Madlik Podcast – Disruptive Torah Thoughts on Judaism

Hidden inside the bricks of the Tower of Babel is a terrifying warning about what happens when a society forces everyone to think exactly the same.

What if the sin of the Tower of Babel was not division—but enforced conformity?

In this episode of Madlik Disruptive Torah, Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz explore the radical interpretation of Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin—the Netziv. As head of the legendary Volozhin Yeshiva, the premier institution of nineteenth-century Lithuanian Torah scholarship, the Netziv was a formidable defender of traditional Judaism but a passionate proponent of individualism. He was an early supporter of Ḥovevei Zion who believed that ideological and religious diversity was essential to Jewish life and the founding of the State of Israel.

In his commentary on Parshat Noach, the Netziv reads Babel as the first totalitarian society: a centralized regime that watches its citizens, prevents them from leaving and punishes anyone who thinks differently. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks later observed, Babel's "one language" represents not harmony, but imposed uniformity.

1. Sameness is not unity. The Netziv reads Babel's "one language" as enforced conformity—a society that monitors, confines and ultimately punishes dissent.
2. The alternative to Babel is Jerusalem. The Netziv and Pope Leo envision people with different beliefs and roles united by a common purpose, without surrendering their individuality.
3. Groupthink often begins with idealism. Even movements acting l'shem shamayim can become destructive when solidarity hardens into suspicion—so the first place to examine is our own ideological neighborhood.

[00:00] Babel as Warning

[01:20] Parshat Noach Setup

[02:32] Reading the Verses

[04:52] Meet the Netziv

[08:45] One Place One Mind

[11:32] Bricks and Abraham

[14:08] Tower as Surveillance

[16:52] Sponsor Break

[17:50] Uniformity and Violence

[21:06] Sefer HaYashar Ethics

[24:43] Rabbi Sacks Bridge

[25:55] Pope on AI and Babel

[29:53] Rebuilding Jerusalem

[31:22] Netziv Zionist Letters

[33:35] Closing Reflections

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The Torah says God created the world. It never says God created it from nothing.

For centuries, Jewish thinkers have argued over something hiding in the very first sentence of the Torah.

The Torah begins with perhaps its most famous words: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים — "In the beginning, God created." But does bara mean creating something from nothing—yesh me'ayin? Forming something from pre-existing matter? Bringing order out of chaos? Or separating and setting boundaries?

In this episode of Madlik Disruptive Torah, Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz use Parshat Bereshit to follow one of the great conversations in the history of ideas.

1. The Torah says God created. It doesn't necessarily say God created something from nothing.

Ramban makes yesh me'ayin a fundamental principle of Judaism, but Ibn Ezra challenges the assumption that bara means creation ex nihilo at all. It can mean forming, cutting, or setting boundaries. The philosophical problem may be bigger than the biblical one.

1. Great ideas are created when traditions collide.

The encounter between Torah and Greek philosophy forced Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers to rethink what creation means. From Philo and Maimonides through Plotinus, al-Fārābī and Crescas, creation evolves from a single event into ideas of emanation, dependence and ultimately continuous creation.

1. Maybe creation is not something God did. Maybe creation is something God does—and something we participate in.

Kabbalah imagines creation through tzimtzum, making room for something else. Hasidism imagines the world being renewed continually. And Spinoza takes the argument to its radical conclusion: "Whatever is, is in God"; the human mind is part of God's infinite intellect. Creation becomes not simply a theory about how the universe began, but a way of thinking about God, ourselves, and what it means for us to create.

00:00 What Does "Bara" Really Mean?

02:00 Ramban on Creation Ex Nihilo

05:00 Ibn Ezra: Setting Boundaries

09:00 The Mediaeval Debates

11:00 Hellenism and the Book of Maccabees

12:00 Philo of Alexandria

15:00 Maimonides' Three Theories of Creation

22:00 Harry Wolfson on Divine Emanation

29:00 Luria's Kabbalah and Spinoza's God

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What if the way you learned to think about the God of Genesis is exactly what Genesis was trying to change?

