Judaism for the Thinking Person

By Rabbi Nadav Caine

Society & Culture Philosophy Religion & Spirituality Spirituality Judaism

What's Judaism for the Thinking Person about?

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

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Judaism for the Thinking Person episodes:

03.24.2024
Amalekites, Gaza and the End of Megillat Esther on Purim
As Purim became a holiday of tremendous festivities and lightheartedness, the Rabbis knew that the end of the Megillah in Chapter 9 has a dubious quality, that of a massacre on Haman's people. Is this a happy ending, a desirable...
02.19.2024
The 19th Century Reform Rabbi Who Changed Physics
The most influential rabbi you've never heard of? Based on an episode of the RadioLab podcast ("Relative Genius") and a biography in the Jewish Encyclopedia -- https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12611-rebenstein-aaron -- I tell you about the extraordinary Rabbi Aaron David Bernstein who likely...
01.30.2024
The Israelites Left Egypt Armed: Gender & Chauvinism Preceding October 7
In the second verse of Parashat Beshalach (the flight from Egypt and the crossing of the Sea of Reeds), the Torah states that the Israelites fled fully armed. I explore the traditional commentaries on why, and connect this to the...
01.15.2024
Who Gets to Be a Spokesperson for Israel? The Soft of Heart and Slow of Speech
The focus of the American and international conversation about the Hamas attack and its aftermath has been "Ceasefire or No Ceasefire" by which people mean (since there was a ceasefire prior to Hamas's breaking it) whether Israel should cease its...
12.23.2023
Tikkun Olam and Redeeming the Hostages
As a Dvar Torah for Vayigash (Joseph's revealing himself to his brothers following Judah's speech), I explore the mitzvah of redeeming our captives and the limitations on the law "for the sake of Tikkun Olam." The conversation among American Jews about...
12.01.2023
Halakhah and Aggadah: The Ten Stories We Tell PART TWO
PART TWO of this Yom Kippur 2023 sermon, in which I share the result of my personal and rabbi experiences of the last 15 years: that the longer we live, the shorter our eulogy becomes; that life (like scripture) is...
11.23.2023
Halakhah and Aggadah: The Ten Stories We Tell PART ONE
In this Yom Kippur 2023 sermon, I share the result of my personal and rabbi experiences of the last 15 years: that the longer we live, the shorter our eulogy becomes; that life (like scripture) is a combination of halakhah...
11.06.2023
Is There a Fear of God In This Place? Our Different Experiences of the Israel Gaza Conflict
Using the stories of Avraham, Sarah, and Hagar in Vayera, I voice what it's like to have utterly different experiences of the Gaza conflict with our coworkers, friends, and family members, some of whom seem to embody Dara Horn's prophecy...
10.16.2023
The Commandment of Shevut: How Do We Handle its Inherent Subjectivity?
In Deuteronomy, we are commanded to keep Shabbat as restfulness. Many are unaware that this does not just involve practicing the Shabbat observances and restrictions --Biblical and Rabbinic-- but the highly unusual special-to-itself halakhic category of "Shevut," usually translated as...
09.26.2023
The Kol Nidrei Ritual: Stepping into Your Future Self
Drawing on the traditional meaning of the Kol Nidrei --"All Vows"-- prayer, plus the Mishnah and Talmudic tractates on the Nidrei (Nedarim: Vows), plus the philosophy of Ritual Drama and the recent psychological studies about Future Selves, Rabbi Caine constructs...
09.24.2023
Hineni Resolutions: I’m Ready but Are They?
My Second Day 5784/2023 Rosh Hashanah Sermon explores the New Year's resolution ("neder" as in "Kol Nidrei") in Biblical, Talmudic, and Contemporary Jewish spirituality. What is the one resolution in your life that is "If not now, when?" and what...
09.18.2023
The Genders Within God, and Within Ourselves!
My Rosh Hashanah 5784/2023 (first day) sermon examines the understanding of God's image as multiple genders in Jewish theology, mysticism, and Rabbinic midrash. What are the implications for transgender, nonbinary, and queer identifications? And equally, what are the implications for...
07.24.2023
The Three Covenants: God Cares About God’s Brand. Do You?
As we begin the journey to High Holidays, I look at Matot the end of the Book of Numbers, where God is fastidiously concerned that we get right our relationship with the God of Judaism and, even deeper, the true...
06.16.2023
Is the Book of Numbers about Remote Work?
Parashat Beha'alotkha begins with a memo to all the Israelites that doubles down on the top down hierarchy of Aharon and Moshe at the top, and then it continues with a series of amplified grumblings, complaints, and a continuation of...
06.04.2023
Be Someone Else: Victor Turner and the Subversiveness of Ritual Performance
The longest parashah of the Torah's is Numbers' Naso, which begins with the theme of the tabernacle of roving ritual performance, like a traveling theater group, and then describes four ritual dramas that take publicly: the financial penitent, the jealous...
05.25.2023
