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PODCAST

Judaism for the Thinking Person

Rabbi Nadav Caine

Scholarly, Compassionate, and Practical Jewish Teachings on God, Prayer, Torah and Kabbalah with Rabbi Nadav Caine (ravnadav)

religion & spirituality judaism

All Episodes

15:07

Two Types of Fear: Avoiding "Ideolatry" in our...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/11/23

Does our system -- oaths of office, public promises, judicial decisions-- depend on fear of punishment or a different kind of fear [a reverence for God]? Why do I not cheat on my taxes? Why do I make excuses for policies that benefit me, and even double down on them? The commentary on the lying of Isaac (and Avraham) written by Rabbi Yitzchak ben Moshe Arama, the "Aqedat Yitzchak," from late 1400's Spain, gives us a clue how to proceed forward in repairing out broken system.

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16:06

And Sarah was Stroking Avraham's Head: Rilke,...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/11/16

Jewish law demands we bury our dead, yet human nature is to "protect the mourner in their grief" by distancing them from doing the act themselves. Jewish law follows suit by, over time, taking the demand to lovingly care for your dead and creating distance from that to "protect" the grieving. Rehearsing Rilke's opening from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rabban Gamliel's decrees on simple loving burial (despite our natural inclination to use "do whatever rich people do" as our definition

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18:18

Sarah's Laugh and the Wisdom of Menopause

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/11/08

The Rabbis see Sarah's laugh (at the divine prophecy of a pregnancy) as thumbing her nose at God and at her husband, now that her "period" (or "sexual enjoyment" -- edna could be translated as either) has ended "in the way of women" at a certain age. I've always found the Rabbis overwrought in their interpretation of Sarah's laugh, but in this podcast I take it seriously. I use the article (I just discovered) of Sandra Tsing Loh from The Atlantic in October 2011 called: "The Bitch Is Back: Are

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24:54

The Sarah & Hagar Narratives: Rethinking Privilege...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/10/30

This is a full-on "sermon" (delivered on Rosh Hashanah, "the Birthday of the World," in 2020) in which I look frankly upon the Sarah and Hagar narratives -- mistress and slave/servant/mother-- through the lens of the issues of "privilege" we are processing today. Schleiermacher -- among the half dozen most influential theologians in Western thought-- correctly argued that a certain consciousness of the gift of life is the fundamental basis of all true religion, leading to humility, passion, grace,

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14:10

3 Dimensions of Time Intersecting in Shemini Atzeret...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/10/14

Shemini Atzeret has the special distinction of being all of the following: 1) The only holiday that has no official traditional explanation. (Atzeret means some form of gathering, but we are left to speculate whether it's a special harvest ingathering, or a human gathering at the end of Sukkot, or a kind of makeup "extra day" of Sukkot for those who arrived late, but all these are speculative: no reason is given.) 2) It's still one of the four High Holidays (the others being Rosh Hashanah, Yom

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18:46

Filtering Out the Noise by Practicing Essentialism...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/09/30

The pandemic has forced most of us into a "Shabbat," a ceasing, a forced limitation on our time and resources, and yet we are faced with demanding decisions that have no clear right and wrong, and lots of risk in all directions. How do we allow this year to give us the gift of getting 'comfortable with discomfort' (rather than the "discomfort with our comfort" that we usually have)? In my own life, I use Greg Mckeown book on practicing "Essentialism." I share how I do that, and how you can,

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12:59

"The Clothes On Your Back Did Not Wear Out" - The...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/09/06

Deuteronomy repeats that God tried to demonstrate how to walk with God when our clothes "did not wear out, nor your shoes" during the journey in the wilderness, as we learned that we "do not live on bread alone." During the pandemic, I've noticed that I wear three sets of clothes: Zoom clothes, non-Zoom clothes, and Shabbat clothes, and as we've slowed down our pace and we're not running around during this endurance stretch until a vaccine, we are --as Ibn Ezra interprets the "true" miracle--

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12:31

Does Pursuing Justice Begin with Carrying Around the...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/08/25

In the section of Deuteronomy customarily called "Shoftim" (which means both "Judges" and "Leaders"), we find the famous command that "Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue" but strangely without reference to the pursuit of social justice, community organizing, or even the personal awareness of victims. Instead it might mean that people in that position begin the process by focusing on the emoluments clause and their oath of office. What if our personal Torah, our personal scroll we carry around with

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14:19

"You Must Extend a Loan to Your Brother" - Racial...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/08/18

The Rabbinic Commentators focus on the fact that Deuteronomy frequently and repeatedly uses the word ach, brother, to describe the needy person who isn't related to you. Whereas earlier in Torah, we are told not to oppress the "poor" or "afflicted" person, Deuteronomy modifies this language by insisting that we must loan to these people because they must be seen as our "brothers and sisters." I don't see any reading possible other than that the Torah is focusing on the problem of redlining, of

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19:08

The Conquest of The Land and The Problematic of...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/08/09

