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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How do we relate to power today beyond the binary narrative of oppressor and oppressed? In this episode of TEXTing, Elana Stein Hain and Yonah Hain examine a passage from the Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin that explores what it means to challenge those who hold power. Through the classic rabbinic reading of the story of the rebellion of Korach from Numbers 16, more complex possibilities emerge for understanding and critiquing power through a Jewish lens. 

We are grateful to the Walder Charitable Fund and Micah Philanthropies for their generous support of TEXTing. 

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You can now sponsor an episode of TEXTing. Click HERE to learn more. 

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Since the devastation on October 7 and throughout the subsequent Israel-Hamas War, Israelis and Jews worldwide have endured tremendous loss and deep uncertainty. In the first episode of TEXTing, a podcast devoted to the exploration of Jewish texts in relation to current events, Elana Stein Hain and Christine Hayes turn to the Talmud in tractate Hagigah to address this shock, disbelief, alienation, and despair.  

We are grateful to the Walder Charitable Fund and Micah Philanthropies for their generous support of TEXTing. 

This episode is also sponsored by Erica Schacter Schwartz 

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You can now sponsor an episode of TEXTing. Click HERE to learn more. 

JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST FOR MORE HARTMAN IDEAS