Good Faith Effort

On today’s episode, Ari spoke with the greatest character actor in the history of Hollywood, the legendary Stephen Tobolowsky, about his lifelong journey to understand the Hebrew Bible.

Along the way they talked about growing up around members of the Nazi Party; Stephen’s love of Shakespeare; being comfortable with weirdness; Stephen getting held at gunpoint during a hostage situation; Deuteronomy and the Shema prayer; thinking about death; why Ned Ryerson is the most Jewish character in the history of American film; and much more!

Good Faith Effort is a production of Bnai Zion and SoulShop

Guest Quote
"There is such a positiveness in Judaism, that when you become a part of it, you realize how absolutely life-affirming it is. Even in death, it gets you through all the terrible transitions: from Genesis to Exodus, Leviticus to Numbers to Deuteronomy. It can get you through every one of those walls, every one of those challenges.“ - Stephen Tobolowsky

Time Stamps

* (5:06) Jordan Calhoun’s “Piccolo is Black”, and growing up without a Jewish Community

* (11:23) Stephen opens the Pandora’s Box of rediscovering Judaism

* (22:45) The 5 Books of Moses, as a story of life 

* (24:28) Californication, and Stephen’s decision to write a spiritual memoir

* (30:57) Magic exists, and Stephen’s tale of finding God while being held hostage at the grocery store

* (40:33) Visiting the Bible throughout your life

* (44:44) Importance of saying the Shema

* (54:55) Is Ned Ryerson the most Jewish movie character?

Good Faith Effort is a production of SoulShop, Bnai Zion, and Caspian Studios

Links

Follow Ari on Twitter - https://twitter.com/AriLamm

Find out more about Stephen: https://stephentobolowsky.com/

My Adventures With God, on Amazon Books: https://www.amazon.com/My-Adventures-God-Stephen-Tobolowsky/dp/1476766460

Watch on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@GoodFaithEffort

On today’s episode, Ari spoke with Joshua Berman, Professor of Bible at Bar Ilan University and author of “Created Equal: How the Bible Broke With Ancient Political Thought”, about the revolution that the Bible introduced into human affairs. In a world dominated by some of the most renowned civilizations in history — from Mesopotamia to Egypt — how did the Bible re-envision the idea of the good society?

Along the way they talked about the idea of “covenant” — both inside and outside the Bible; Plato vs. the Bible on universalism; monarchy in Biblical thought; why the Bible conceives of a particular land as holy; how the American Founders wrestled with Biblical political theory; the Biblical concept of atonement; and much more

Good Faith Effort is a production of Bnai Zion and SoulShop

Links

Follow Ari on Twitter

Check out Good Faith Effort on Youtube!

On today’s episode, Ari spoke with the extraordinary classical educator and University of Virginia professor Angel Adams Parham about the Black intellectual tradition and how it has been shaped by—and in turn can shape our contemporary understanding of—the classics.

Along the way they talked about why Phillis Wheatley was fascinated by death; the importance of poetry in classical education; Frederick Douglass’s oratory; classical education for all; faith and providence in Martin Luther King Jr.’s thought; Biblical literacy in America; the Greek tradition vs. the Biblical tradition; the Book of Lamentations; and much more!

Guest Quote

“In so much of Western culture, we have focused on “truth”. Truth and goodness, but especially truth. We've taken these truth-first approaches to understanding what it means to be a good society. What about beauty? What if we were to flip that and take beauty at the beginning? Beauty as our root to truth and goodness, and not always have beauty last. There's something about the tradition of philosophical critique that's led us to where we are today, that seems to strip things down to their most kind of mechanically rational in a way that can become anti-human.” - Angel Adams Parham

Time Stamps

* (:01) Intro

* (5:42) How Angel fell in love with the Classics

* (14:09) Phyllis Wheatley, and the start of the African-American religious tradition

* (21:33) Elegies and everyday poetry

* (31:58) What’s a Classic anyways?

* (37:55) Faith within the Black intellectual tradition

* (45:24) The Bible as the basis for Western Literature

Good Faith Effort is a production of SoulShop, Bnai Zion, and Caspian Studios

Links

Follow Ari on Twitter

Find out more about Angel

The Black Intellectual Tradition: Reading Freedom in Classical Literature on Amazon Books

On today’s episode, Ari sits down with Seth Rogovoy, writer, producer, cultural journalist, and author of Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet.

