and Jon Spira-Savett talk about (obviously) free will, and whether in Judaism and to us it's more about philosophy or about how we experience our memories and our choices. Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Eleanor's terrible mother Donna Shellstrop has become Diana Tremaine, suburban citizen and responsible almost-stepmom, and Eleanor tells her to let go of the last fears rooted in her past. On the podcast, Sari Laufer and Jon Spira-Savett wonder whether and how much change makes you truly different, and if you can call it teshuvah without explicit apology and repair. Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Michael reveals the whole system to the humans, as well as the Jeremy Bearimy, nonlinear reality of time in the afterlife. On the podcast, Marc Israel (new rabbi on the team!) helps Jon make room for the idea that teshuvah might require something different than a Maimonidean awareness of past experiences in sequence of which we are consciously aware. (Jon's working title for the episode, before talking to Marc, had been: “Jeremy Is Jewish, Bearimy Not So Much?”) Click here for show notes.

On The Good Place, Chidi tries to break up with Simone without telling her the whole story, and Jason faces the facts about his father Donkey Doug but bends the truth to save Pillboi. On the podcast, Dan Ross and Jon Spira-Savett use the episode to explore the midrashic interpretation of “truth sprouts from the earth” and attempt to clarify an understanding of truth and lies. Click here for show notes. Yes, as of this release we haven't done our Chapter 31 episode on Jeremy Bearimy but we will loop back to it!

On The Good Place, the group assembled in Australia is tested by Trevor's efforts at sabotage and Eleanor's frustration at sharing Chidi, and Michael and Janet come up with new ways to keep the four from leaving. On the podcast, Rebecca and Jon discuss how the group is a biblical threefold cord, something different from both pair relationships and a bigger community. We also explore the Jewish teaching about the absolute and equal value of lives even though people are so different, and how the characters are learning to believe that about each other and themselves. Click here for show notes.

It's a new season of The Good Place! On the show, Michael keeps sneaking down to earth to intervene in the four humans' lives without their realizing, in order to get them all to Australia to learn with Chidi and participate in Chidi's and Simone's new study. On the podcast, Geoff Mitelman and Jon Spira-Savett explore nudges, neuroscience, and near-death experiences (and whether Michael thinks “nudge” and “noodge” are the same thing). Click here for show notes.

It's halfway through The Good Place and therefore this podcast too! We mark the occasion with a reflective conversation among Rebecca Rosenthal, Dan Ross, Lela Spira-Savett, and Jon Spira-Savett. Settle your Season 2 bets about which characters the podcast's co-hosts resemble today and wish they would be more like. Then we muse personally about the premises of the podcast – Jon's envy of the TV show's creators, how learning actually shapes our ethical growth, and the ingenious ways The Good Place spins what we call teshuvah. We check in on Maimonides' definition and give it a bit of critique in the process! Click here for the episode page.

On the season 2 finale of “The Good Place”, the Judge and Michael agree on a new way to assess the four humans' improvement. They send Eleanor back to the day she died but this time she doesn't, and she sets out to change. On the podcast, Rebecca and Jon circle back to discuss different types of motivations and rewards that encourage or result from ethical behavior. And, the idea of teshuvah as literally going back in order to change, and relationships and time frames and apologies… if “The Good Place” can weave together so many threads in a single episode so can the podcast! Click here for show notes.

On “The Good Place”, the humans meet the Judge, who gives each of them an individualized test that they all must pass or none of them can go on to the real Good Place. On the podcast, Elliot Goldberg and Jon stress test the Talmud's six-part afterlife questionnaire on Eleanor, Tahani, Jason and Chidi, and wonder why all-knowing beings love binge-watching more than reading the New Yorker. Click here for show notes.

We recorded this originally out of chapter order and released it to coincide with the holiday of Purim! Re-releasing it now in "Good Place" sequence. On “The Good Place”, the humans and Janet put on costumes and assume new identities to pass through demon headquarters on their way to the Judge. On the podcast, Ilana Schachter (rabbi), Daniella Risman (hazzan=cantor), and Jon Spira-Savett talk about how costumes relate to, obscure, or help bring out our true selves, and how from the Bible to “The Good Place” 45-year-old men create impossible messes and tell women only they can fix it. Click here for show notes.

On “The Good Place” the group spends a last night listening to music and dancing and reflecting individually and in pairs, before leaving the neighborhood and resolving to make their way to the actual Good Place. On the podcast, Rebecca and Jon talk about teshuvah as looking back; consider Hillel's teaching about self, others, and the importance of now; and wonder if Yom Kippur wouldn't be better if it were less solemn and more of a dance party. Click here for show notes.

