Ta Shma

Shai Held. We live, for better and for worse, in a technological society, which means that both sides of human nature have been dramatically amplified: both our potential to heal and do good and our capacity to hurt and inflict suffering have reached unprecedented levels. What are the ethical and spiritual implications of living in a world in which we can cure disease but also despoil the earth? where we can talk to people across the globe but also kill them without so much as getting out of our chairs? Rabbis Abaraham Johsua Heschel and Joseph Soloveitchik had very different—and in some ways antithetical—responses to the question of technology. Join us as we explore their approaches and ask how they would talk to one another—and how they can still talk to us.

Ever wanted to know the answer to some deep and challenging questions in halakhah (Jewish law)? Join R. Avi Killip interviewing R. Ethan Tucker with questions sent in by Yeshivat Hadar alumni and others on all sorts of details of Jewish law. This is a joint project between the Center for Jewish Law and Values and Jewish Public Media.

Ethan Tucker. We live in a time of dramatic rethinking of accepted givens about Jewish identity. In a sense, all of this forces us to embrace new ways of thinking about lineality and the boundaries of Jewish communities. In other ways, we don’t need anything new at all.

Ever wanted to know the answer to some deep and challenging questions in halakhah (Jewish law)? Join R. Avi Killip interviewing R. Ethan Tucker with questions sent in by Yeshivat Hadar alumni and others on all sorts of details of Jewish law. This is a joint project between the Center for Jewish Law and Values and Jewish Public Media.

Ethan Tucker. We know of a "matrilineal principle", by which the status of a Jewish child follows only the mother. But our source contain far more nuance on this topic than is conventionally assumed. We will look at medieval and modern voices in this complex and vital area of law.

Tali Adler. Adam Ha-Rishon and the Primordial Hanukkah. What are origins of Hanukkah? How did the first humans celebrate it? Through stories in the Talmud, Tali Adler (Yeshivat Maharat) explores a new say to experience the festival. Recorded live at the Community Beit Midrash, 2015.

Ethan Tucker. Left-handedness and Halakhah. We explore a range of sources that discuss the proper behaviors of left-handed people in various rituals. At the heart of these texts, and the debates surrounding them, is an implicitly shared question: When do we understand the law to demand uniformity, even at the price of repressing difference and exclusion? And when do we understand the law to refract itself through the lens of human diversity?

Ever wanted to know the answer to some deep and challenging questions in halakhah (Jewish law)? Join R. Avi Killip interviewing R. Ethan Tucker with questions sent in by Yeshivat Hadar alumni and others on all sorts of details of Jewish law. This is a joint project between the Center for Jewish Law and Values and Jewish Public Media.

Jason Rubenstein. Between "Mosaic Authorship" and "mosaic composition": Hearing Conflict in Revelation and Revelation in Conflict. What does it mean to believe that the Torah is from Heaven? What attitudes and beliefs allow a Jewish life of integrity and passion? Are people uncertain about "traditional" teachings about the Torah's revelation to Moses at Sinai doomed to a Jewish life of "as-if" commitment and observance? How should the rise of modern, historically oriented Biblical studies change our answers to these questions? This series will approach these often-avoided questions with fresh eyes, with the goals of uncovering new meaning in the core sources on this topic, of finding language for our own commitments, and of putting those sources and commitments in dialogue with one another. Part 3 of 3.

Ethan Tucker. In the 1980s, the Reform movement in the United States took up the issue of lineality and descent: specifically, the reevaluation of what had been the traditional matrilineal standard for determining Jewishness in a case of mixed heritage. This was perceived as a crisis in many corners of the Jewish world, as it broke what had been a broadly-held consensus around the definition of what makes a Jew by birth. We now live a full three decades later, with an entire generation having been raised under competing definitions of Jewish identity. It is, therefore, time to revisit some of the discussions of several decades back, with an eye towards an honest reading of the tradition, and strategies for applying it sensitively to our complex reality.