What if the most radical thing about the opening of Genesis is not what it says—but what it leaves out?

There is no birth of God. No genealogy of God. No divine family tree and no story of how one god defeated the others and became supreme. Genesis simply begins with God already acting: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים.

In this episode of Madlik Disruptive Torah, Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz explore what Nahum Sarna, Yehezkel Kaufmann and Umberto Cassuto saw as the revolutionary worldview hidden in the opening of Genesis. We ask what the original audience would have heard—and, just as importantly, what they would have noticed was missing.

1. The most radical idea in Genesis may be what it leaves out. No birth of God, no divine genealogy, no battle among competing gods. Genesis doesn't argue for a new conception of God—it simply assumes it.
2. A new idea requires new eyes. Read the Torah's ending directly into its beginning: אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה מֹשֶׁה לְעֵינֵי כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵל | בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים. Maybe what Moses did "to the eyes of Israel" was to change the conceptual lens through which Israel could see God and the world.
3. Creation is less about where things came from than what we do with what we are given. Look at God's verbs: God speaks, distinguishes, names, orders, evaluates and blesses. Then וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ—God creates humanity in God's image. We too are called upon to create by distinguishing, naming, choosing, valuing and making meaning from the world we inherit.

• [00:00:00] What Genesis leaves out about God
• [00:01:00] Connecting the end of the Torah to its beginning
• [00:03:00] Why Genesis may begin "mid-sentence"
• [00:05:00] Creation from nothing vs pre-existing matter
• [00:07:00] How Genesis broke with the ancient Near Eastern worldview
• [00:09:00] The Bible's striking absence of a biography of God
• [00:13:00] One God, no divine genealogy, no cosmic battles
• [00:17:00] Understanding Genesis through the eyes of its original listeners
• [00:22:00] Did Moses change the way Israel saw the world?
• [00:27:00] What Genesis is really about if it isn't cosmology

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What if we have the story of creation exactly backwards, and the world wasn't made for humans at all?

We usually assume that God created the world for humanity and gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish people. But what if we have it exactly backwards? What if humanity was created to serve and protect the earth—and Israel was chosen to serve and protect the Promised Land?

1. Israel Recapitulates Adam

Ha'Azinu describes Israel's creation in language borrowed from the creation of the world. Adam was placed in Eden; Israel was placed in the Promised Land. Israel's national story reenacts humanity's primordial story.

1. We Are Stewards, Not Owners

Humanity was created to serve and protect the earth, just as Israel was chosen to serve and protect the Land. Neither possesses its home unconditionally: both are subject to eviction when they betray what was entrusted to them.

1. Kapparah May Not Mean Cleansing Us

Ha'Azinu ends with the possibility that God will cleanse the Land of its people. As Yom Kippur approaches, the disquieting question is not so much whether we will be cleansed—but whether the earth will need to be cleansed from us.

[00:00] Big Idea Reversal

[02:12] Haazinu Setup

[02:35] Song as Torah Poetry

[05:00] Creation Echoes

[08:31] Ancient Independent Poem

[12:40] Ha'azinu in Liturgy

[14:06] Sponsor Break

[15:12] Warning and Wrath

[18:31] Enigmatic Final Words

[21:45] Stewards Not Owners

[26:42] Land Spews Out

[30:52] Midrash and Point of No Return

[33:06] Closing and Call to Comment

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On Yom Kippur, we lovingly honor our parents' memories during Yizkor—so why does the climax of the confession force us to stand up and blame them for our sins?

On Yom Kippur, we strike our own chests—but confess the sins of people who are no longer alive.

אֲבָל אֲנַחְנוּ וַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ חָטָאנוּ

"But we and our parents have sinned."

Why bring our mothers and fathers into our confession? Are we blaming them, asking forgiveness on their behalf—or admitting that their unfinished business lives on in us?

