Evolve

Evolve

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Evolve episodes

  • Episode 12: Dreams: Judaism's Forgotten Practice

    "A dream uninterpreted is like a letter not read.” That quote, attributed to Rabbi Hisda in the Talmud, coupled with the frequency and importance of dreams in the Bible, might make you think dream interpretation plays a central role in Jewish tradition. Yet Rabbi Haviva Ner-David, an Orthodox feminist turned “post-denominational, interspiritual rabbi”, says that dreams have long been neglected in mainstream Jewish practice. It was through Ner-David’s exploration of other religious traditions that she encountered dreamwork as a spiritual practice. In this interview, she discusses how dreams offer each of us a tool to better understand ourselves and our world – if we only know how to use it.

    Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

    Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org

    Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss

    Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/1

    This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

    Special Guest: Rabbi Haviva Ner-David.

    Support Evolve

    Links:

    • Dreams: Judaism’s Forgotten Spiritual Practice (Evolve Essay)
    — Dream work was an established Jewish practice before the modern era. It is now being revived as a means to receive messages from the Divine.
  • Rabbi Haviva Ner-David
    • 46 min
  • Episode 11: The Jewish Studio Project

    Making art is either for children or acclaimed artists, right? Not if Rabbi Adina Allen has anything to say about it. Allen is the co-founder of the Jewish Studio Project and daughter of a pioneering therapist. In this episode, Allen makes the case that engaging in a creative process is something that adults not only can do, but should do. Art-making, she explains, can be a tool for emotional regulation. It’s also a tool for spiritual exploration, engaging Jewish texts and community, and getting in touch with the place inside oneself that leads an individual to make a better world. How does this all work? And how is Rabbi Allen running an organization while social distancing at home with her husband (and co-founder), two children age six and under, and a dog? We cover all that and more in this engaging conversation.

    Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

    Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org

    Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss

    Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/1

    This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

    Special Guest: Rabbi Adina Allen.

    Support Evolve

    Links:

    • The Jewish Studio Project
    — Jewish Studio Project activates creativity in individuals and communities to make life more meaningful, our tradition more vibrant and the world more just.
  • The Jewish Studio Project: Art-Making as Another Way to Interpret Our Texts
    • 36 min
  • Episode 10: Disability Justice

    In our conversation with Rabbi Elliot Kukla, we discuss his essay for Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations about the profound and unexpected ways in which trauma can affect a person's health and overall spiritual wellbeing. In the piece and this interview, he shares some of what he's learned about life by being chronically ill. We discuss his heightened appreciation for the interdependence of people, and what that means for the responsibilities of societies and communities to care for their members, even the most vulnerable. We also talk with Rabbi Kukla about his recent New York Times piece, "My Life Is More 'Disposable' During This Pandemic", and about the COVID-19 pandemic more generally; about the newly resurgent racial justice movement; and about the challenge parents face in maintaining hope for our children and the world they're inheriting in this deeply unsettling time.

    Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

    Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org

    Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss

    Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/10

    This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

    Special Guest: Rabbi Elliot Kukla.

    Support Evolve

    Links:

    • The Holiness of Being Broken: Trauma and Disability Justice (Evolve Essay)
  • Opinion | In My Chronic Illness, I Found a Deeper Meaning - The New York Times
  • Opinion | My Life Is More ‘Disposable’ During This Pandemic - The New York Times
  • Disability Justice Culture Club (Facebook group)
  • Bay Area Jewish Healing Center
    • 50 min
  • Episode 9: Climate Change, COVID-19 and Racism: A Jewish Response

    As far back as 1988, Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb was convinced that climate change presented the greatest threat to humanity’s and the earth’s health and survival. He was determined to do everything in his power to safeguard the planet for future generations. So why go into the rabbinate? In this interview, he explains how Jewish values and community have served as the underpinning for his environmentalism, and how many Jewish ideas promote the kind of long-term thinking that is needed right now. Though this interview was recorded before the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests that took place in all 50 states, he discusses racism and how climate change will continue to disproportionately affect poorer communities comprised of people of color – unless changes are made. He also explains how lessons learned during this pandemic might be applied to taking steps to lessen climate change. He offers an empowering and hopeful message about how the actions we take now can positively impact humanity and all life for generations to come.

    Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

    Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org

    Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss

    Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/1

    This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

    Special Guest: Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb.

