Podcasts about rabbi david hartman

First, this modern Orthodox rabbi was one of the first rabbis to really touch my life and to engage me in what my Protestant colleagues would call “formation.” Rabbi Yitz Greenberg was a congregational rabbi in Riverdale, NY; the founder of the Jewish studies program at City College of New York; the creator of CLAL, the Center for Learning and Leadership – which is a think tank for Jewish pluralism and intra-Jewish conversation. I first met Rabbi Greenberg and his wife, Blu, the major Jewish feminist leader, when he engaged me to work with a bunch of modern Orthodox teenagers on a CLAL retreat. That encounter with Rabbi Greenberg, whom I would come to know as Yitz or Rabbi Yitz, changed my perception of Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Judaism. It made me more open to seeing the Jews as a unified people, and not just a discrete collection of ideologies. Yes: this Orthodox rabbi helped shape the world view of this Reform rabbi. His vision of an observant Judaism that was open to the world and freely encountered the world moved me – so much so, that decades later, I would become a regular participant in the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, founded by Rabbi Greenberg's colleague, the late Rabbi David Hartman – also an Orthodox rabbi, and like Yitz, also a rebel. The second way in which Rav Yitz is my oldest friend in the rabbinate: he is 91 years old, and he has just published his magnum opus, his master work, the culmination of everything that he has taught for so long -- "The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism." This is the book that Yitz's students -- and frankly, the Jewish world -- has been waiting for for more than a half century.

This morning we discuss the insight I heard many years ago from Rabbi David Hartman, to explain why we experienced Exodus first, and only then God's revelation (at Sinai). This insight explains the priority of prayer in the synagogue rather than praying alone. It also explains the question of the "wicked" child at the Passover Seder, and the process of conversion to Judaism. We express this with a dramatic statement by Rachel Goldberg-Polin, and what every one of us can do to help her and her family. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (rabbi@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel's weekly feature podcast. This week, host Jessica Steinberg speaks to Dr. Tova Hartman, dean of the faculty of humanities at the Ono Academic Campus and founder of the Shira Hadasha congregation in Jerusalem, the first of its kind, a religious community that combines a commitment to Jewish law, with a commitment to prayer and feminism. At the time, it drew a lot of criticism from many Orthodox rabbis who opposed having women lead prayer and read from the Torah.  Hartman persisted and built Shira Hadasha with her fellow founders, spawning an entire movement in Judaism, of partnership minyanim, communities committed to Jewish law, as well as to feminism in prayer and action.  She speaks about the inspiration drawn from her father, Rabbi David Hartman, the American-Israeli leader and contemporary Jewish philosopher who founded the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Hartman also speaks about making the world of academia accessible to the ultra-Orthodox and Arab populations within the multicultural campuses of the Ono Academic Campus, helping change the direction and goals of those societies. IMAGE: Dr. Tova Hartman (Courtesy Ono Academic College) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rabbi Joel Levy explores the role of awakenings in Jewish mythology, through the prism of this part of the Joseph story in parashat Miketz. --Rabbi Joel Levy is Rosh Yeshiva of the Conservative Yeshiva in Israel & Rabbi of Kol Nefesh Synagogue in the UK. Rabbi Levy studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, was chair of programming at Limmud conference and is an ex-director of NOAM. He received rabbinical ordination from Rabbi David Hartman in 2000. He has been the part-time rabbi of Kol Nefesh Masorti Synagogue, Britain's first fully egalitarian traditional shul, since 2001. 

