Meditations with Zohar

This week, Zohar is joined by Kieran Setiya, philosopher, MIT Professor, author of Life is Hard and Midlife, and podcast host of Five Questions, to discuss the genre of self-help, brokenness, AI, why moral philosophy can't be outsourced, existentialism, phenomenology, podcasting, the conditions of knowledge, and how to balance the ameliorative and the contemplative.

This week, Zohar is joined by Martin Gurri, former CIA analyst and author of The Revolt of the Public, to talk about trust, power, communication, polarization, technology, and strategy in an age of waning institutional legitimacy and fragmented authority.

This week, Zohar is joined by Leon Kass, Dean of Faculty at Shalem College, to discuss the Book of Genesis, Rousseau, Odysseus, moral vs. intellectual virtue, the challenge of transmitting tradition, and the need for clever people to accept their limits.

This week Zohar speaks to Peter Cole, acclaimed poet and translator, about medieval Hebrew and Arabic poetry, Yehuda Amichai, liminality, modernism, solitude and tradition, the sacred and the secular, and the war for the imagination.

This week, Zohar is joined by literary critic and Stanford Professor, Marjorie Perloff, to discuss the meaning of the avant-garde, the poetic influence of Wittgenstein, why postmodernism has exhausted itself, whether we should care about popularity, the corrosive effects of mass culture, the novelty of T.S. Eliot and Frank O'Hara, the importance of tradition, and why confessional art is often boring.

This week, Zohar is joined by Anna Gát, Founder and CEO of Interintellect to talk about the importance of third spaces, how setting high expectations lead to better dialogue, the future of religion, post-political discourse, online community, European vs. American approaches to the Western canon, and the tension between being an author devoted to self expression and a community builder committed to hospitality.

Meditations with Zohar is supported by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between big ideas and real world problems.

Read more from Zohar at his Torah newsletter Etz Hasadeh or his philosophy newsletter What is Called Thinking.

Meditations with Zohar is a production of SoulShop and Lyceum Studios.

This week, Zohar is joined by entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist Joe Lonsdale to discuss optimism, decadence, globalization and tribalism, virtue ethics and utilitarianism, Romans and Jews, The University of Austin and liberal arts, Rabbi Soloveitchik, Hannah Arendt, Michael Polanyi, Nietzsche, and the conflicting values at the heart of Western Civilization.

Meditations with Zohar is supported by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between big ideas and real world problems.

Read more from Zohar at his Torah newsletter Etz Hasadeh or his philosophy newsletter What is Called Thinking.

Meditations with Zohar is a production of SoulShop and Lyceum Studios.

This week Zohar is joined by Russ Roberts, Economist, Host of the EconTalk Podcast, and President of Shalem College, to talk about Decision Making, Regret, Parenting, Skepticism, Mindfulness, Religious Life, Jewish thought, and the pros and cons of having a theory of everything.

Meditations with Zohar is supported by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between big ideas and real world problems.

Read more from Zohar at his Torah newsletter Etz Hasadeh or his philosophy newsletter What is Called Thinking.

Meditations with Zohar is a production of SoulShop and Lyceum Studios.

This week, Zohar is joined by Rabbi David Wolpe, a beloved Jewish thinker and community leader, to talk about the blessings and challenges of public life, King David, sincerity and authenticity, religion and politics, study and song, celebrity and sanctity, the past and future of authority, whether intellectual honesty is overrated, and the majesty of the human face.

Meditations with Zohar is supported by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between big ideas and real world problems.

Read more from Zohar at his Torah newsletter Etz Hasadeh or his philosophy newsletter What is Called Thinking.

Meditations with Zohar is a production of SoulShop and Lyceum Studios.

This week, Zohar is joined by Mark Lilla, Professor of Humanities at Columbia, and wide-ranging public intellectual, to talk about Great Books and the purpose of humanities education, falling in love with ideas, conversion and deconversion, ignorance and bliss, the theology of accommodation, and the instructive, all too human example of thinkers who err.

Meditations with Zohar is supported by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between big ideas and real world problems.

Read more from Zohar at his Torah newsletter Etz Hasadeh or his philosophy newsletter What is Called Thinking.

Meditations with Zohar is a production of SoulShop and Lyceum Studios.