Holy Madness Pod: Religion, Culture, Love, Israel

In honor of the upcoming holiday of Purim...here is Episode 12a of the Holy Madness!

Join us as we explore a little bit about the holiday, and do a quick overview of the central book about it - the Book of Esther. We tease out the farcical tone it is written in, identify many of its comedic elements, and identify some of its main themes. (Those themes will be more fully explored in episode 12b.)

We humbly suggest you read the book along with us!

Follow us on Facebook - search "holy madness the show" (follow the group, and then join "Holy Madness - The Discussion Group" for thought provoking topics and educational and entertaining talk), or email us at [email protected]. Spread the good word, y'all. Add us to your RSS feed, to your iTunes, or follow us here on soundcloud. We also now have a Patreon - www.patreon.com/holymadness - so if youd like to help keep this going, head on down there.

Join us as we explore the odd parallels between the postmodern "social justice" beliefs system and religion. We visit economics and financial markets, black swans, epistemology, facts and "alternative facts", how people form their beliefs, and sink our teeth into the difference between faith and love. We discuss Popper, Taleb, Wittgenstein, Tertullian, and Sartre, plus detour into language, antisemitism, and the difference between staying true to your beliefs and wanting to be proven wrong.

Follow us on Facebook - search "holy madness the show" (follow the group, and then join "Holy Madness - The Discussion Group" for thought provoking topics and educational and entertaining talk), or email us at [email protected]. Spread the good word, y'all. Add us to your RSS feed, to your iTunes, or follow us here on soundcloud. We also now have a Patreon - www.patreon.com/holymadness - so if youd like to help keep this going, head on down there.

Happy Tu B'Shvat to those celebrating or not!

This epsiode takes a good look at Tu B'Shvat the holiday, tracing it from the Mishna to modern day. Along the way we discuss the halachot (Jewish Law) of produce, why Man likes tree metaphors so much, what the Tree of Knowledge actually was, means and ends (which justifies which?), Spinoza and Plato, and end off with a nice insight into the deeper meaning of the holiday.

Tzvi's daughters make a guest appearance in the introduction.

Follow us on Facebook - search "holy madness the show" (follow the group, and then join "Holy Madness - The Discussion Group" for thought provoking topics and educational and entertaining talk), or email us at [email protected]. Spread the good word, y'all. Add us to your RSS feed, to your iTunes, or follow us here on soundcloud. We also now have a Patreon - www.patreon.com/holymadness - so if youd like to help keep this going, head on down there.

We've done it again! The Episode 9 has landed! This is one small step for Holy Madness, but one great leap for all mankind.

We explore why Tzvi won't convert to Christianity. (Yes, he is just as surprised as you are.) Along the way, we get into Pascal's Wager, sin, salvation, the afterlife and the world to come, Christian music (again), community, prayers, and more.

Where else can you get a detailed discussion on salvation and the afterlife together with sampling Christian music? Okay, quite a few places as it turns out. But we can guarantee none of those will get you to think into your cherished beliefs or question things the way we do. Okay, we can't guarantee it, but at least we'd wager on it. Unlike wagering on Pascal.

Follow us on Facebook - search "holy madness the show" (follow the group, and then join "Holy Madness - The Discussion Group" for thought provoking topics and educational and entertaining talk), or email us at [email protected]. Spread the good word, y'all. Add us to your RSS feed, to your iTunes, or follow us here on soundcloud. We also now have a Patreon - www.patreon.com/holymadness - so if youd like to help keep this going, head on down there.

It's Episode 8 as the Holy Madness continues, this time welcoming special guest Adam K into the studio to discuss happiness!

Listen in as we question, what is happiness? How do people find it? Is it worth looking for? Where would be a good place to start finding it? Why care about happiness at all? Can you be happy without G-d? Can you be happy with G-d? Is happiness an emotion, a choice, something else?

As always with a special guest, we adopt a conversational style. Come for the rambling, stay for the ambling, and walk away with some thought provoking points to consider.

Follow us on Facebook - search "holy madness the show" (follow the group, and then join "Holy Madness - The Discussion Group" for thought provoking topics and educational and entertaining talk), or email us at [email protected]. Spread the good word, y'all. Add us to your RSS feed, to your iTunes, or follow us here on soundcloud. We also now have a Patreon - www.patreon.com/holymadness - so if youd like to help keep this going, head on down there.