A conversation between Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz on Clubhouse where we explore the sanctification of powerlessness in Rabbinic Judaism and the internalization of failure. We discuss the tendency of Jews to seek fault in themselves as individuals and as a people as part of a harmful pattern that gave rise to anti-Semitism. Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/335498 Transcript: Geoffrey Stern  What are you going to be talking to your congregation about? Either on Shabbat or Tisha B'av or both?   Adam Mintz  I'm going to give them a sermon that was written by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in 1855. And in 1855, Samson Raphael Hirsch, in Germany, the Orthodox Rabbi in Germany, talked about a preacher who 20 years earlier, you know, a rabbi Reform rabbi, who had ordered his congregation on Tisha B'av night to wear their finest, most beautiful clothing, and to come in to celebrate a Tisha B'av night in the synagogue, because he believed that mourning was over. There's no place for self evaluation and for mourning and for thinking about the past, it was a time of emancipation of hope. Hirsch's entire sermon was why that was wrong. That it's exactly when you're doing well, that you need to be humbled, and you need to fast addition.   Geoffrey Stern  So that really ties into some of the things that I'm going to be discussing. So we're perfect. That's perfect. I remember one summer I was at Camp Torah Vadaas for Tisha B'av  and my dad came up with a friend to visit me. And we were sitting on the floor with ashes on our forehead. Yeah. And he you know, it from his perspective, it was probably very similar to when Franz Rosensweig walked into a shul for Kol Nidrei, you know, it was so dramatic. He always used to talk about it. And clearly, it is very dramatic. You would think, walking into a typical traditional synagogue on Tisha B'av that something terrible happened last week, not 1,900 years ago.   Adam Mintz  That's right. Not not 2000 years ago.   Geoffrey Stern  And I think the night that my dad came, it was thundering and lightning That's a good segway to say welcome to Madlik. And we are disruptive Torah every week at four o'clock Eastern. And we are recording, and therefore this recording will go on to the Madlik podcast, which typically gets published on Sunday, and becomes part of the record. So welcome, all of you. And that's not to inhibit any discussion. It just means that what you say will go down into posterity. So we normally talk about the portion of the week that is read in synagogues on a particular week of Shabbat. And this week, we have the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy Devarim, which has begun in the cycle. And we also have on Sunday, Tisha B'av. So I had wanted to talk about Tisha B'av, it's something that I've been given a lot of thought about for the last few years. But as I was also studying the book of Deuteronomy, the very first verse and the very first comment by the traditional classical sources,  formed an amazing introduction to what I want to talk about. So you should know whether you higher biblical critic, or you're a classical scholar of Judaism, somehow or other  the book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Torah, but somehow it's different. It has a different voice. It has a different perspective. The higher biblical critics think that it might have been even written at the time of Ezra during the Babylonian exile, and that'll become relevant later. But whether you believe that or not, it has a different function and a different purpose. And it recaps many of the things that were said in the prior four books of Moses. So in this sifrei Devarim, it says, "These are the words which Moses spoke", and it asks the obvious question, well, Moses has been speaking for the last four books. So what do you mean to say "these are the words that Moses spoke", and it says that we are there taught "Sheharay divrei Tochachot" that the words in the book of Deuteronomy are words of rebuke. So even this classical source is questioning the purpose, the function, the intention of The Book of Deuteronomy, and it's positing that the purpose of it is to rebuke, to check, to take castigate or forwarn the Jewish people. And then in Devarim Rabbah, which is also a very old classical commentary, it adds to that. And it says, In the name of Rav Acha the son of Rabbi Hanninah If you're going to rebuke the children of Israel, why have Moses do it? Why have a friendly do it? Why wouldn't you have Bilam rebuke? The children of Israel, enemies are much better at criticism. And it answers that it's was decided that because Moses loves them, he said, rebuke them, rather than to have the rebuke of our adversaries, if we're going to be held in check and account, let those who love us do it. So before we segway into that the commemoration of the destruction