Big Questions of Jewish Belief

This week on Big Questions of Jewish Belief , Rabbi Raphael Zarum is joined by Stephen Frosh , Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck and author of How to Be Real , for a searching conversation about prayer, psychoanalysis, and the limits of certainty. Stephen explores what it means for the intellectual chatter to fall silent — and whether that silence opens a space for faith. Is religion an...

Rabbi Zarum sits down with leading human rights barrister Adam Wagner KC to explore the foundations of morality, law, and Jewish identity. Adam has dedicated his career to defending human rights and is an active and dedicated member of the Jewish community, yet personally wrestles with belief, skepticism, and the role of God in his life. They discuss his Orthodox upbringing in Manchester, his jour...

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit  lsjs.ac.uk/connect  to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you, or email  bigquestions@lsjs.ac.uk  with comments or questions. Naomi Alderman is an English novelist, game writer, and television executive producer. She is best known for her speculative science fiction novel The Power, which won the Women's Prize for Fiction in...

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you, or email bigquestions@lsjs.ac.uk with comments or questions. Anthony Julius is a highly-regarded litigation lawyer. Best-known for being Diana, Princess of Wales' divorce lawyer and for his successful defence of Penguin Books and historian Deborah Lipstadt in the l...

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit  lsjs.ac.uk  to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. In this special episode Big Questions of Jewish Belief, I collaborated with Rabbi Scott Kahn of the Orthodox Conundrum Podcast to produce a conversation that's great for both of our podcasts at this time. Scott quizzes me on whether we can, and should, be angry with God....

Visit  lsjs.ac.uk to continue learning with Rabbi Zarum and other LSJS educators. Does God actually change reality in response to prayer - and if so, why does prayer so frequently seem to fail? What does it mean for God to answer our prayers? In what ways does prayer help us? Why is it meaningful to pray for others? These are questions which people of faith have confronted for millenia, and contin...

Visit  lsjs.ac.uk to continue learning with Rabbi Zarum and other LSJS educators. Jews have long been proud to call themselves the Chosen People. But isn't that a little bit racist? Rabbi Zarum is joined by Jonathan and Sophia who bring their own experiences and knowledge to the journey of discovering what exactly 'chosen' means and what exactly we've been chosen for. For further study, Rafi's boo...

Rafi takes Jonathan and Sophia along a fascinating route which takes in  collective  punishment in Sodom and Gomorrah, shooting Orcs in Star Wars, and the Israel Defence Force's policy on terrorists. If that's not enough for you, you'll find a whole chapter on Collective Punishment and whether it's fair, in the book Questioning Belief by Rabbi Dr Raphael Zarum, available on Amazon . Visit  lsjs.ac...

We've known the story of Noah and the Ark since we were babies. Do we as Jews believe it really happened? And if it didn't, why is it in the Torah? Armed with studies in classics and science, Jonathan and Sophia join Rafi to challenge the veracity of the flood and discover a surprising message for today's #climatecrisis era. For further study, Rafi's book Questioning Belief contains a chapter dedi...

Two rigorous thinkers, Jonathan Gibson - Politics and International Relations student at the London School of Economics, and Sophia Bor – Cambridge Theology graduate and law student, challenge Rabbi Zarum in this episode on belief in God. Does Judaism require belief in God? Is God the same for everyone? Can we 'prove' He exists, and how? Both practising modern orthodox Jews, Sophia is unconvinced...

This is Big Questions of Jewish Belief, the podcast where we face up to the challenges of religious faith. We all have questions about our faith. Questions about the truth of the Torah, the morality of its laws and what it teaches about having a relationship with God, So each week I'll be inviting rigorous thinkers to challenge me with their questions on Belief. My name is Raphael Zarum - I'm the...