Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.

This week, the Knesset passed the first contentious judicial overhaul bill into law. So, six months after getting perspective from philosopher Dr. Micah Goodman in the inaugural What Matters Now episode, I went back for more.

“Two constitutional instincts have been unleashed and are clashing with each other: The Israelis who want to be empowered through government versus the Israelis who want to be protected from government. I think that’s what’s happening in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and all over Israel as we’re talking,” says Goodman, the author of the best-selling “Catch-67” and “The Wondering Jew.” His book, “The Last Words of Moses” recently hit shelves in English.

For much of the past six months, Goodman has been performing a unique kind of reserve duty: speaking with people from all sides of the judicial overhaul conflict, from teams of politicians during the negotiations at the President’s Residence — at the request of President Isaac Herzog — to squadrons of pilots who are on the brink of refusing service -- again, at the request of the IDF.

In keeping with this Tisha B’Av week, this is an in-depth and quite sober conversation. But, as you will hear, Goodman is, as always, a dedicated optimist.

“I think the cynics will determine what happens tomorrow and next week, but I think it’s the optimists who will determine what will happen next year and two years from now,” he says.

So this week, we ask philosopher Dr. Micah Goodman, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman (Yonit Schiller)

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