of the temple on Tisha B'av, that contains many texts of rebuke, I just want to open it up to conversation rabbi, in terms of the purpose of Devorim, the insight that I bought from these classical sources. Where do you stand   Adam Mintz  it was really dramatic. First of all, Shabbat Shalom, and it's exciting. We're beginning the fifth book of the Torah. That's always exciting. And Devarim has been a problem, literally, since the beginning of time, exactly what is the role of Devarim, and that midrash that you quoted that classical source that you quoted, which tells us that Devarim is different  because it's rebuke, because it's Tochacha is really a very interesting idea. Because that really talks about I think, Geoffrey, what is the role of Moshe? Is Moshe, a defender of the people, or is Moshe a rebuker are of the people? And then let me just raise that a step, maybe being a rebuker is also part of being a defender. Maybe if I want to defend you, sometimes I have to be willing to rebuke you. So maybe that's really the tension here in Devarim. And that's what exactly is Moshe's role. At the end of his life. This is the last 30 days of his life. At the end of his life, what is his job, rebuker? Or defender? Or and/or, rebukr? are rebuker/defender, really two sides of the same coin?   Geoffrey Stern  I think that's a great question. And obviously, we feel like we've been living with Moses. So many of the previous podcasts where he was totally surprised, totally undermined by the people that he really carried out of Egypt. There's a real dialectic here between the leader and the flock, so to speak. And so I do think that's a great question. I wanted to give an example of what one would mean by rebuke, or at least the way I take it, from something that everyone who is at all familiar with the prayer book would be aware, the iconic Sh'ma prayer begins with the call to faith, Sh'ma Yisrael. And then the first paragraph that we say, is all about you should Love the Lord your God, with all your heart and with all your soul. And by the way, that comes from Deuteronomy. But then the second paragraph that we say, starts out in the same way that you should do it with all your heart and soul. But then in Deuteronomy 11: 16, it says, "Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them, for the Lord's anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce, and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord is assigning to you." And I think as I was trying to understand because I never thought of Devarim, of Deuteronomy, as necessarily full of rebuke. It's not simply rebuke, but it gives a sense of the tenuous nature of the Israelites, the Jewish people on this land, the really conditional nature of it, and that if you misbehave and if you don't follow the rules, and if you don't love your neighbor and take care of the the widow and all that you will be shucked out, you will be put into exile. And that to me again is a perfect segway into a commemoration of the destruction of the Temple, but it really was the destruction of the first and the second Commonwealth. It's where we lost our political independence. And sure enough, that is I think, and I'd love to hear what what you feel about it, Rabbi, that is the biggest leverage. That's the biggest stick that Moses and Moses as the spokesman of God is waving .... I'm taking you into the promised land, I might not be able to come with you. But be aware that if you do not fulfill your side of the bargain, you will be kicked out.   Adam Mintz  I would agree with you. It's interesting, that exile is the classical punishment. And obviously, that's true. And I think you see, that's true, because what strikes me most about Tisha B'av, of all the traditions that we have, is the fact that according to tradition, both the first and the second Temples were both destroyed on the ninth day of aV, let's be honest, what is the chance of that? What is the chance that both temples are going to be destroyed oN exactly the same day? And I think the idea is that the date is not what's so important. It's the idea of emphasizing the fact that exile is the ultimate punishment, that whenever bad things happen, whenever you you don't behave properly, that you're going to get be exiled. There's a wonderful midrash that says that the reason that the temple was destroyed on Tisha B'av is because when the spies came back from their trip to Israel, and they gave a bad report, it says that the Jewish people cried that night. And  it says thatVaivku..  they cried and the rabbi's say about that, that you cried Bechiya shel Hiunam.. you cried an unnecessary cry. Because there was no reason for you to cry You should have trusted in God.   I'm going to establish a reason for you to cry. That's such a powerful idea. You cried for no reason, you cried that you're going to have to enter the land. And therefore as a punishment, you now are gonna have to be in exile. That's the punishment, exile is always the punishment.   