In this episode of Madlik Disruptive Torah, Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz explore one of the most provocative lines in the Selichot and Yom Kippur liturgy. Far from being a passing phrase, it is a climax of the confession: when the prayer leader reaches "But we have sinned," everyone must stand—bowed and without leaning for support.

The wording itself is disputed. Some traditions say simply, "But we have sinned." Others insist upon, "But we and our fathers have sinned." The Sephardic liturgy widens the circle further: "We, our fathers, and the members of our household."

And the question becomes even sharper when we compare confession with Yizkor. On Yom Kippur, we lovingly recall the virtues of our parents during Yizkor—but repeatedly include their sins in our confession. Is that a violation of honoring our parents, or a more profound form of connection—one that embraces their humanity as well as their virtues?

This week's Parsha, Nitzavim-Vayeilech, provides the grammar for this intergenerational "we." Moses gathers the entire people into the covenant: leaders and laborers, parents and children, "those who are standing here with us today and those who are not here with us today." The covenant reaches forward to unborn generations; confession reaches backward to those who came before us. Past, present, and future stand together in one moment.

The idea is deeply biblical:

• "We have sinned with our ancestors" — Psalms
• "Our sins and the iniquities of our fathers" — Daniel
• "We and our ancestors have sinned" — Jeremiah
• "Our ancestors sinned and are no more, and we bear their iniquities" — Lamentations
• "They shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors" — Leviticus

Judaism rejects original sin, so what exactly do we inherit?

The Or HaChaim suggests that we inherit not only behavior but its rationalizations. When earlier generations appeared to prosper despite their choices, their success became evidence that those choices were acceptable. True repentance therefore requires reassessing an entire historical trajectory—not simply regretting an isolated personal act.

The Chatam Sofer turns inherited memory into heightened responsibility. Our ancestors experienced history without knowing its outcome; we stand on their shoulders and can see the pattern. If we fail to learn from their experience, perhaps we should know better.

Rav Shagar focuses on the word "we." What allows one person to confess with others? His answer is trust: the recognition that another person, in freedom and sincerity, shares my faith, my searching, and my struggle. He compares collective prayer to communal singing. The result is not merely many voices sounding simultaneously, but distinct voices merging into something no individual can create alone.

Finally, the Bat Ayin reads avoteinu—"our fathers"—as an allusion to the alef-bet, the building blocks of language. The alphabetic confession repairs our damaged letters; and because language shapes thought, it may also repair the way we think.

Perhaps saying "we and our parents have sinned" is not about condemning the past. It is about recognizing the inherited patterns, assumptions, wounds, and possibilities that continue to live within us—and finding the solidarity to repair them together.

So here's our question: When you say, "But we—all of us, including our mothers and fathers—have sinned," do you think about your parents differently than you do during Yizkor? How does acknowledging their imperfections change the way you feel about them—and about yourself as their child?

Join us for Forgive Me, for We Have Sinned.

1. The Past Lives Within Us - We do not inherit our ancestors' guilt simply because we are their descendants. But we do inherit their patterns, assumptions, wounds, and unfinished business. Confessing that "we and our parents have sinned" asks us to recognize where their choices continue to shape our own."
2. Inherited Memory Creates Responsibility - Knowing our ancestors' story should help us see what they could not. We stand on their shoulders, with the benefit of their experience and its consequences. The past therefore offers more than an excuse for our failures; it imposes a responsibility to learn, interrupt destructive patterns, and choose differently."
3. No One Repents Alone - The word "we" transforms confession from a private admission into an act of trust and solidarity. Like voices merging in communal song, individuals remain distinct while creating something larger together. By confessing collectively, we find the language—and the strength—to confront ourselves personally."

[00:00] Why Confess Ancestors

[02:19] Selichot Climax Explained

[03:53] Honouring Parents Questioned

[06:57] Standing for Viddui

[08:47] Different Nusach Traditions

[13:16] Nitzavim Covenant Across Time

[16:07] Sponsor Break

[17:13] Biblical Roots of "We Sinned"

[19:56] Do We Inherit Guilt?

