In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Zohar Atkins, Rabbi and philosopher, about the role that philosophy – particularly rationalist philosophy – plays in Judaism.

Zohar is a profound and poetic thinker who tries to lead an examined Jewish life. Despite being a philosopher, he is an advocate of doing, not just thinking. He takes the idea of there being 70 faces of the Torah to heart, endorsing philosophical pluralism in relation to Judaism.

• How do philosophy and the Torah interact?
• Does the Torah espouse any one true philosophy, or is it open to multiple philosophical interpretations?
• What role in Jewish life can rationalism play, and what role should it play?

Tune in to hear a conversation about philosophy and Judaism.References:

References: 

Dialogues of Plato by Plato

The Kuzari by Rabbi Yehuda Halevi

Slate Star Codex

LessWrong

@ZoharAtkinsZohar is the founder of Etz Hasadeh, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and a popular public thinker. Zohar holds a Dphil in theology from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar, and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Zohar is the author of An Ethical and Theological Appropriation of Heidegger’s Critique of Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Nineveh (2019), a collection of poems, and thinks aloud about a daily question at What is Called Thinking. Zohar writes a much-loved and deeply contemplative column on the Parsha at Etz Hasadeh.

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