Geoffrey Stern  So I'd like to pick up on what you said about somehow the confluence of bad things on Tisha B'av, the First Temple and the Second Temple. And we can  we can say, okay, it was a coincidence. But at the end of the day, more and more things started to happen, a bad for the Jewish people in Tisha B'av. And in a sense, it wasn't so much self fulfilling prophecy. It is that word got out that this was the day of calamity. So if your Yemach Shemam... the Nazis wanted to beat the Jews, or there was a pogrom in the works, it was more likely than not that if it was around Tisha B'av, they would attack them on Tisha B'av.  In the nomenclature in the vernacular in Israel today. If you meet somebody and they have a long face in Hebrew, you don't say "What's with the long face"? You say what's with Tisha B'av face? The  newly elected President of Israel, Isaac or boogie Herzog coined a phrase, he was being critical of Netaniyahu, a number of years ago, and he was criticizing him for trying to scare and frighten the Jewish people and running a politics of fear in fright. And he called it the Tisha B'av syndrome. So even Jews and non Jews who do not observe Tisha B'av, they understand what a Tisha B'av face is, they understand the inport that it has for the Jewish people. So it's almost grown beyond the particular day. But you are right, it's focused, and it's focused particularly on one type of calamity. And that is the Jewish people losing autonomy, losing political autonomy and any control over their their well being and decisions that affect their life.   Adam Mintz  And I think that's a very powerful point. Really, really powerful. The idea of exile. We don't think Geoffrey today about exile much. When you think about a punishment to a country, you talk about losing your autonomy. You know, you think about a country that doesn't do well, they're not going to be exiled. France is not going to be exiled from France, the UK is not going to be exiled from the UK, New Yorkers are not going to be exiled from New York. It's actually an idea that had its moment. I don't think exile is something that speaks to people the same way anymore. And that's why I think and this is an interesting question, that when we talk about Tisha B'av now, we kind of are using a language that is not so familiar to people, and therefore we try to talk about Tisha B'av, in a language that people will understand, even though exile is not something we really understand anymore.   Geoffrey Stern  So so I'm going to say something rather radical, even for Madlik disruptive Torah. And it's really going to be the premise of the rest of our discussion today. And that is that, you know, we Jews, lovers of Israel today, are always asking the question, why when you criticize the Jews, or when you criticize Israel? Do you question its right to exist? Why can you criticize us like anybody else? There are plenty of progressives, who are critical of the way the US operates in Afghanistan, or how it treats minorities in this country. Never do they say, "and therefore you have no way to live there". Why is it always Israel that we question the right to exist. And what I want to say that is slightly radical is here, and I want to pick up on what you were saying a second ago, Rabbi, here, the lever that we introduce to the world is if we are bad, we become stateless. And we introduced this concept that we are unique, and that our connection with the land and our political autonomy is tenuous and contingent. And I think that we always throw up our hands, us lovers of Israel, and they go, why are they treating us differently? And what I would like to kind of explore for the rest is so many of the tropes of anti semitism, actually are the flip side of the arguments that we are seeing in our own tradition. And I'm starting with this argument that if you Jews are bad, you're going to be kicked out of your land.   Adam Mintz  Right. Okay. And do you think that that resonates with people today?   Geoffrey Stern  So so I think for me to make that argument, I've got to drill down and continue, because I do agree with you that it's fairly sophisticated to say, Oh, yeah, most people living on this planet know about the second paragraph of Sh'ma, where it says, if you don't behave, we're going to kick you out of the country. So let's delve into this a little bit deeper. My guess would be that if I asked the typical knowledgeable Jew, about why the temple was destroyed, specifically the Second Temple, they might tell me a story about two guys named Kamtza. They might go into the Talmud, and look for all of the reasons that different rabbis have given through the ages for why we lost the the Temple and the land. And I can assure you that not one of the answers given by those rabbis, is authentic or practical, because I believe the reason that the Temple was destroyed is because we got in the way of the Roman Empire. That's the long and the short of it. It wasn't about me. It wasn't about you. It was about the fact that Israel is somehow between Babylonia and Rome, and in the First Temple we got in the way of the Babylonian Empire, and in the second we got in front of Rome. The rest of my argument is going to be that we were very successful in teaching the world the perspective that we Jews have, that does relate our condition to our moral and religious adherence. And that everybody who was a follower of Christianity and a follower of Islam is aware?   