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Orthodox Conundrum

The Orthodox Conundrum is a forum in which we look honestly at the Orthodox Jewish community, identifying what works well and what does not, so that, through an honest accounting, we can find solutions that will be successful. We will examine some of the major issues that affect the Orthodox world, without exaggeration, whitewashing, or pretending that they don"t exist. Our hope is that the Orthodox Conundrum will spark wider discussion that will enable Orthodox Judaism to continue moving forward

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All Episodes

01:13:20

What Comes Next? Yaakov Katz on Israel’s War,...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/06/09

Twenty months into the war with Hamas, many Israelis and supporters abroad are asking the same urgent question: how will this end? In this in-depth episode of Orthodox Conundrum, Scott Kahn is joined by Yaakov Katz, one of Israel’s most respected journalists and author of While Israel Slept, to examine whether Israel’s military goals are still realistic — or even defined. They discuss the uncertain state of the war, Netanyahu’s political maneuvering, the role of the Chareidi parties, international

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48:48

From Beit Lechem to the Royal Ball: Comparing and...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/05/26

Megilat Rut — the Book of Ruth — is one of the most beloved and widely read books in the Hebrew Bible. Because we read it annually on Shavuot, many people are familiar with its basic storyline. But its very familiarity can sometimes obscure its most powerful messages. In this episode, I’m joined by Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman of Bar Ilan University, who offers a fascinating lens through which to revisit Ruth’s story: the world’s most popular fairytale — Cinderella. By comparing the two narratives, Rabbi

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01:14:33

Can Physics Demonstrate God's Existence? (248)

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/05/19

Can science be a vehicle to get closer to God? The Rambam famously answered in the affirmative. In the second of the 1000 chapters of his Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah chapter 2, the Rambam writes, “What is the method towards loving and fearing God? At the moment that a person investigates His wondrous and massive actions and creations, and sees through them His endless and infinite wisdom, he immediately loves, praises, and extols, and desires tremendously to know the great Name. In the

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01:04:18

Having “The Talk”: How Should Jewish Parents Talk to...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/05/14

Please note that this episode discusses sensitive topics and uses explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Today, the Orthodox Conundrum is releasing a new episode of Intimate Judaism that my Intimate Judaism co-host, Talli Rosenbaum, and I recorded with Yonina Rubinstein, where we explore how parents can approach conversations about sexuality with sensitivity, clarity, and confidence. How can we talk to kids about sex in a way that’s honest, healthy, and grounded in Jewish values? Yonina

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21:54

The Pope, the Jews, and Israel: What to Anticipate...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/05/12

Last Thursday, Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago became Pope Leo XIV. While Jews may believe that this shouldn’t matter to us at all, this is most likely false. The pope commands the allegiance of well over a billion Roman Catholics worldwide, and his ability to help shape their opinions about the Jewish people and Israel should not be underestimated. To discuss what his election means for the Jewish people, and to review his predecessor Pope Francis’s record towards Jews and the Jewish state, I

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01:20:16

"You Can't Suppress the Light": The Radical Messages...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/05/05

The thought of Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, who died in 1935, remains extremely influential today in religious Zionist circles. Rav Kook’s ideology, particularly as interpreted by his son, Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, in books like Orot, has helped to set the agenda for much of the dati leumi world. Over the past couple of decades, however, additional works written by Rav Kook have been published, and some of the ideas they contain are extraordinarily fascinating and at times radical, even as they

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01:04:56

Inside the Real Rules of War: Colonel John Spencer...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/04/28

Colonel John Spencer, one of the world's leading experts on urban warfare, joins me for a wide-ranging conversation about Israel’s war against Hamas. We dive deep into the realities of modern combat, the strict standards of international law, and the false accusations of "genocide" being leveled against Israel. Colonel Spencer also shares insights from his recent high-profile debate alongside Dave Smith on Piers Morgan Uncensored, where he pushed back against the misinformation dominating media

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01:20:13

OTD, Datlash, and the Religious Spectrum: When...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/04/21

The Orthodox Conundrum Podcast is off this week, and we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. In the meantime, enjoy this classic episode about Orthodox Jews who leave Orthodoxy. There’s a phenomenon in the Orthodox world which is called by various names, though most commonly “Off the Derech” or OTD, and “Datlash,” short for “Dati Leshe’avar” - that is, formerly religious. For a community which prides itself on continuity and on passing the tradition from one generation to the next, the

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01:17:26

Celebrating Pesach in Challenging Times: Haggadah...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/04/07

I’m doing something a little different this week. Instead of discussing an issue in the Jewish world, I want to offer some inspirational words about the Seder as we enter the final week before the beginning of Pesach. To that end, I invited several of my podcast guests from the past year to present ideas that they find meaningful, with the hope that they will enhance your own Seder as we navigate celebrating Pesach during this challenging moment in Jewish history. In this episode, you will hear

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01:40:09

"There Are No Shortcuts to a Healthy Jewish...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/03/31

