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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

7:49

DO NOT Forget on Passover! In Praise of Biur Chametz

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2026/03/31

This year's traditional teaching on a Law of Passover (per the tradition of Shabbat Hagadol). For a download of the text I'm referring to: https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/jewish-law/holidays/pesah/b-dikat-hameitz.pdf

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8:04

Israel and Iran: Malachi, Xerses, and Liza Minnelli

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2026/03/29

The Iran War began at Purim (about Persia, now Iran) and now we're at Passover with Persia yet again as we are required to read Malachi. The Bible actually ends in the Persian period with the triumvirate of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi. I share some history, some Bible, and some modern absurd framing that exemplifies the idiotic antisemitism rampant in our popular media as this war rages on.

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12:49

Why Jurgen Habermas Died Between Exodus and Leviticus

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2026/03/22

There is a loss that takes place between the end of Exodus, with the people donating materials and building the tabernacle in small groups excitedly, and the beginning of Leviticus with the routinization of altar offerings and a professional class to facilitate essential social functions. This loss is precisely the one the great thinkers Max Weber and Jurgen Habermas described in their most important works. It's not accident Habermas died with the scroll rolled to the space in between the two Torah

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13:30

The Visual Language of Norms in Judaism -- And We are...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2026/03/09

This is a Drash on Parashat Tetzaveh, an Exodus portion about the priestly clothing that usually elicits shallow reflections on clothes. Instead, I try to bring to life the amazing living language of garments in Jewish history -- a language of norms embedded in visual cues. It's a language modern culture has thrown away, and the values that go with it, and we are the poorer for it.

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6:26

Forced Labor was Used to Build the First Temple?

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2026/03/03

For parashat Terumah, the Rabbis pair a Torah reading about Terumah, donation from the heart, with the account of Solomon's building of the first Temple, which was done using "mas," forced labor, the customary tax of the time. But wasn't that what was forced on the Israelites in Egypt, and to which much of the Torah is a direct response? Shouldn't we be just a little bit uncomfortable?

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13:26

10 Commandments or 10 Speakings? Speech as the Center...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2026/02/23

The 2nd Commandment says not to make a chiseled thing part of our worship, yet the 10 Commandments actually are a chiseled thing! In this podcast, I show how the Jewish tradition the notion that it's okay in this instance because we make divine speech --words chiseled on these chiseled stones!-- the center of our worship practice. This changes everything: holiness comes through the holiness of speech, both divine in creating worlds and in creating instructions for how to live, and through our own

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6:37

Seeing ICE Through Scripture (from local rally)

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2026/02/02

My remarks from a local rally.

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14:17

Jacob's Blessings and Aging Out of People Pleasing

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2026/01/04

Drawing on the book "(Un)kind: How 'Be Kind' Entrenches Sexism" by Victoria Smith and Ellen Scherr's essay "The Neuroscience of Why You Suddenly Can’t Pretend Anymore," I examine Jacob's deathbed blessings to his sons, which are impartial statements of fact with neither personal commentary nor people-pleasing softening. I see in my own life the draw of middle age to convey factual statements without personal judgment, but the societal messages that everything has to be couched in uplifting,

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12:44

Agriculture, Economic Collapse, and the Joseph Story

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/12/31

At the end of Genesis, Joseph centralizes the agricultural system of Egypt, saving the country from collapse due to upcoming years of bad crops (e.g. due to drought), but turning farmers into serfs upon their own land in the process. The Rabbis debate whether Joseph did a good thing or a bad thing to the people. I take two stories from the headlines to take each side of this debate: first, the collapse of American farms due to corporate monopolies (turning American farmers into serfs on their own

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18:08

The AI Gods Taking Away our Souls and Our Community

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/12/08

My Kol Nidrei 2025 Sermon on how our phones are amplifying the centrifugal force of the pull of our individual lives, sacrificing the centripetal force of community, by holding out a fake community, a false version of ourselves (the shadow masquerading as the soul), and building Temples for us to worship the A.I. gods.

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17:12

Parashat Toldot: Is Imposter Syndrome a Fault or a...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/11/20

This is a revision of a podcast I released several years ago. It focuses on Isaac as the patriarch of Imposter Syndrome. In my own life, I've come to make peace with my own Imposter Syndrome, seeing the anxiety I must live with as a gift that leads me not to shame, but to service. It has made me appreciate Isaac enormously.

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15:03

What Can the Rabbinic Debate about Noah Teach Us...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/10/28

I relate the debate from Bereishit Rabbah to This American Life episode 550.

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26:17

Maimonides' Laws of War & Talking About Gaza

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/10/19

Most of us have been avoiding the painful conversations with friends and family over Gaza. Why? It seems like we have no common frame of reference, and so it hardly seems worth it. In this Rosh Hashanah sermon, I do something a little bizarre: I use Judaism's main halakhic code about war -- Maimonides' codification of all the Torah's statements on war-- to illuminate the war we are at with ourselves. My hope is that it opens us all up a little to each other.

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25:48

Getting "Miracles" Right in Judaism and in Our Lives...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/10/09

Miracle may be the most misunderstood concept in Judaism. While some Jewish sects officially (like Chabad), and most Jews unofficially, construe "miracles" as supernatural interventions in the nature, as in Christianity, the Jewish tradition tends to understand the word "miracle" (in Biblical Hebrew: "nes") in a far more subtle way. In this sermon, I explain the true meaning of "nes" as "sign" or "that which is risen above the ordinary" to help us deepen our sense of God's presence in our everyday

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12:34

Parashat Behaalotkhah: Grievance and Getting the...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/08/21

In this long section of the Torah, where Miriam and Aaron are disciplined by God for challenging Moses, where Moses tries yet again to resign his leadership, where the 70 Elders to help Moshe go ahead and prophesy, but strangely nothing seems to come from it, I am struck by how much the parashah speaks to our time, where the strangest of leaders are getting elected. We learn from Torah that leadership is not just about being prophetic or charismatic or elected, leadership is relational.

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15:56

Pinchas and Superman as our Mirror

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/07/24

Rabbi Irwin Kula reminds us that when we engage deeply with Torah, it can serve "as our mirror" which illuminates our inner complexities, strivings, horizon of significance, so we can better understand ourselves, others, and the world. In this presentation, I note how the Biblical story of Pinchas (who gets his own name on a parashah!) is a little different than most Biblical narratives in that most generate debates that quote textual evidence, but Pinchas usually just has the binary of "you either

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54:56

Abraham Joshua Heschel Second Class: Ethics vs Holiness

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/06/03

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

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57:25

Abraham Joshua Heschel First Class: Gratitude, Awe,...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/05/23

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

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08:18

Passover as the Secret High Holidays: Making Your...

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/04/01

There are two New Years on the Jewish calendar (in addition to the new years for trees and for flocks): Rosh Hashanah and First of Nissan (announced on Shabbat HaChodesh). The deep spiritual connection between the two is emphasized by reading the haftarah from Ezekiel, who sees the journey from the 1st of Nissan to Pesach as an equal mirror of the journey from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, and for whom Pesach is the real Yom Kippur. There is a deep and very practical message here: most of our Rosh

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10:38

The Mishkan, Indigenous Wisdom, and the Right to Repair

Judaism for the Thinking Person ·

2025/03/11

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

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