    Support Evolve

    Links:

    • Covid-19 and Torah: Advice from the Sabbatical Year - eJewish Philanthropy
    — Can a rarely-practiced piece of Torah, dormant for most of the Common Era, help us weather the Novel Coronavirus crisis? Yes, Shmita can – and a fresh look at this biblical practice offers guidance for other challenges of our time, too
  • The Jewish Basis for Environmentalism
    • — Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb outlines the five pillars that serve as a base for the Jewish environmental movement: sufficiency (dayenu), resilience (kehillah), responsibility (akhrayut), justice (tzedek) and hope (tikvah).
  • Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly | Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb Extended Interview | PBS
    • — "If the environment is just one more important issue, “it won’t gain the traction that it needs. We need to redefine creation care as the underlying mitzvah or commandment or good deed.” Watch more of our interview with Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb of Congregation Adat Shalom in Maryland about what Jewish tradition says about the environment.
  • Coalition On The Environment And Jewish Life
    • — The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) deepens and broadens the Jewish community’s commitment to stewardship and protection of the Earth through outreach, activism, and Jewish learning. 
  • Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation
  • Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA)
    • 55 min
  • Episode 8: Israel-Palestine: The Possibility of Healing Conversations

    In many Jewish communities, Israel-Palestine is the third rail that nobody wants to step on. Yet the Jewish community of Madison, Wis., found a way to have a sustained, facilitated dialogue that brought together participants with vastly different viewpoints. In this episode, professional facilitator and mediator Harry Webne-Behrman explains how they did it, what was why dialogue is so central to a healthy democracy. Acknowledging that the model used in Madison can’t be used during a time of pandemic, Webne-Behrman talks about what communities can do now and in the future to spur the kinds of conversations that transform lives.

    Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

    Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org

    Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss

    Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/1

    This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

    Special Guest: Harry Webne-Behrman.

    Support Evolve

    Links:

    • How to Have Healing Public Conversations About Israel-Palestine
    — Structured, facilitated dialogue among Jews about Israel-Palestine issues can help heal communal rifts and tensions. (Essay from Evolve)
  • Congregation Shaarei Shamayim
  • What Matters at Work (Amazon book)
  • The Practice of Facilitation (Amazon book)
  • Center for Conflict Resolution
    • — CCR provides free mediation services to people in conflict and offers trainings in mediation skills as well as customizable conflict management workshops.
  • Jewish Dialogue Group
    • — We are a grassroots organization that works to foster constructive dialogue within Jewish communities across the world about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other challenging issues. 
  • Essential Partners
    • — Previously known as the Public Conversations Project, we partner with communities and organizations around the globe, equipping them to navigate the values, beliefs, and identities that are essential to them.
  • National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation
    • — The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation is a network of innovators who bring people together across divides to tackle today’s toughest challenges. NCDD serves as a gathering place, a resource clearinghouse, a news source, and a facilitative leader for this extraordinary community.
  • International Association for Public Participation (USAA)
    • — Pursuing the greater good: good decisions made together
    46 min
  • Episode 7: Confronting Anti-Semitism and Racism

    When he confronted demonstrators at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.,hearing the chants of “the Jews will not replace us”, Rabbi Mordechai Liebling came face-to-face with white supremacy and antisemitism. As a child of Holocaust survivors, Liebling has thought about antisemitism his entire life, and as a veteran organizer and activists, he’s worked with a cross-section of groups to combat intolerance in all forms. In this conversation, Liebling describes his experiences in Charlottesville: what brought him there, and what he learned about hate in America. He also reflects on two of his Evolve essays: “Thoughts on Racism and Antisemitism” and “A Brief History and Update on Antisemitism”, paying particular attention to relations between American Jews and African Americans.

    Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

    Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org

    Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss

    Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/1

    This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

    Special Guest: Rabbi Mordechai Liebling.

    Support Evolve

    Links:

    • Thoughts on Racism and Antisemitism (Evolve)
    — A look at some of the causes of tension and misunderstanding between Jews and Blacks in the United States.
  • A Brief History and Update on Antisemitism (Evolve)
    • — Antisemitism holds a central and essential place in the world view of contemporary American white nationalists. By contrast, antisemitism that surfaces on the left is not essential, and can and should be addressed.
  • Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism | Eric K. Ward
  • Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times Between Blacks and Jews in America: Kaufman, Jonathan (Amazon link)
    • — Jonathan Kaufman paints a vivid, moving portrait of the relationship between blacks and Jews in recent decades — from the strong partnership forged during the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the angry war of words, recriminations, and highly charged confrontations making headlines today. Includes a new preface and epilogue by Kaufman.
  • Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White (New York Times archives)
    • — A New York Times piece by James Baldwin from 1967
  • Jewish groups decry Black Lives Matter platform’s view on Israel - The Washington Post (August 2016)
  • Reform Movement Leaders Reaffirm Commitment to Racial Justice, Condemn Movement for Black Lives Platform Language on Israel | Religious Action Center
  • JCRC Boston Statement Regarding Black Lives Matter Platform - August 2016
    • 55 min
  • Episode 6: Scenes from the Q of LGBTQ+

