TEXTing

The rise of antisemitism on both the right and the left has the Jewish people caught on the center line of a high-stakes tennis match. On this episode of TEXTing, Elana Stein Hain and Yonah Hain explore a Talmudic passage from Tractate Yoma 10a, to discuss how we maintain agency during troubling times, and how we look to the future when we can’t yet see the horizon. 

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Major moments of change, as Israelis and Jews around the world have experienced over the course of this past year, impose a daunting uncertainty about the future. On this episode of TEXTing, Elana Stein Hain and Christine Hayes dive into a story from Vayikra (Leviticus) Rabbah 29:2 that explores the complicated relationship that we have with both change and the status quo. 

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What does it mean to feel out of place? When is discomfort something to work through, and when does it indicate that a change is needed? On this episode of TEXTing, Elana Stein Hain and special guest Shlomo Zuckier explore two stories of misfits, mistreatment, and the search for belonging, from the Jerusalem Talmud in Tractate Berachot, and how they can help us navigate Jewish community in a post-October 7 world.

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Our political landscape and personal relationships are rife with misunderstandings and miscommunications. On this episode of TEXTing, Elana Stein Hain and Yonah Hain dive into a story from Nedarim 66b  about a series of miscommunications between a Talmudic married couple to understand the difference between miscommunications and conflicting viewpoints and consider how we take responsibility for such differences.

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How do we understand the role of chaos in our lives, which feels so omnipresent right now? How can we defend against the mayhem? On this episode of Texting, Elana Stein Hain and Leora Batnitzky examine two passages from the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds and explore the surprising ways that chaos can be contained.

This episode of TEXTing is sponsored by Nancy and Brad Bell.

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In excess, both pride and shame can be destructive forces, yet to cultivate a healthy ego, one needs a moderate dosing of each. In this episode of Texting, Elana Stein Hain and Christine Hayes unpack tractate Yoma page 22b, which highlights the tension between the need to stand up for oneself and the imperative to be magnanimous and forgiving. What emerges is the importance of interpersonal relationships, as we strive to treat others as we want to be treated. 

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Right now, Jews are struggling to live with conflicting feelings— loyalty and dissent, compassion and rage, fear and hope. In this episode of TEXTing, Elana Stein Hain and Leora Batnitzky turn to an ancient text—Kohelet (Ecclesiastes)—as well as rabbinic interpretations, to consider how we might live and thrive amidst contradiction.

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Many Jews have found themselves frequently code-switching, altering their speech to fit in, during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. In this episode of Texting, Elana Stein Hain and Yonah Hain take a close look at an instance of code switching in the rabbinic Midrash, Pesikta DeRav Kahana 4:7-8, and what it can tell us about communicating with different audiences today.  

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As the rabbis of the Talmud faced exile and marginalization, they sometimes turned to humor and satire to cope with the challenges they faced. On this episode of TEXTing, Elana Stein Hain and Christine Hayes examine a passage from Talmud Bavli Bekhorot 8b-9a that preserves how the rabbis satirized the Roman cultural sphere—and consider what we can learn about how humor might comfort and guide us through difficult times.

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In times of war, personal tragedy tends to be subsumed by a collective sense of loss and grief. Borrowing a metaphor from a rabbinic passage about the spread of wildfire in Bava Kamma 60a-60b, Elana Stein Hain and Leora Batnitzky, a professor of philosophy and Jewish studies at Princeton University, explore human interconnectedness as it relates to evil in the world. Together they consider the question: during times of communal pain, when is it right, or even necessary, to close ourselves away, and when are we morally bound to participate in the wider community? 

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