”Make Yourself a Wilderness” To Receive Torah
The Rabbis are understandably preoccupied with why the Torah was given bemidbar Sinai, in the wilderness of Sinai, rather than in the Land of Israel. Entire commentary collections are devoted to this one profound fact. In fact, the fourth book of the...
05.19.2023
Jubilee and the Passing on of Generational Wealth
In this teaching, I note how there are two sorts of social legislation that emerge out of the Holiness Code of Leviticus (as well as other places): the kind that is aspirational --invitations to become a holy people through holiness...
05.08.2023
Two Forms of Action: Embodying the Kabbalistic Forces of Netzach and Hod
In honor of Lag B'Omer, I succinctly recount the Jewish mystical practice of embodying God's attributes during the period of Counting the Omer. Specifically, in the transition to the week of Lag B'Omer, we transition from practicing in our lives...
04.26.2023
Torah In a Minute: What’s the Big Deal About the Lunar Calendar?
Hope you're not having an Ecclesiastes month....
03.13.2023
The Golden Calf and the Present Government in Israel
Drawing on many articles, from the New Republic to Thomas Friedman, I use Nachmanides' commentary on a verse from the Golden Calf account, the verse that recounts Moshe's reaction to witnessing the events unfolding, with unflinching criticism of Aaron's (supposed)...
02.20.2023
Jewish Law, Head Covering, and Knowing Before Whom You Stand
Using Rabbi Jane Kanarek's 2019 CJLS (Conservative Movement) halakhic responsum, I explain the complex development of Jewish head covering for both men and for women. Though my conclusions from the sources are a bit different from Rabbi Kanarek's --who does...
02.01.2023
God the Stutterer, God the Reluctant
I've always wondered why we repeatedly pray to God to be willing to grant us Shabbat, etc. What does it mean to be willing, or to be capable of exercising one's will? Free will and the exercise of will always comes up...
01.10.2023
The Unalloyed Joy of Grandparenting
There are virtually no references to grandparenting in the Torah, until, by sharp contrast, we are told in Genesis 50:23 that Joseph got not only to grandparent but great-grandparent as well. I reflect upon this startling exception using two articles...
12.29.2022
Oppenheimer: The 20th Century ”Joseph”
Using the interpretations of the Rabbis (including Nachmanides and Sefer HaYashar) to understand Joseph's assimilation (in name, dress, etc.), I compare him to the American hero very recently in the news!
12.20.2022
Achieving our Dreams while Living with Anxiety
Yaakov's famous wrestling scene and renaming as Yisrael --one who wrestles with God and prevails-- is often understood as Yisrael wrestling with God as his opponent. The Rabbis point out how problematic this is, since the opponent is listed as...
11.20.2022
Eco-Burial and Jewish Law
Is it right to use arable land --often very expensive in populated areas -- for graves, then pollute the environment by keeping them "dignified" through maintenance and pesticides, with the hollow promise of "perpetual care," and say this is all...
11.10.2022
Listening Like It’s Shivah
In this ten minute teaching I used to begin the 10 Days of Awe, I connect several teachings. The first is the Rabbinic teaching that following a calamity upon a village, one should try to give the luxury rations to...
11.03.2022
The Spiral of Progress/History
Is the Jewish concept of history that of linear progress, or that of Ecclesiastes' cyclical vanity? This teaching was delivered during a 12-Step friendly Serenity Shabbat.
11.01.2022
Learning from 12 Step: The ”El Anon” Theology of the Exile Prophets
The theology of the haftarot of the exile prophets like Deutero-Isaiah is hard for most people to relate to: "You are in exile, your life is full of tragedy, and I love you, I remember you as you were before,...
10.21.2022
Those in 12 Step Recovery are Our Teachers (Rosh Hashanah Sermon 2022)
For too long, Jews have associated the Recovery movement with Christianity, and we have seen those in recovery, or with addictions, as outsiders to Torah. This is far from reality. The main example of vows-of-change --the essence of High Holidays--...
10.09.2022
Chatter and Our Relationship with God through Our Relationship with Our Inner Voice
My Yom Kippur sermon in 2022. Using Ethan Kross's book Chatter along with Jewish sources and my own observations about life, I challenge us to form our relationship to God through our relationship with our inner voice, which these days tends...
08.28.2022
Moses the Mother in Transition (Ilana Kurshan’s Teaching)
I share Ilana Kurshan's teaching on rabbinic midrash seeing Moses as a mother in transition, as they question whether, at the promised land border, God's refusing his entry is frustrating his desire to mother the people more, or frustrating his...
08.21.2022
Eikev and the Torah of Ambivalence
In this d'var Torah, I discuss how parashat Eikev is the section of Torah most frought with ambivalences, from the text itself through the Rabbinic commentaries: blessing as bounty and overextension, independence and dependence, hardship and privilege, closeness and distance....