    John Backman wore a dress as a child and had never felt comfortable identifying as a man. And only in the past decade, well into middle-age, John, a writer and spiritual director, began to use the pronouns she and her (and sometimes going by the name Janelle.) Yet, she identifies as gender non-binary, rather than as a woman. What has all this meant for her relationship with her wife of decades? Her adult daughter? Friends and colleagues? In this remarkably candid interview, John describes what it is like to live between society’s definitions of male and female. A Christian and Zen practitioner, John places her lifelong quest for true self — and struggle with mental health — within a spiritual framework.

    Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

    Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org

    Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss

    Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/1

    This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

    Special Guest: John Backman.

    Support Evolve

    Links:

    • Evolve Essay: Scenes from the Q of LGBTQ+
  • About – John Backman
  • Why Can't We Talk?: Christian Wisdom on Dialogue as a Habit of the Heart (Amazon link)
  • Morning Blessings, Queered (Ritualwell)
    • — An expansion of the traditional morning blessings to speak to those of all genders
    50 min
  • Episode 5: Racism in the Jewish Community

    Imagine you’re an African American Jew-by-choice and made the monumental decision to go to rabbinical school. A fellow synagogue board member says, “wow, you’re more Jewish than the Jews.” Throughout rabbinical school, the first thing you’re asked when you enter Jewish space is “how can you be Jewish?” or “when did you convert?” And then after starting your first job as a campus rabbi, a parent asks if you’re really ordained. In this episode, Rabbi Sandra Lawson shares her personal experiences like these. She seeks to push white Jews to face their assumptions and confront racism within themselves, racism that may not be malicious in intent but is inherited from the world around. Her hopes are for the Jewish people to live up to our highest ideals.

    Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

    Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org

    Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss

    Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/1

    This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

    Special Guest: Rabbi Sandra Lawson.

    Support Evolve

    Links:

    • Racism in the Jewish Community - Evolve essay
  • Sandra Lawson, black lesbian vegan rabbinical student, hopes to redefine where Judaism happens - Jewish Telegraphic Agency
  • Rabbi Meets Jews Where They Are Today - Jewish Exponent
  • Breaking with tradition, rabbinical student does Shabbat service Arnold's Way
  • Rabbi Lawson Says Hineni | New Voices
  • A Personal Trainer, Vegan and Sociologist Walk into a Synagogue — Oh Wait, that’s just Sandra Lawson
  • The Snapchat Rabbi - Sandra Lawson — Judaism Unbound podcast, Episode 34
  • Elon University / Sandra Lawson
  • Rabbi Sandra Lawson homepage
  • Barefoot, Bluegrass and Blues on the Porch - YouTube
    • 55 min
  • Episode 4: Slavery and Its Atonement: The Jewish Obligation to Confront Slavery’s Legacy

    Slavery has been described as America’s original sin. Abolished with the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, slavery still casts a shadow over American life. Today, many Americans are seeking to better understand, and respond to, this tortured history. Can Judaism offer some guidelines for how to do that? Do Jews have to atone for the sin of slavery, even though mass Jewish migration to the United States didn’t happen until decades after the Civil War? Rabbi Toba Spitzer answers yes to both questions. In this episode, the religious leader of Congregation Dorshei Tzedek, a Reconstructionist congregation outside Boston, discusses ideas she first explored in a Yom Kippur sermon. Spitzer says that the ancient priests — who may have been among the Hebrew Bible’s editors — had ideas about communal sin that may offer a path toward societal acknowledgement and atonement for the sin of slavery. Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ph.D., who directs the Evolve project, sits in for this interview.

    Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

    Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org

    Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss

    Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/1

    This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

    Special Guest: Rabbi Toba Spitzer.