[21:53] Ohr HaChaim on Patterns

[24:30] Nehemiah Public Confession

[26:12] Rav Shagar on Saying "We"

[30:04] Hasidic Aleph Bet Reading

[31:35] Takeaways and New Year

[33:02] Closing Question to Viewers

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Why did the Rabbis tell the Exodus through the words of a farmer—and leave Mount Sinai out of the story?

What if the Torah's shortest version of the Exodus leaves out the most important moment?

The story of the Exodus without using the Book of Exodus?

In Parshat Ki Tavo, an Israelite farmer enters the Temple carrying a basket of first fruits and recites a compact history of his people: "My father was a wandering Aramean. The Egyptians oppressed us. We cried out. God brought us forth and gave us this land." Those words would eventually leave the Temple, enter the Jewish home and become the centerpiece of the Passover Haggadah.

Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz explore why Mikra Bikkurim fascinated both the Rabbis and modern critical scholars. Gerhard von Rad called it Israel's "little historical creed," while Jeffrey Tigay noted its memorable alliteration and preservation of Israel's landless beginnings. Ibn Ezra, Rashbam and Shadal debate whether its wandering ancestor was Jacob, Abraham—or all the patriarchs combined.

Unlike the narrative in Exodus, this declaration is spoken in the first person: "They oppressed us. We cried out. God brought us forth." It allows every later Israelite to enter the ancestors' history and claim it as personal memory.

But the declaration also begins the Exodus before Pharaoh. By reaching back to the wandering and vulnerability of Abraham and Jacob, it transforms the Exodus from a single historical event into a recurring pattern of exile and return, danger and deliverance. Like Isaiah in the Haftarot of Consolation, the Rabbis reopened Genesis and repurposed its ancestral voices to give hope to later generations.

They moved this declaration:

• From the Temple to the home
• From the pilgrim's basket to the Seder table
• From possession of the land to life in exile
• From bringing first fruits to telling the story

Finally, we confront the great omission: Why does Mikra Bikkurim move from Egypt directly to the Promised Land without mentioning Moses or the revelation at Mount Sinai?

Perhaps the Exodus repeats itself, while Sinai does not. Exile and redemption can recur nationally and personally, but the Torah came down from heaven only once. From then on, lo bashamayim hi—"It is not in heaven." The Torah was given to human beings to interpret and make their own.

And as Rosh Hashanah approaches, the same first-person grammar returns in the Selichot confession: Aval anachnu va'avoteinu chatanu—"But we and our ancestors have sinned." We inherit not only our ancestors' redemption, but also their failures, their repentance and their hope.

Join us for Liberation: Personal and Recurring.

1. When History Becomes Identity - Sacred memory is not simply the recollection of what happened to our ancestors. By speaking their story in the first person, we enter it ourselves: their vulnerability becomes our vulnerability, their liberation becomes our liberation, and their history becomes our identity.
2. A Timeless Grammar of Liberation - The most enduring stories are not confined to the events that first produced them. By beginning before Pharaoh and extending the pattern into every generation, Mikra Bikkurim transforms the Exodus from a single historical event into a timeless grammar of exile, survival and return.
3. The Exodus Repeats; Sinai Does Not - Liberation and revelation move through history differently. The Exodus can recur whenever human beings move from oppression to freedom, but Sinai was a singular moment. Once the Torah came down from heaven, its interpretation—and the responsibility to live by it—passed into human hands.

00:00 Temple Script Origins 01:29 Ki Tavo Setup 02:06 Mikra Bikkurim Reading 03:54 Von Rad Historical Creed 08:23 Missing Sinai Question 12:09 Who Is the Aramean 15:36 Sponsor Break 16:42 Why Haggadah Uses It 20:53 Personal Exodus Every Year 24:50 Exile Proof Text Power 28:34 Sinai Once vs Exodus Repeat 30:43 Rosh Hashanah Tie In 32:07 Wrap Up and Viewer Question

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Isaiah didn't just offer passive comfort to a broken nation—he hijacked the oldest stories in the Book of Genesis to force them to survive.