06.17.2022
Our Children Need a Relationship with God through their Inner Voice
There is a crisis for our middle and high school students that has reached desperate proportions: they don't believe in God and they see our tradition as having nothing relevant to say about what God could be to them. Typical...
06.02.2022
Your Only Freedom is in Service
Drawing on the Rabbinic principle that Passover celebrates our freedom --which is a temporary state that leads to service in covenant, I use 12-step principles to state my thesis: the only freedom a human being has is in choosing whom...
05.22.2022
Ableism, Torah, and ”Greatness Comes from Being Lifted Up By Your Brothers”
How do we relate to the Torah's insistence that the kohanim who do the major rituals be without blemish or disability? Isn't that grossly ableist? I suggest the following. First, the Torah is not an idealistic description of a utopia...
05.10.2022
Judaism and Abortion: The Process of the Decision IS Religion
In this presentation, I present the Talmudic sources on Judaism's discussion of the status of the fetus, and I argue that what's been missing from the discussion --including the discussion of Jewish views -- is the fact that Judaism leaves...
04.19.2022
Believing in Miracles (or not) in 5 Minutes
One of my "standing on one foot while answering a humungous theological question" podcasts. "Rabbi, what do we mean by miracles? What is up with the Red Sea splitting?" I give my on-one-foot 5 minute answer, but we should all...
03.18.2022
Is the Wailing Wall an Orthodox Synagogue? The Kotel Agreement, Yuval Noah Harari and Anat Hoffman
At the same time as the Torah turns its pages to describe the creation and pattern of the Temple, with men, women, and children mixed together, and the haftarah describes the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem as the same,...
02.21.2022
Self-Improvement, Judgment, and Seeing God’s Back
While Judaism demands that one does not judge oneself too harshly, nor live in a place of self-defeating criticism, nevertheless there's a vital role for self-judgment to play in our learning from the past to walk with God and expand...
02.14.2022
Clothing God? Sewing as an Act of Lovingkindness
The Talmud tells us that the first great act of God's love (chesed, lovingkindness) was making clothing for Adam and his wife. Do we return the favor?
01.30.2022
Does God Have a Plan for Us?
Joseph's dreams seem to predict the future and his role in it. So does God have a plan for us?
01.17.2022
Lecture: Halakhic Sources, the Fetus, and the Morality of Abortion
The source sheet I'm reading from is at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R0Txiy6QvQiHo40hKSsHyafLernFjS8tXp0tJo7gPWA/edit?usp=sharing This is a lecture to give the listener the Rabbinic sources that create distinctions and legal status for decisions around the criminalization of elective abortion, as discussed in the Supreme Court hearings.
12.28.2021
Patriarchy, Gaze, Voice and Intersectionality? Exodus and bell hooks
Here I tease out the following ideas of bell hooks: 1. Our society valuing power over others as the paramount value, and rooted in the psychology of men. 2. This value playing out in drama as "the protagonist" as the...
12.22.2021
Joseph‘s Brothers and Robert Bly‘s The Sibling Society
Robert Bly, one of America's great poets and poetry translators, recently died. In this presentation, I apply Bly's books of social commentary to the end of Genesis. Iron John described the effects of fathers turning over parenting duties to others --like...
12.13.2021
Joseph, Hanukkah, and the Assimilation Narrative
These are my reflections upon Arnold Eisen's 2015 essay, "Joseph, Hanukkah, and the Dilemmas of Assimilation." Those who investigate the Hanukkah story quickly learn (simply by reading the Books of Maccabees in the apocrypha) that the events around the 186...
11.29.2021
The Incommunicability of Experience and the Rape of Dinah
[WARNING: The second half of the podcast discusses the rape of Dinah and I share an account of sexual harrassment from recent congressional testimony.] If the early chapters of Genesis are about where we come from, the second half of Genesis...
11.17.2021
Dara Horn‘s ”People Love Dead Jews” and the Erasure of Jewish Difference
In this sermon -- playing on the Rabbinic commentary that the name of the Torah portion that mentions Sarah's death is called "The Life [or Lives] of Sarah" because we should celebrate the lives she lead rather than think of...
11.01.2021
Changing our Relationship with Time from Productivity to Presence
It hasn't been very long in human history (two or three generations) that we live our lives according to a clock rather than according to the processes of our lives (waking up, milking the cow, putting the hay in the...
10.26.2021
The Potentially Limitless Commandment of Honoring Parents As They Age
In this dvar Torah, I share Talmudic stories of rabbis trying to honor their mothers in ways that are both comical and also poignant in their alluding to our individual (and often lonely) struggles to honor God and them, especially...