    Support Evolve

    Links:

    • Slavery and Its Atonement
    — On the impact of slavery and the white Jewish obligations to respond.
  • Deuteronomy 21:1-9
    • — Biblical text on communal responsibility referenced in this episode
  • Drew Gilpin Faust: Race and History in Virginia - The Atlantic
    • — A historian looks back at the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow in her home state.
  • The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic
    • — Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
  • Atonement: The Jewish case for black reparations – J.
    • — Holocaust reparations marked an astonishing historic moment…“For the first time in the history of relations between people,” then-Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion said, “a precedent has been created by which a great state, as a result of moral pressure alone, takes it upon itself to pay compensation to the victims of the government that preceded it.” Today, it may be the closest model America has to reckon with one of the darkest times in its own history: 250 years of black enslavement, followed by a century of systematic housing, education and job discrimination that continues to affect people and communities today.
  • Beyond Erasure: A New Look at Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism
    • — Jews and non-Jews have internalized varying degrees of antisemitism, including the insidious idea that Jews should "disappear."
  • Op-Ed: Germany paid Holocaust reparations. Will the U.S. do the same for slavery? - Los Angeles Times
    • — It is easy to point to the differences between the Holocaust and the enslavement and abuse of millions of Africans. When examining possible responses to these crimes, however, striking similarities emerge.
  • What Holocaust Restitution Taught Me About Slavery Reparations - POLITICO Magazine
    • — My experience negotiating restitution for Holocaust survivors has shown me how difficult and divisive a slavery reparations program would be to enact.
  • Reform Jews call for reparations for slavery - Religion News Service
    • — Delegates to the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial meeting in Chicago on Friday (Dec. 13) voted overwhelmingly to advocate for the creation of a federal commission to study and develop proposals for reparations to African Americans for slavery.
  • Action Reconciliation Service for Peace
    • — The appeal at the founding of Action Reconciliation starts with acknowledging Germany’s guilt for Nazi crimes…Convinced that the first step towards reconciliation had to be made by the perpetrators and their descendants, the founders of Action Reconciliation pledged that “the other nations, who suffered because of us, will allow us with our hands and with our means to do something good in their countries” as a sign of reconciliation and peace.
  • Whitney Plantation | Guided Tours of Whitney Plantation Museum
    • — Whitney Plantation is the only plantation museum in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on the lives of enslaved people. Visit Whitney’s memorials and restored buildings to enter the world of a Louisiana sugar plantation and to remember those who built and worked this property. On your walking tour, your guide shows you through slave cabins, a freedmen’s church, detached kitchen and outbuildings, a 1790s owner’s house and memorials built to honor the enslaved.
  • Amazon.com: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (Edward E. Baptist)
    • — Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution -- the nation's original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America's later success. But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian Edward E. Baptist reveals, the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American independence drove the evolution and modernization of the United States.
  • Amazon.com: Nobody Knows My Name: James Baldwin et. al.
    • — Told with Baldwin's characteristically unflinching honesty, this collection of illuminating, deeply felt essays examines topics ranging from race relations in the United States to the role of the writer in society, and offers personal accounts of Richard Wright, Norman Mailer and other writers.
  • Amazon.com: The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings: James Baldwin
    • 43 min
  • Episode 3: Preparing our Communities for Conversations on Race

    In our third episode of Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations, we speak with Rabbi Joshua Lesser of Congregation Bet Haverim in Atlanta. A noted civil rights activist and leader, Lesser shares the evolution of his thinking on race and how fighting injustice has always been a core component of his rabbinate. He breaks down the Jewish conversation on race into an internal and external conversation. The internal focuses on efforts to fully embrace and celebrate Jews of color as a central part of North American Jewry. The external focuses on how Jewish communities interact with communities of color and confront structural racism. Lesser discusses steps his congregation has taken.

    Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

    Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org

    Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss

    Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/3

    This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

    Special Guest: Rabbi Joshua Lesser.

    Support Evolve

    Links:

    • Rabbi Joshua Lesser on Authentic Community - YouTube
    — Rabbi Joshua Lesser introduces his article about welcoming Jews of color into Jewish community and creating inclusive, thriving Jewish spaces.
  • Preparing Our Communities for Conversations on Race - Rabbi Joshua Lesser (Evolve article)
    • — Rabbi Joshua Lesser writes frankly about leadership, representation and making assumptions about Jews of color in spaces dominated by white Jews.
  • Racism in the Jewish Community - Rabbi Sandra Lawson and Donna Cephas (Evolve article)
    • — This essay examines the assumption that all Jews are white, while touching on a myriad of interrelated issues: conversion, interracial families, adoption, Ashkenazi privilege and political correctness.
  • Radical Inclusion - Aurora Levins Morales (Evolve article)
    • — Declarations that everyone is welcome in a community are insufficient for Jews who do not identify as white. Jewishness is not the sole or primary identity for those who are oppressed and endangered because of the color of their skin.
  • Evolve Topic Section: Judaism and Race
    • — How do we expand our image of Jews to include people of color, and how should Jews deal with systemic racism in America?
    49 min

About Evolve

From the publisher's feed

Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations features interviews with thought-provoking rabbis, leaders and creators about the urgent issues faced by Jewish people today. As a part of Reconstructing…