Adam Mintz  Good. So there is an awareness of this kind of punishment, and it's a religious awareness of this kind of punishment. It's not political. It's religious.   Geoffrey Stern  Yes, yes,   Adam Mintz  That's an important distinction. I think   Geoffrey Stern  So there's two books and two thinkers that I want to really rely on, and one is Ruth Weiss, Professor, I believe at Harvard, who wrote a book called Jews and Power, and the other is Yitz Greenberg. But let's start with Ruth Weiss. The premise of her book is exactly the question that I just asked, which is, how did this happen? How did this become so persuasive? And she starts with Josephus Flavius now Josephus Flavius was a Jew, who moved over to the Roman side. And he asks, Why was the Tmple destroyed? And he gives a bunch of reasons. And one of those reasons even refers to "what caused the Romans to purify the temple". Now I get it. He was on the payroll of the Romans. He was a Roman historian. But he he lists again, just as the rabbi's of the Talmud do, a bunch of assassinations that were incurred by sectarian fighting. He talks about all of the corruption that was there. And Josiphus was translated into every language of the civilized world. He and the rabbi's were literally on the same page, in terms of ...  and this is a quote, "when the Romans came to purify thee from the internal pollution". And if you understand what the ramifications of that is, that not only the rabbi's and not only the Roman historians, but ultimately the the Jews themselves promulgated this concept that if bad things happen to the Jews, it's because we sinned. I think you can begin to see that, in fact, yes, every one of..... I wouldn't even call it the Abrahamic religions, I would call it the successionist religions, the religions that believe that they replaced the Jews. And that really did feed into their narrative that they replaced the Jews because the Jews had sinned. And proof evidence, number one is look at the Jews, take a look at that ghetto, take a look at these people who can't farm the land, (because we won't permit them to do it.) So I do believe there is a direct connection between our perception of what brought on the the trauma of Tisha B'av and the world's perception.   Adam Mintz  I think that's a really, that's a powerful idea. I wonder...  you talk about the succesionist religions, do the other religions focus on exile the same way? The Muslims have the idea of exile.   Geoffrey Stern  I'd love it if we have a historian and a comparative, either religion or archaeologist or a sociologist here. I think that getting back to the way I began the discussion with the rabbi's of the Midrash saying, if the book of Devarim is about rebuke, why not get the enemies of the Jews to mouth that rebuke? I think the knee jerk reaction is that civilizations are criticized by their enemies, and they are not at least (and now I'll get into washing one's laundry in public), certainly not publicly are they criticized in the ancient world in the medieval world in the world of the Middle Ages.  We can talk about modern times later. But no, I don't think that number one. Other religious cultures are so so self critical. And to answer your question, I don't believe especially because Christianity and maybe Islam too were not as rooted in a particular locality or location. But certainly even if one gets away from the location, it's really, the destruction of the Temple was more than just exile from a particular piece of land. It was the end of the Temple culture. It was, for a large degree, the end of a language. I mean, I believe that Rome even changed the name from Judea to Palestinia just to literally make Israel Jew-free.   