What do you do when there is no reason to sing?

Isaiah answers with a startling command:

Rani akarah lo yaladah—"Sing, O barren woman who has not given birth."

Sing before the child is born. Sing before the promise is fulfilled. Sing while the future still appears impossible.

1. Isaiah reads—and rewrites—Genesis. He brings Abraham and Sarah, Eden and Noah into his own moment, transforming Israel's foundational stories into a language of renewal for a people recovering from catastrophe.
2. Rosh Hashanah begins with creation, not the Exodus. Noah's covenant embraces every living creature, helping prepare us for a universal holiday on which all humanity and creation stand before God.
3. Sometimes we sing before redemption arrives. Isaiah commands the barren woman to sing while she is still barren. Hope is not merely a response to change; sometimes it is the first act that makes change imaginable.

[00:00] Sing Before Redemption [00:48] Genesis Echoes in Isaiah [01:38] Rosh Hashanah Universal Lens [02:11] Show Intro and Roadmap [03:09] Reading Rani Akarah [06:03] Mei Noach Covenant Promise [08:28] Isaiah as Scriptural Reader [10:49] Sponsor Break [11:47] Scholarship on Isaiah and Genesis [15:11] Perspective and Repurposing [17:14] Seven Haftarot Rising Joy [22:46] Pesikta Seven Barren Women [24:23] Wordplay Peace Uprooted Ikar [27:01] Wrapping Up Toward Rosh Hashanah

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We usually associate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with judgment and fear, but a closer look at the texts reveals a completely different, shocking command: rejoice.

Wake up. Shake off the dust. Put on your finest clothes—and rejoice!

The haftarah for Parshat Shoftim delivers an urgent wake-up call to a defeated and demoralized people: Hit'oreri, hit'oreri—Awaken, awaken! Uri, uri—Wake up, wake up! Isaiah calls upon Zion to rise from the dust, cast off the identity of a captive, dress herself in garments of splendor, and reclaim her place as God's beloved.

1. Consolation demands action - Isaiah does not tell Zion simply to feel better. He commands her to awaken, shake off the dust, change her clothes, and reclaim her identity.
2. Lecha Dodi turns prophecy into practice - Every Friday night, Isaiah's distant promise of redemption becomes a present experience: we welcome the Sabbath bride with "exceedingly great joy" and rehearse the possibility of beginning again.
3. The High Holidays are not only about fear - Nehemiah commands the people to rejoice on Rosh Hashanah, while the Mishnah calls Yom Kippur one of Israel's most joyous days. God's kingship brings awe—but also confidence, consolation, and radical delight.

[00:00] Wake Up Call [01:08] From Shabbat to High Holidays [01:30] Welcome to Madlik [02:22] Haftarah Calendar Context [04:34] Isaiah Readings [10:07] Repetition and Urgency [15:07] Lecha Dodi Origins [20:37] Simcha and Transformation [21:27] Sponsor Break [22:35] Marriage and New Garments [27:43] Unetaneh Tokef to Nehemiah [30:50] Confidence and Joy [32:38] Wrap Up and Challenge

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What if Judaism has been misunderstood all along, and the real reward for doing good isn't what you get, but who you become?

Is Judaism really about reward and punishment—or is it about becoming?

Parshat Re'eh begins with a tiny grammatical anomaly. Instead of saying, "if you obey," the Torah says "that you obey." Could one unexpected Hebrew word change the way we understand blessing, virtue, and even human nature?

In this episode of Madlik, Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz follow that question from the Bible through the Rabbis, Maimonides, the Sefer HaChinuch, Aristotle, and contemporary philosophy. Along the way they uncover a radical Jewish insight: the reward of a mitzvah isn't a prize—it's the person we become.

Can a single act of kindness change your character? Is blessing something we receive, or something we cultivate? And what if the Torah's deepest teaching isn't about earning rewards, but about forming a life of virtue?

