Keep the Faith with Shammai Engelmayer

It's time to put worrying about nuclear proliferation back on the front burner. A nuclear expert, Eric Weis, explains why in this interview.

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Jewish texts, Christian texts, neither of them matter to the man who claims he wants to make America a Christian nation espousing Christian values. Immigration is the perfect example. On a scale of 1 to 10, when it comes to honoring biblical law regarding "the stranger," Trump rates a ZERO!

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There's no disconnect here. The laws of permitted and forbidden creatures have much to say about the rule of law and what it means to act as if one is above the law. The audio quality may not be great this week, but the message is an important one.

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All things Passover, all things Pesach, are high up on the contemporary issues list, starting with the budge-busting shopping needed to buy the foods we're allowed to have in our homes on Pesach. And what about some of the foods we’re not allowed to have, like corn flakes for breakfast or maybe a hot bowl of oatmeal? Corn and oats are considered no-nos on Pesach—but are they really? Before this podcast ends, you'll discover that you don't need to take out a second mortgage on your house or forego some of your favorite foods just because it is Passover.  And that's the topic for this week, the Carefree Guide to Everything, Passover or Pesach Made easy.

I'm privileged to be joined in this episode by Rabbi Aaron Abadi, the man behind the website, kashrut.org. It’s a website you really should get to know throughout the year, not just when Purim ends and the march to Passover begins. Rabbi Abad and I engaged in a rather free-flowing discussion at times, and I hope you find it as interesting and as much fun as I did. 

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On Sunday morning, February 9th, I couldn’t help but do exactly the opposite after I ran through my morning news feed. That’s because one item in the news that morning made my heart rejoice and my mind to conjure up the image of Elon Musk running through the White House West Wing muttering the name “Engelmayer” in disgust. You probably know why, and there is danger for our democracy built into that.

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Planning on celebrating New Year's tonight and tomorrow? If yes, listen at your own risk! The kvetch who ruined Chrismukkah is at it again. If you do listen, it runs under 20 minutes and there's a lot of study material packed into it, so you might want to take notes.

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Don't be fooled by what the pundits tell us about why Donald Trump won and Kamala Harris lost. While their analyses have some merit, they skirt the two issues that the results themselves prove were the real reasons Harris lost: she was a she, not a he, and she didn't have the "right" color skin. Judaism rejects both factors--and it does so starting "in the beginning," Chapters 1 and 2 of the Book of Genesis, Sefer B'reishit, where woman, NOT man, is the first human created as we understand what humans look like.

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Given the devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton and other horrific storms around the world, all blamed on global warming, Sukkot, which arrives Wednesday night, offers us an opportunity to discuss this question: What does “green,” which symbolizes things environmental and ecological, have to do with Jewish festivals? The answer is “everything,” and so, that’s the topic for this week. 

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We’re podcasting a few days early this week because the High Holy Days begin tomorrow evening, which is when Rosh Hashanah 5785 begins. Very few people really understand what the purpose of this 10-day period that ends on Yom Kippur is—but we need to understand it because the very future of the world is at stake. And that’s not an exaggeration.

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