Adam Mintz  know or have an idea. I always say it that way, the end of an idea, Jewish autonomy, as reflected in the temple was a religious idea. We have been working for the past 2000 years to restore that idea, the prayer service, but we call davening is an attempt to restore what we lost on that day, in the year 70, when there was no longer a Temple, how do you get back to that idea of connecting to place and to God, without something. And that's what the prayer service did. Instead of sacrifices. We had a prayer service, we had this idea of three times a day, we had this idea of synagogue, you know, synagogues a new ideas, synagogue really only came about after the destruction of the Temple. Because when there was a Temple, you weren't allowed to have synagogues, because the synagogue was the Temple. But once there was no more Temple than all of a sudden they created synagogues. So we've been trying to restore that idea. Now, I think Geoffrey been interesting conversation, maybe for another time and to say, did we do a good job, because I would make the argument, we've done an amazing job, we actually have replaced that idea that it's not the same as having a Temple. But we have done very well in terms of unifying the Jewish people. And I think Tisha B'av is an example of that. The fact that Jews around the world know that it's Tisha B'av whether they fast or they don't fast, but they know that it's Tisha B'av , they know that it's Rosh Hashanna, they know that it's Yom Kippur means the idea is maintained.   Geoffrey Stern  So I think that you you make a compelling argument for the fact that the rabbinical response, actually, was greatly beneficial. And the proof is in the pudding, we survived for 2,000 years of exile. Again, as long as we're talking about what makes the experience of the Jewish people unique, you can't say that about a lot of cultures or religions. So I would like to segway and use your question to segway a little bit away from Ruth Weiss and into Yitz Greenberg. Ruth Weiss is actually a conservative thinker and she is very into realpolitik, and as her book progresses, and I really think anyone who's interested in the subject, should read it. She's very critical. She writes at the beginning of her book, that her book is "against the tendency of Jews to seek fault in themselves as part of a harmful pattern, I hope to expose". So the whole purpose of her book, and she will look at a statement that you just made now, which is "Well, we survived didn't we?" She would critique that as the pacifism that we survived for 2,000 years bending over like Fiddler on the Roof, saying this too,will pass is what kept us in exile so long, but I want to go to a religious thinker. And Yitz Greenberg believes that if there were two epochs of Judaism before the Holocaust, meaning when we were in the land, then after we were expelled, that literally turned Judaism on a dime. I think that one of the things that you were just saying a second ago, is that the paradigm shift that Judaism went through, after the Temple was destroyed, was just just unheard of in the history of religion and of society. They the rabbi's literally changed the face of Judaism, and yet Greenberg believes that the Holocaust is a similar episode. It is the Third Epoch of in Judaism. And he argues that those who say that we all you know, It's it's bad, but look at all the other bad things that have happened to us. He points to instances such as the Spanish Inquisition that created the Kabbalah. He focuses on the Shabtai Tzi and the false messiah, as something that that totally created the Hasidic movement and all that. So we do have to react. And we do have to change Judaism. But in his case, the Holocaust is on a different level. And what he argues is that after the Holocaust, we can no longer follow.....and here he's in agreement with, with Ruth Weiss. And he's also in agreement with you the type of Judaism that enabled us to survive, to get through it, to persevere, under great odds no longer worked. He argues that without the State of Israel, there would probably have been another two Holocausts since 1945. His famous phrase is that "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and powerlessness is worse than all". And he makes a very compelling argument, that now we have to stop blaming ourselves, we have to take responsibility for our future that the God of maybe exile was the God who is hidden. The God after the Holocaust is a God who says you have the keys, you control your own fate. It's all up to you. So it's almost a religious push for the secular to take over the role of that. And again, you should read his work as well. But it's a fascinating turn. And it segways into what you will be talking about tomorrow, Rabbi, in terms of when do we celebrate Tisha B'Av? So before we talk about celebrating Tishas B'av? What are your feelings about Yitz Greenberg's approach? Do you feel that the Holocaust changes everything?   