Join us as we explore why "the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah" may be one of Judaism's most profound—and surprisingly modern—ideas.

1. The Torah's smallest words often contain its biggest ideas.

   Parshat Re'eh doesn't say, "if you obey" (אִם) but "that you obey" (אֲשֶׁר). That subtle shift invites us to read blessing not merely as a future reward but as something woven into the very act of living a good life.

2. Judaism is less about reward than about transformation.

   From Ben Azzai's teaching that "the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah," to the Sefer HaChinuch's insight that "a person is shaped by his actions," Judaism teaches that our deeds don't just determine what happens to us—they determine who we become.

3. Character is created through practice.

   Long before modern psychology and virtue ethics, the Torah and the rabbis understood that goodness is cultivated. Every good deed forms a disposition toward another good deed. We don't become good and then do good; we become good by repeatedly doing good.

• 00:00 The Tiny Hebrew Word That Changes Everything
• 02:17 Why "That You Obey" Isn't the Same as "If You Obey"
• 07:53 The Reward of a Mitzvah Is Another Mitzvah
• 10:01 Should We Do Good Without Expecting a Reward?
• 13:15 Maimonides on Free Will and Becoming Virtuous
• 18:52 Why Small Actions Can Change the World
• 21:47 The Sefer HaChinukh's Radical Insight About Human Nature
• 27:05 Modern Philosophy Meets Ancient Torah
• 31:01 Is Love an Action or an Emotion?
• 33:12 The Real Meaning of Becoming Good

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We've all heard the old cliché that "history repeats itself," but the Torah actually reveals a massive flaw in that idea.

The Greeks believed history repeats itself. Enlightenment thinkers believed history marches relentlessly forward. The Torah suggests they're both missing something. In this episode, Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz begin with a single Hebrew word—eikev—and uncover a uniquely Jewish philosophy of history. Through the insights of Ramban, Giambattista Vico, Johann Gottfried Herder, Isaiah Berlin, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, they discover a vision of history that is neither an endless cycle nor a straight line of inevitable progress, but a sometimes crooked, yet ultimately purposeful journey in which the past continually echoes into the present. Along the way, they explore Vico's revolutionary claim that history—and indeed all of the human sciences—is fundamentally different from the physical sciences. Nature may be governed by universal laws, mathematical formulas, and today's algorithms, but history is lived, remembered, recorded, and thereby created by human beings. It can therefore be understood only by entering the language, imagination, memory, and lived experience of a people. From Herder they learn that every nation and culture possesses its own authentic voice, and from the Torah that every generation must reinterpret its inherited story without abandoning it. Discover why Jewish history doesn't simply repeat itself—it rhymes.

1. History Doesn't Repeat. It Rhymes - The Torah rejects both the Greek idea that history endlessly repeats itself and the Enlightenment belief in inevitable progress. Jewish history moves toward redemption, but along the way the same moral challenges return, inviting each generation to respond anew.
2. Eikev Is More Than a Word - The opening word of the parsha—eikev—means "because," "heel," and "crooked path." Through Ramban, we discover that Jewish history is purposeful without always being direct. God's covenant unfolds through the winding paths of human choices rather than along a straight line.
3. History Is Made by People, Not Formulas - Vico, Herder, Isaiah Berlin, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks help us appreciate what the Torah has always assumed: unlike the physical sciences, history cannot be reduced to universal laws or algorithms. It is created by people, cultures, language, and memory—and can only be understood by entering their lived experience.

[00:00] Does History Rhyme [01:21] Eikev Opens the Parsha [02:05] Quid Pro Quo and Chalipin [04:49] Rashi and the Heel [08:07] Ramban on Endings [11:22] Crooked Paths Straightened [16:40] Jewish History Repeats [20:37] Sacks on Covenantal Time [23:28] Vico and Spiral History [24:55] Berlin Herder and Meaning [30:09] Closing Challenge to Viewers

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