On this episode, Ari and Seth dive into the life and history of Bob Dylan through the lens of Jewish spirituality. What are his songs really about? How does the Bible show up in the different eras of his song writing? How do protest and folk songs relate to the Jewish tradition? Dubbed as the number one Jewish Bob Dylan scholar, Seth carefully pulls apart the Biblical references through Dylan’s discography, and sheds light on how he’s artfully woven the Jewish tradition into his entire persona as an artist, and much more! 

Good Faith Effort is a production of Bnai Zion and SoulShop

On today’s episode, Ari spoke with Rainn Wilson, who’s not only the actor behind Dwight Schrute, one of the most iconic characters in TV history, but also the author of the magnificent new book on faith and culture, “SoulBoom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution” (Hachette Books).

On today’s episode Ari and Rainn talked about some of life’s biggest questions. Why believe in a religion you got from your parents? How should you go about seeking truth? Why does willingness to travel have to do with faith? Is Dwight Schrute “millennial Fonzie”? What does The Office have to teach a spiritual seeker? What’s the most important verse in the Bible? What is sacredness? Why is religious ritual important? What did Rainn, a devout member of the Baháʼí Faith, learn from visiting a Baháʼí sacred site in Israel? What does religion have to say about technological advancement? Should religions have heroes? And much more!

Good Faith Effort is a production of Bnai Zion and SoulShop

Attention, Good Faith Fam! We've been on a brief hiatus, but the podcast is making a triumphant return!

We’ll resume our deep dives into the amazing world of the Bible, from the profound to the perplexing. We're talking politics, pop culture, and everything in between. 

And... because you’ve all been so patient… just a cool little spoiler for you: our triumphant comeback will be with none other than Rainn Wilson - a.k.a. Dwight from The Office!

Good Faith Effort is coming back soon, and it's ready to take your eardrums on a biblical rollercoaster ride.

Don't miss it!

Good Faith Effort is a production of Bnai Zion and SoulShop

Attention, Good Faith Fam! We've been on a brief hiatus, but the podcast is making a triumphant return!

We’ll resume our deep dives into the amazing world of the Bible, from the profound to the perplexing. We're talking politics, pop culture, and everything in between. 

And... because you’ve all been so patient… just a cool little spoiler for you: our triumphant comeback will be with none other than Rainn Wilson - a.k.a. Dwight from The Office!

Good Faith Effort is coming back soon, and it's ready to take your eardrums on a biblical rollercoaster ride.

Don't miss it!

Good Faith Effort is a production of Bnai Zion and SoulShop

On today’s episode, Ari spoke with renowned Bible teacher and scholar Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom about one of the most common question asked by Good Faith Effort listeners (or Why Read The Bible In Hebrew readers on Twitter!): what is the “Jewish” way of reading Scripture?

Along the way they talked about developing a methodology for Scripture study; the difference between reading a text critically and “text criticism”; why it matters that the Biblical Hebrew vocabulary is relatively small; why the Bible cares about political history; the geography of the Joseph narrative; why you can’t read the later books of the Bible until you’ve read the earlier ones; how to find other excellent Bible teachers; and much more!

Good Faith Effort is a production of Bnai Zion and SoulShop

On today’s episode, Ari spoke with the University of Utah’s Dean of Humanities, and renowned historian of 19th century literature and society, Hollis Robbins to talk about the state of the humanities in American education. As Hollis explains, reports of the humanities demise are greatly exaggerated. But just as important as understanding why the humanities are, in fact, flourishing, is understanding where and under what conditions they are flourishing. What lessons can we learn from answering these questions?

In a wide ranging discussion, Ari and Hollis spoke about the religious culture of Utah; secularism’s effect on the humanities; Orthodox Jewish pedagogy; Brandon Sanderson’s novels and AI; Effective Altruism and the collapse of FTX; the Tower of Babel; Borges; Dracula; whether Descartes really understood clocks; TV and book recommendations; and much more!

Good Faith Effort is a production of Bnai Zion and SoulShop

On today’s episode, Ari spoke with American Jewish University resident scholar Rick Richman about the land, people and polity of Israel in Hollywood’s imagination. What does Hollywood storytelling about Israel—from Exodus in 1960, to Top Gun: Maverick in 2022—tell us about America’s perspective on the Holy Land, and perhaps more strikingly, America’s perspective on itself. In a wide-ranging discussion, Ari and Rick talked about Exodus (1960); Munich (2005); Top Gun: Maverick (2022); Dara Horn’s “People Love Dead Jews”; Brooklyn-based Judaism in American cinema; the effect of American racial discourse on its view of the Near East; Montesquieu’s “Persian Letters”; the spouses of great political leaders; and much more!

Good Faith Effort is a production of Bnai Zion and SoulShop