Adam Mintz  I think the Holocaust changed everything. I think the question we have to ask is and I think that's a question that is really the next chapter in Yitz Greenberg's book is what's the therefore? So the Holocaust changed everything. The State of Israel changed everything. What are we supposed to do about it? I'll tell you a little story. in the service on Tisha B'Av, in the afternoon service, the Mincha service, there's a paragraph that we recite on Tisha B;Av, it's the only time we say it the whole year long mincha on Tisha B'Av. It's called "Nachem". And it says God should console us. And in Nachem, we talk about a Jerusalem that is destroyed. And many of the rabbis in Israel, Yitz Greenberg included, he changes the entire language of this paragraph. This paragraph talks about "and the city that is in sorrow, laid waste, scorned and desolate, that grieves for the loss of its children that is laid waste of its dwellings robbed of its glory, desolate without inhabitants." I don't know Geoffrey the last time you were at the Waldorf in Jerusalem, but that is not a description of the Waldorf in Jerusalem. And these rabbis have taken out that paragraph. And they basically said that that's just not true anymore, that the Holocaust changed everything. But we have to realize  that the traditions, the way that traditionally Tisha B'Av has been looked at is just not true anymore. And we have to be willing to recognize that. I'll just tell you one more story. Rabbi David Hartman ... the famous David Hartman, before he moved to Israel was a rabbi in Montreal in 1967. It was a Six Day War.... Israel reconquered Jerusalem in June. That Tisha B'Av, the tradition is that David Hartman in the afternoon of Tisha B'Av took his family on a picnic because he said we can't fast the whole day. Tisha B'Av is just not the way Tisha B'Av used to be anymore. We can't have Jerusalem and still observe Tisha B'Av the same way. I think those ideas are very powerful ideas.   Geoffrey Stern  So Rabbi as usual, you created a greast segway for me to to finish up. But I think what everybody is kind of echoing is that even the rabbi's of the Talmud understood.. in Taanit they say whoever mourns for Jerusalem will merit to see her future glory. In the Tractate of Rosh hassanah it says that when there will be peace, that all of the fast days that are associated with the destruction of the Temple will be feast days that you won't be able to have a funeral on, you won't be able to do anything related to mourning, which seems kind of strange until you couch it slightly differently. Whereas on Tisha B'Av we mourn our powerlessness. On a Tisha B'Av that is commemorated after we have our own State. And after we have power without putting any silver coating on power, power is a responsibility. But we can celebrate our power as we mourned our powerlessness. And I think that's why we do have to start considering segwaying from a Tisha B'Av of mourning, where we mourn our powerlessness to a Tisha B'Av of celebration, where we celebrate respectfully, our ability to control our own destiny, and to take the future into our own hands.   Adam Mintz   Thank you, I think that's beautiful. Shabbat shalom everybody. Have an easy and a meaningful fast, and we look forward Geoffrey to many years of celebrating Tisha B'Av in a smart and productive way, the way Yitz Greenberg talks about it.   Geoffrey Stern   Amen, Shabbat Shalom to you all.   Adam Mintz  Shabbat Shalom, everybody, bye bye.

This week we begin the book of Leviticus, with all its challenging sacrifices and rituals. How can the sacrificial system still have meaning for us today? We'll explore Maimonides, Nachmanides, Rabbi David Hartman and the Seforno to find an answer.

Daniel and Karl use Chapter 9 of Exodus as an opportunity to talk about idealism and realism, trauma and hope.  In particular, they discuss ideas articulated in Rabbi David Hartman's article "Auschwitz or Sinai?"   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As Israel and the Jewish world commemorates Yom HaZikkaron (Memorial Day) and celebrates Yom Ha'Atzmut (Independence Day), three UK born Israelis reflect on what it means to celebrate Israel in 2017. Charlotte Halle was editor of the English language Haaretz newspaper and is now International director for the paper. She is also my cousin. Rabbi Joel Levy got smicha (private rabbinic ordination) from the great Rabbi David Hartman. He is now one of the Roshei Yeshiva (heads) of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Jeremy Leigh runs the Israel program at Hebrew Union College and is a professor of history. Join us for some honest conversation about the State of Israel - past, present and future.

Bernie Steinberg teaches on the Zohar and his experiences with Rabbi David Hartman.

David Hartman was an Orthodox rabbi and founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He authored many books, including “A Heart of Many Rooms” and “The God Who Hates Lies.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “David Hartman — Hope in a Hopeless God.” Find more at onbeing.org.

David Hartman died a year ago this week. The Orthodox rabbi was a charismatic and challenging figure in Israeli society, called a “public philosopher for the Jewish people” and a “champion of adaptive Judaism.” We remember his window into the unfolding of his tradition in the modern world — Judaism as a lens on the human condition.