Oh my, we've done it again! Another fantastic episode, this time about Iran/Persia, exile, redemption, identity, and way, way more.

(This episode was recorded during the protests taking place in Iran in 2018.)

We discuss Iran as a country (taking care to avoid politics as always), its history, and the Jewish People's history with Persia - and that takes us to Exile and Redemption, the World to Come, identity, peoplehood, and the unique conception of exile/redemption that the Jewish people has forged and crafted in its development. Come for the banter, stay for the knockout insights, and enjoy the show! :)

Follow us on Facebook - search "holy madness the show" (follow the group, and then join "Holy Madness - The Discussion Group" for thought provoking topics and educational and entertaining talk), or email us at [email protected]. Spread the good word, y'all. Add us to your RSS feed, to your iTunes, or follow us here on soundcloud. We also now have a Patreon - www.patreon.com/holymadness - so if youd like to help keep this going, head on down there.

Episode 6 is finally here, and with a special guest in the studio! Sarah joins us in our meandering exploration of prayer. We go through some Facebook comments on Meir Simcha's post on prayer, discuss different conceptions of prayer, introduce theme music for one avid listener (and commenter), and suggest a paradigm shift on what prayer really might be. There is even a suggestion for a great Christian prayer song, too, from your favorite Jewish podcasters, along with quite a few callbacks to concepts introduced in previous episodes as well.

The format is a little different than shows of late, with a more natural conversational presentation than a "tight" sound. We felt that this would be the best way to present the ideas we had, and if you have as much fun listening to it as we did creating it, you'll be in for a treat!

Follow us on Facebook - search "holy madness the show" (follow the group, and then join "Holy Madness - The Discussion Group" for thought provoking topics and educational and entertaining talk), or email us at [email protected]. Spread the good word, y'all. Add us to your RSS feed, to your iTunes, or follow us here on soundcloud. We also now have a Patreon - www.patreon.com/holymadness - so if youd like to help keep this going, head on down there.

Join us as we take a look at Jerusalem, moving from sacred cities and divided cities in general to Jerusalem in particular, and ending up with a deep look at what makes Jerusalem so special in the first place.

(This episode comes at the point where the United States announced its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and faced a UNGA resolution objecting to their accepting a fact...)

We also discuss city-specific mental illnesses, welcome our first special guest into the studio, make some oddly rap-fueled sound gags in opportune places, and feature topical musical breaks throughout.

Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating!

Follow us on Facebook - search "holy madness the show" (follow the group, and then join "Holy Madness - The Discussion Group" for thought provoking topics and educational and entertaining talk), or email us at [email protected]. Spread the good word, y'all. Add us to your RSS feed, to your iTunes, or follow us here on soundcloud. We also now have a Patreon - www.patreon.com/holymadness - so if youd like to help keep this going, head on down there.

Grab some latkes and/or eggnog and join us for our fourth episode, where we discuss winter light festivals, light and darkness, metaphors, get into some of the differences between Christmas and Hannukah, reminisce on holiday season growing up, and make a key point about Light in our lives.

We also celebrate our one hundredth download, give some shout outs to our listeners, and throw in some holiday gags too!

Follow us on Facebook - search "holy madness the show" (follow the group, and then join "Holy Madness - The Discussion Group" for thought provoking topics and educational and entertaining talk), or email us at [email protected]. Spread the good word, y'all. Add us to your RSS feed, to your iTunes, or follow us here on soundcloud. We also now have a Patreon - www.patreon.com/holymadness - so if youd like to help keep this going, head on down there.

Join us as we talk about the German migrant issue, teasing apart the political talking points to get into the heart of the matter - identity.

We clocked in at just about an hour here, and hopefully addressed some of the sound issues.

As always, here are links to the articles discussed in the chat:

Economist, Germany article - https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21720578-rest-country-and-large-swathes-europe-will-face-similar-problems

Spectator, Norway article - https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/11/norway-is-hard-on-migrants-but-tough-love-works/

Standpoint, David Goldman article - http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/7031/full

Follow us on Facebook - search "holy madness the show" (follow the group, and then join "Holy Madness - The Discussion Group" for thought provoking topics and educational and entertaining talk), or email us at [email protected]. Spread the good word, y'all. Add us to your RSS feed, to your iTunes, or follow us here on soundcloud. We also now have a Patreon - www.patreon.com/holymadness - so if youd like to help keep this going, head on down there.