Tradition Podcast

Rabbi Prof. Joshua Berman, professor of Bible at Bar-Ilan University joins the TRADITION Podcast to discuss his recent book, Ani Maamin: Biblical Criticism, Historical Truth, and the Thirteen Principles of Faith (Maggid Books). In our forthcoming issue, our reviewer, R. Hayyim Angel writes: “Berman’s book is vital for understanding the relationship between faith and academic Bible study, where we...

Among the troubling phenomenon to which we are witness at this most difficult time of COVID, is the appearance of anti-Semitic attitudes and actions – hearkening back to medieval accusations of blood libels well poisonings, and up to contemporary anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric, Jews have often borne the blame of plagues which affected their host societies (even as they themselves were affl...

PODCAST: Reading in a Time of COVID How does literature serve as both an escape from reality as well as a lens back onto ourselves and the challenges we face in difficult days? TRADITION’s editor R. Jeffrey Saks discusses these questions with Sarah Rindner, an instructor of literature at Lander College who recently relocated to Israel with her family. She writes frequently on the intersection of E...

In this short podcast episode R. Jeffrey Saks talks with Rabbi Mark Smilowitz, a veteran educator in North America and Israel, about his newly released song, “Ki Lekha.” The words are taken from the Monday and Thursday Tahanun prayer , and speak of our beseeching God in times of distress, peril, and plague: Salvation is Yours, Lord. Our Father, our King, our Refuge, do not act with us according to...

As our listeners by now know we’ve been producing these mini-episodes of our podcast—chatting with our editors and authors about matters of Jewish thought to gain some insights which might guide us through these troubling times of coronavirus. In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc across the Caribbean and the Gulf Coast of the United States, inflicting the brunt of its damage in New Orlea...

This is another special episode of the TRADITION Podcast in which we check in with our authors and editors to hear how they are managing through the corona crisis. In this installment, R. Jeffrey Saks talks with Dr. Erica Brown about her recent thoughts concerning the Avinu Malkenu, recited on public fasts and the Days of Awe—times of introspection, repentance, and spiritual stock-taking. These ce...

In this special coronavirus episode of the TRADITION podcast, our editor, Jeffrey Saks, talks with Yitzchak Blau about his Winter 2009 essay whose titled asked the rhetorical question: “Is Courage a Jewish Value?”   We have all been thinking about courage these days, especially in light of the many acts of resilience (spiritual and otherwise) in the face of Covid-19 to which we’ve been witness. Bl...

Hershel Schachter on Hilkhot Covid-19 As part of their important role in servicing rabbis and Jewish communities throughout North America and the world, the Rabbinical Council of America, publisher of TRADITION, convened a special conference call with Rav Hershel Schachter for the organization’s member rabbis on March 16, 2020. During the call Rav Schachter, Rosh Yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchana...

On May 22, 2019, Rabbi Daniel Korobkin and Imam Abdullah Antepli sat down at the annual convention of the Rabbinical Council of America , in Stamford, CT, to discuss the current state of Muslim-Jewish relations. Instead of dancing around the hot-button issues, they directly addressed the issues of Zionism and Israel and the parallel and opposing narratives harbored by Muslim and Jewish communities...

A common theme through TRADITION’s recent symposium on Haym Soloveitchik’s “Rupture and Reconstruction: On the Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy” is how the encounter with the essay in 1994 caused readers to understand transitions within the Orthodox world to which they were witness in their own lifetimes. For a change, we thought it would be interesting to hear the voice of youth—the “Gene...

Among the more well-known features of Prof. Haym Soloveitchik’s “Rupture and Reconstruction” is its description of the shift away from a mimetic tradition, in which people are socialized into a religious community through observation and “imitation” (the same root as mimetic), toward an often more stringent text-based authority. Soloveitchik contended that this was accompanied by a concomitant shi...

The TRADITION podcast continues to explore topics from our symposium on the 25th anniversary of Prof. Haym Soloveitchik’s “Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy.” In this episode two contributors to the symposium sit down to discuss each other’s essay. Rabbi Daniel Korobkin is the rabbi of the BAYT, Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto, and is the President of the Rabb...

In this new episode of the TRADITION podcast, editor Jeffrey Saks chats with Atara Eis and Laurie Novick about their essay “Reconstruction in No Man’s Land.” Eis and Novick are both certified Yoetzot Halacha, and wrote as part of our upcoming symposium marking the 25th anniversary of Prof. Haym Soloveitchik’s landmark essay “Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy,...

In this inaugural episode of the  TRADITION  podcast, editor Jeffrey Saks sits down with renowned  posek  Rav J. David Bleich to discuss his multi-decade work authoring the journal’s “Survey of Recent Halakhic Literature” column. Rav Bleich is a Rosh Yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and professor of law at YU’s Cardozo Law School. The post R. J. David Bleich on the 50-Year...