On “The Good Place” Shawn offers Michael a promotion, and among the humans only Eleanor has faith that Michael is actually still on their side. On the podcast, Leah Jones and Jon talk about how little they know about Kierkegaard – but how a leap to faith opens you to clues, lessons, and ethical possibilities you wouldn't otherwise have access to. Click here for show notes.

On “The Good Place”, Janet makes and reabsorbs Derek, her rebound guy; Tahani and Jason almost get married; and Eleanor reveals to Chidi their love from a previous reboot. On the podcast, David Shyovitz and Jon roam through Talmudic and medieval Jewish texts about soulmates – whether they are earthly or for the next world, whether they are decreed on high or discovered in life, and what the stakes of those questions really are in Jewish thought. Click here for show notes.

On “The Good Place”, Janet's glitching prompts Michael and Janet to talk about the lies at the beginning of their relationship and now, and Michael realizes that they are friends. On the podcast, Myra and Ben and Jon overinterpret paper clips. Then they look for a broader view of lying and truth-telling, and discuss how friendship relates to speaking in error and learning truth. Click here for show notes.

On “The Good Place” Michael turns the famous trolley problem into another form of torture for Chidi, while Jason says being mean to someone who is being nice to you is bad but he can't put his finger on why. On the podcast, Geoff Mitelman (rabbi/science guy!) and Jon discuss how philosophical models torture us and teach us, and how understanding our brains with the insights of neuroscience can help us become better at ethical decisions. Click here for show notes.

On “The Good Place” both Michael and Tahani experience their own crises — existential, midlife, and otherwise — and Eleanor and Jason help them through it. On the podcast, Julee Levine and Jon wonder which dimensions of such crises spur us forward, with some help from the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. Click here for show notes!  

On “The Good Place”, Michael reboots the neighborhood hundreds of times but the humans and even the demons outmaneuver him every time in a new way. So finally he offers the humans to stop erasing their memories and to work together with them against Shawn and Vicky. On the podcast, Daniel Kirzane (new rabbi co-host!) and Jon discuss reboots of the universe in the Torah and the midrash. Is it possible we are helping God design better and better universes? If we have a good week, does God get better too? Click here for show notes!

We're publishing this episode out of sequence to link up with Purim, the festival of costumes and the story of Esther! On “The Good Place”, the humans and Janet put on costumes and assume new identities to pass through demon headquarters on their way to the Judge. On the podcast, Ilana Schachter (rabbi), Daniella Risman (hazzan=cantor), and Jon Spira-Savett talk about how costumes relate to, obscure, or help bring out our true selves, and how from the Bible to “The Good Place” 45-year-old men create impossible messes and tell women only they can fix it. Click here for show notes!

On “The Good Place”, Michael reboots, Janet gives Eleanor back her Chidi note, and the humans find each other again. On the podcast, Jon and Dan connect teshuvah with losing and finding things, animals, and people, and explore a classic Jewish teaching that “twists” what it means to be wise, honored, rich, or happy. Click here for show notes!

We celebrate the end of our first podcast season with some reflections from Jon and Dan, and our first young person interview with Lela Spira-Savett! Find out the score after one quarter of the series in the which-Good-Place-character-are-rabbis-most-like sweepstakes! Click here for show notes.

On “The Good Place” Eleanor figures out that they are not in the Good Place after all, and on the podcast Jon and Rebecca discuss the essence of a Good Place and whether Eve was on to something when she got the two of them out of the Garden of Eden! The parallels between Eleanor and Eve and Moses really fly, so strap on tight! Find complete show notes for the episode here!

On “The Good Place” Eleanor, Jason, and Janet visit Mindy St. Claire, and on the podcast Jon and Sari discuss many ways of being medium, and how medium relates to isolation, selfishness, and possibility. (But funnier than it sounds!) Find complete show notes for the episode here!

On “The Good Place” Eleanor can't make up points while that's her main motivation, Chidi can't fall in love unless he's sure he has the right motivation, and Jason has purity of motivation and no ability to translate it into appropriate action. On the podcast, Jon and Rebecca explore when pure motivation might necessary and when mixed motivations or even bad motivations are just fine! Find complete show notes for the episode here!

On “The Good Place” Chidi is paralyzed by choices at all stages of life and afterlife – and on the podcast, Jon and Dan own up to their own indecision sources, explore the processes of good and bad “decision hygiene”, and open the conversation about soulmates. Find complete show notes for the episode here!

On “The Good Place” Eleanor considers who she wouldn't connect with on Earth and where she's ready to attach now. On the podcast, Jon welcomes first-time co-hosts Ben Gurin and Myra Meskin — two rabbis who are parents of a new baby they named Eleanor! We get Talmudic insight on how hard it is to be ready for the connections that are good for you, the ones that help you overcome the barriers to your own goodness. Find complete show notes for the episode here!