We are now less than two weeks away from the night of the Seder, which is almost certainly the most widely practiced example of Jewish education in action. And that raises the issue of how we should define healthy Jewish education in general, and how best we can achieve it. These questions are doubly important because while there are many wonderful Jewish schools, there are, unfortunately, numerous educational institutions where religious growth and educational goals are met through the use of fear,

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01:14:41

A Moral Voice for Religious Zionism: The Profound...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/03/24

This conversation with Rabbi Moshe Taragin presents an introduction to the profound - and profoundly human - religious philosophy of Rav Yehuda Amital zt'l, the founding rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion. Rav Amital's ideas fill a unique niche in the Religious Zionist world today, and in many ways stand as a corrective to some of the ideology that has become dominant in the dati leumi world. His teachings grapple with some of the most pressing tensions in Jewish thought and life: universalism vs

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01:08:28

Chutzpah - and Illegal Activity - in the Service of...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/03/17

When hundreds of students enthusiastically sing and dance about dodging the draft, while thousands of others protect those same students by spending more and more time in the IDF because of a manpower shortage... something has gone seriously wrong. When institutions that receive millions of shekels of government money actively undermine the State of Israel by encouraging and celebrating draft dodging... something has gone seriously wrong. When a minister in the Knesset is involved in creating a

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01:00:32

The Mainstreaming of Meir Kahane: A Halachic, Moral,...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/03/10

Several recent articles have raised a troubling question: Is Rabbi Meir Kahane making a comeback? In the wake of the horrific murder of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas, some influential pro-Israel voices have turned to Kahane’s ideas, reviving a debate that many thought was long settled. In this episode, Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Sinensky and I dive deep into why this is a dangerous trend—one that must be confronted head-on from a Torah perspective. While many may be invoking Kahane’s philosophy with Israel’s

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01:05:57

The Abuser’s Tool Box: Domestic Abuse in the Orthodox...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/03/03

Domestic abuse is one of those topics that, sometimes, we simply wish would go away. It’s certainly among the very worst experiences that a person can have, yet it brings forward feelings of shame and failure, such that people are often reluctant to acknowledge that they are victims. Sometimes, they can’t even name it - either because they don’t recognize it for what it is, or because they are embarrassed and don’t want to admit it. Yet we can’t ignore it, and all of us need to better recognize the

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01:20:13

The Vanishing Art of Jewish Conversation (and What To...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/02/24

The act of talking - dignified and informative conversation, where people connect on a serious level with one another - is essential to the Jewish experience. This goes back to the very creation of Adam; the Torah describes God as breathing a breath of life into Adam, after which he became a nefesh chaya - a living soul. Targum Onkelos famously translates that phrase as ruach memalela - a speaking spirit. Accordingly, the fact that man is able to converse is part of his very essence. In a similar

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01:03:12

Religious Jews and Dishonesty: Tax Fraud, Zoning...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/02/17

The Torah is very clear that theft is forbidden; no one doubts that this is true. It is, accordingly, very disturbing that religious Jews as a community don’t seem to be more ethical in these matters than people who don’t see the Torah as their guide to life. I am not suggesting that Orthodox Jews are worse than anyone else in these matters; I cannot possibly know if that’s true. It does seem, however, that Orthodox Jews as a whole are not better than any other community when it comes to honesty in

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51:02

The Ethics of Population Transfers & Prisoner Swaps,...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/02/10

Ever since President Trump presented his plan (or his idea, as it’s unclear how planned out this really is) about resettling the Arab population of Gaza, the Jewish world has been in an uproar. Very loud voices on both sides of the issue have been talking not so much about its feasibility - many are extremely skeptical that this could ever come to fruition - but about whether it is ethical. Some insist that this is nothing less than ethnic cleansing, with all the negative implications that the term

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01:04:39

When the Doctor Becomes the Patient: A Conversation...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/02/03

What is it like for a doctor, who has spent his life treating patients, to become a patient himself? That was the experience of Dr. Avi Rockoff when he learned that he had a very serious form of prostate cancer, and which he chronicles in his new book, When the Doctor Becomes the Patient. He was exposed to what he terms “the medical industrial complex” from the other side of the physician's desk, and learned about some of the aspects of healthcare that he had taught for years, but from a very

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01:14:51

History Repeating Itself: Diaspora-Israel Tensions in...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/01/27

William Faulkner in Requiem for a Nun famously wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” I repeatedly thought of that line as I read Dr. Malka Simkovich’s recent book, Letters From Home: The Creation of Diaspora in Jewish Antiquity. In that book she investigates the relationship of Jews living in the Land of Israel and Jews who remained in the diaspora after the conclusion of the Babylonian Exile, when the majority of Jews chose to remain outside of Judea rather than return back to their

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01:10:44

The Fragility of Jewish Existence Comes to Israel:...

Orthodox Conundrum ·

2025/01/20

I recorded this episode hours before the first three Israeli hostages were slated to be released, and as a ceasefire was just beginning to be implemented by Israel and Hamas. Many people have noted that while Hamas is parading throughout Gaza and claiming victory - which is an absurd inversion of reality - and while the vast majority of the world is celebrating the end of hostilities (at least for now), the population which is the most muted about it are the residents of Israel, who have extreme

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298 results

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