Recently Rabbi Andy Kahn and Comedian Seth Rogen broadcast loud statements that Jews have been lied to and that Jews are not indigenous to the land of Israel. On the heels of these statements, the Jewish people in 2020 are going through the lengthy portion of Deuteronomy conveying both a demand of conquest and a moral framework. Can we learn from what the Torah is saying? Is the term "indigenous" just another progressive bludgeon that can mean whatever the twitterer wants it to mean? In this

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15:17

The Book of Numbers: The Dissolution of Community in...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/06/30

The Book of Numbers is about the failure of "community" in the wilderness. After all the community building of the Exodus, of Mount Sinai, of familial and tribal ties, of building the Mishkan, of the inspiring blueprint for a new society in a land of milk and honey, of Moshe's leadership, of being in God's physical presence, of communal ritual feasting and celebration... none of it has worked, which, when you think about it, is absolutely amazing! In this dvar Torah, I give my answer as to why by

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15:30

Faith in God is Faith in One's Own Ability to Bring...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/06/24

Psalm 23 is usually read as about a dead person getting to go through the valley of death and then live in God's house, but I read it, like the Mourner's Kaddish, as about a living person who goes through the experience of having a loved one die and transforms one's life from being in the depths to rising up to a life of living in this life in God's house, at the table in front of one's foes. I demonstrate this with two poems by Langston Hughes on how he, and all of us, will be part of a movement

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17:07

"Moses Married a Cushite Woman!" The Courage to Be...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/06/16

The first verse of Numbers chapter 12 famously has Miriam "speaking against Moses on account of the Cushite woman he married." Though I most often hear people say that this means that Miriam was a racist who is complaining that Moses married a foreign black woman (either Tsipporah or a second wife), that is NOT the traditional understanding of the Rabbis. it's the opposite: Miriam is standing up on behalf of her black sister-in-law. Still, the commentaries are frustrating. I rehearse Rashi, Ibn

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10:54

My Response to the White House That We Should Reopen:...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/05/25

On Erev Shabbat, May 22, 2020, the press was filled with the White House's call for people to go to church and synagogue right away, this Shabbat, the Shabbat when we Jews begin the book of Numbers, the parashah of counting. In this ten minute sermon, I reply to the president's call, using the wisdom of our Torah and our Sages as we consider what that would truly look like, and how we count in this time.

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12:15

Are Our Front Line "Heroes" Actually the New Servant...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/05/20

In his essay in The Atlantic, Adam Serwer proposes that our self-understanding of the social contract is revealed by the decision-making process about the pandemic, as he writes that “the pandemic has exposed the bitter terms of our racial contract, which deems certain lives of greater value than others.” I compare his views to that of the end of Leviticus and of The Book of Ruth, which both demand that shared resources are understood to come from God, and that we overcome our picture of earned

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51:34

Don't Be So Darn Metaphysical: Misunderstanding and...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/05/14

In this lecture from my series on "The 8 Most Misunderstood Things in the Bible," I tackle Leviticus's preoccupation with "uncleanness" and "impurity" that seems to stigmatize and isolate women, the sick, and others. It's one of those things that make people pick up a Hebrew Bible and say, "This stuff is barbaric and misogynistic." I argue that this is likely the parade example of misunderstanding Torah, based on misleading translation and the human being's inherent penchant for presuming

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48:48

From Sinai to Nietzsche: Revelation Reimagined...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/05/07

In this lecture, I present one of my "Most Misunderstood Concepts in the Torah"... Revelation. What does it mean that God speaks to Moses? What is the revelation of Torah? I present the philosophical frame for this debate, beginning with Descartes and Kant and then the devastating critique of them by Nietzsche, and later Wittgenstein and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. How do we avoid the betwitchment of our language in such crucial areas as "I think means that I cause my thoughts" or "If I

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15:52

Aaron Coming Close To God by Suppressing His Grief? ...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/04/23

When Aaron's sons Nadav and Avihu suddenly die by fire while offering the first sacrifices, we have an odd series of verses that seem to suggest --on the surface-- that God has glorified Godself by killing them and now God demands that Aaron show no grief for his own sons also for the greater glory of God. What? Do the verses really say this? A closer look (helped by the commentator Sforno), shows us what's really going on: there are times when we glorify God by choosing to do our jobs (when

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16:21

The Moral Dimension of Money Revealed: Seeing...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/04/12

In this teaching immediately following the Seder(s), I follow through the commandment to see ourselves as if we experience(d) the Exodus story at this profound time. I explore how the food of Passover is restoring our humility, our connection to our humble (poor) roots, how the moral dimensions of money are now exposed to create, when we are at our most honest, a compassionate human interaction over returning or paying funds --just as God brings grace (at the exact moment of the 10th plague) to the

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18:43

Are We Experiencing Apocalyptic Symptoms? The "Reset"...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2020/04/05

We are experiencing synchronicities with the Torah: the locust plague, the sheltering in place of the 9th and 10th plagues, the 10th plague which is simply plague itself, the Torah telling the Nasi (president) to make expiation for his sin, now the Seder -- blood on the doorposts of the 10th plague so similar to the red cross painted on the doors of homes quarantined during centuries of European plague-- with mathematical models predicting infection and death during the Pesach holiday as the Seder

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130 results

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