TJC’s Up Close

This week on Up Close, we look at major Jewish sages, past and present.

Renowned scholar, commentator and translator Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz speaks about his work on the Talmud and his book about the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, My Rebbe, and Dr. Ronald Eisenberg, a physician specializing in radiology, discusses how a side-gig of sorts in digging deep into Jewish studies has yielded his encyclopedic work on Essential Figures in Jewish Scholarship.

What is the relationship between justice and the law? TJC's Steven I. Weiss interviews New York Times Op-Ed editor Clay Risen, author of THE BILL OF THE CENTURY: THE EPIC BATTLE FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, and Columbia University professor Bernard Harcourt, co-editor of philosopher Michael Foucault's posthumously published book, WRONG-DOING, TRUTH-TELLING: THE FUNCTION OF AVOWAL IN JUSTICE.

On this episode of Up Close, how baseball influences, and is influenced by, the broader American culture.

First, Sports Illustrated Associate Managing Editor Kostya Kennedy talks about the banning of Pete Rose from baseball and whether he should or should not be eligible for entry into the hall of fame. His book is Pete Rose: An American Dilemma.

Then, pop-culture historian and journalist Dan Epstein discusses his book, Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of '76, which looks at the revolutionary changes that happened in baseball that year, as the nation was celebrating the 200th anniversary of its own revolution.

Watch the complete episode on TJC on-demand on cable in the TJC Original Series/Interviews category. You can also watch highlights from the episode in the video above, or listen to the complete audio of this episode at the top of this post or by subscribing to our weekly audio podcast at http://feeds.feedburner.com/tjcupclose or on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tjcs-up-close/id807702211.

TJC's Steven I. Weiss interviews author and lecturer Yael Unterman about her new collection of short stories, "The Hidden of Things: Twelve Stories of Love & Longing," which is centered on the Orthodox singles scene in Jerusalem, and author and translator Hillel Halkin about his latest book, "Jabotinsky," a re-examination of the life and legacy of Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky.

On this episode of Up Close, who wrote the Bible and how are we meant to experience it? Several scholars offer their take.

First, Bible scholar and religious Jew Michael Carasik, who is editing a new series of commentators Bibles for the Jewish Publication Society, discusses his new book The Bible's Many Voices.

Next, Brown University professor Michael Satlow, author of How the Bible Became Holy, examines how the Bible came together and what happened as it did.

Finally, Jesuit priest James Martin, an editor at the Jesuit magazine America, shares what he learned on a two-week trip to Israel to retrace the life of Jesus the man in his new book, Jesus: A Pilgrimage.

Watch the complete episode on TJC on-demand on cable in the TJC Original Series/Interviews category. You can also watch highlights from the episode in the video above, or listen to the complete audio of this episode at the top of this post or by subscribing to our weekly audio podcast at http://feeds.feedburner.com/tjcupclose or on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tjcs-up-close/id807702211.

Interviews with two members of Israel's Knesset who are also authors of new books in English: MK Ruth Calderon, a Talmud scholar and author of "A Bride For One Night," and MK Rabbi Dov Lipman, author of "To Unify a Nation: My Vision for the Future of Israel."

http://newsdesk.tjctv.com In-depth interviews with Kim Goldman, author of "Can't Forgive: My 20-Year Battle with O.J. Simpson," Rabbi Daniel Sperber, author of "On the Relationship of Mitzvot Between Man and His Neighbor and Man and His Maker," and James Romm, author of "Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero."

http://newsdesk.tjctv.com Interviews with two debut novelists writing about the immigrant experience: Boris Fishman, author of "A Replacement Life," about a family of Russian-Jewish immigrants to the U.S. in the 1990s, with a plot twist about Holocaust reparations; and Susan Jane Gilman, author of "The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street," a story of poor, early-20th century Russian-Jewish immigrant Malka Traynovsky's transformation into American ice cream mogul Lillian Dunkle.

This week on TJC's Up Close, the life of the mind: how our reactions to stimuli are both within and beyond our control, in surprising ways. ABC News anchor Dan Harris, author of "10% Happier," explains how meditation helped him get off drugs and become a more focused, happier, and nicer person; Tel Aviv University's Thalma Lobel shares her research on how physical sensations subconsciously influence our conscious thoughts in "Sensation: The New Science of Physical Intelligence"; Christianity Today's Philip Yancey discusses why bad things happen to good people in "The Question That Never Goes Away."

Finally, Christianity Today Editor-at-Large Philip Yancey has become a go-to guy on why bad things happen to good people. His new book is The Question That Never Goes Away, and that question is, "Why?"

Interviews with NYT culture reporter Dave Itzkoff, author of "Mad As Hell," about screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and the making of the movie Network; and Yehudah Mirsky, author of "Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution," about the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine and founder of religious Zionism, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.