What's Judaism for the Thinking Person about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Judaism for the Thinking Person episodes:

Amalekites, Gaza and the End of Megillat Esther on Purim

The 19th Century Reform Rabbi Who Changed Physics

The Israelites Left Egypt Armed: Gender & Chauvinism Preceding October 7

Who Gets to Be a Spokesperson for Israel? The Soft of Heart and Slow of Speech

Tikkun Olam and Redeeming the Hostages

Halakhah and Aggadah: The Ten Stories We Tell PART TWO

Halakhah and Aggadah: The Ten Stories We Tell PART ONE

Is There a Fear of God In This Place? Our Different Experiences of the Israel Gaza Conflict

The Commandment of Shevut: How Do We Handle its Inherent Subjectivity?

The Kol Nidrei Ritual: Stepping into Your Future Self

Hineni Resolutions: I’m Ready but Are They?

The Genders Within God, and Within Ourselves!

The Three Covenants: God Cares About God’s Brand. Do You?

Is the Book of Numbers about Remote Work?

Be Someone Else: Victor Turner and the Subversiveness of Ritual Performance

”Make Yourself a Wilderness” To Receive Torah

Jubilee and the Passing on of Generational Wealth

Two Forms of Action: Embodying the Kabbalistic Forces of Netzach and Hod

Torah In a Minute: What’s the Big Deal About the Lunar Calendar?

The Golden Calf and the Present Government in Israel

Jewish Law, Head Covering, and Knowing Before Whom You Stand

God the Stutterer, God the Reluctant

The Unalloyed Joy of Grandparenting

Oppenheimer: The 20th Century ”Joseph”

Achieving our Dreams while Living with Anxiety

Eco-Burial and Jewish Law

Listening Like It’s Shivah

The Spiral of Progress/History

Learning from 12 Step: The ”El Anon” Theology of the Exile Prophets

Those in 12 Step Recovery are Our Teachers (Rosh Hashanah Sermon 2022)

Chatter and Our Relationship with God through Our Relationship with Our Inner Voice

Moses the Mother in Transition (Ilana Kurshan’s Teaching)

Eikev and the Torah of Ambivalence

Our Children Need a Relationship with God through their Inner Voice

Your Only Freedom is in Service

Ableism, Torah, and ”Greatness Comes from Being Lifted Up By Your Brothers”

Judaism and Abortion: The Process of the Decision IS Religion

Believing in Miracles (or not) in 5 Minutes

Is the Wailing Wall an Orthodox Synagogue? The Kotel Agreement, Yuval Noah Harari and Anat Hoffman

Self-Improvement, Judgment, and Seeing God’s Back

Clothing God? Sewing as an Act of Lovingkindness

Does God Have a Plan for Us?

Lecture: Halakhic Sources, the Fetus, and the Morality of Abortion

Patriarchy, Gaze, Voice and Intersectionality? Exodus and bell hooks

Joseph‘s Brothers and Robert Bly‘s The Sibling Society

Joseph, Hanukkah, and the Assimilation Narrative

The Incommunicability of Experience and the Rape of Dinah

Dara Horn‘s ”People Love Dead Jews” and the Erasure of Jewish Difference

Changing our Relationship with Time from Productivity to Presence

The Potentially Limitless Commandment of Honoring Parents As They Age