IKAR Podcasts

Ki Tavo offers a theology of reward and punishment, of cause and effect, but lived experience teaches us that the world does not work so neatly. What becomes possible when we read the parashah forwards and backwards, not only as protest against injustice, but also as a guide to rebuilding a shattered world?

Part genealogical detective story, part gripping history, part contemporary reporting on war-torn territories, The Wanderers - A Story of Exile, Survival, and Unexpected Love in the Shadow of World War II, chronicles Daniela’s journey to unearth this past and reveal its echoes in still-contested lands from Ukraine to Israel.

Grab a glass of grape juice or wine and a comfy chair, and join your rabbis for a launch of the season. We’ll cover many of the High Holy Day basics (What can I expect if I’m coming for the first time? Wait, another Amidah? And which service do I wear white to?), along with some of the most perplexing questions of the season (Remind me why we’re doing all this? Why does September feel like a marat...

What do we do when Torah contains laws that violate our deepest moral commitments? A troubling passage from Parashat Ki Teitzei invites us to wrestle with difficult texts-and to see interpretation not as an escape from tradition, but as our obligation within it.

Ami Fields-Meyer discusses his New York Times best seller "On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear" with Rabbi Sharon Brous. Co-Sponsored by J Street and New Israel Fund.

I hunger for a leadership with the moral seriousness, the moral imagination to recognize that the greatest achievement is not brute force and military victory, but the embrace and affirmation of human life. Of peace.

What happens when we have the courage to really see what is before us—the blessing, the curse, and everything in between? Re’eh invites us to look up, pay attention, and enter Elul and this season with our eyes and hearts wide open.

From the broken brotherhoods of Genesis to the final conversation between Moses and Aaron, the Torah asks what it truly means to become our brother's keeper. Through a relationship shaped by speech, silence, conflict, and compassion, a vision emerges of how even fractured relationships can find redemption when truth remains bound to love.

ASL Interpretation for this sermon is available on YouTube. In this week's parsha we read that Moses pleads with God, and the form of that word (va'etchanan) only shows up in one other place in the Torah - with Joseph. What do these two moments come to teach us about yearning for things we may never get? Why is it important that we articulate those desires anyway?

The book of Deuteronomy has begun, and our people are as numerous as the stars in the sky. But Moses cries out, “Eikhah!” The famous heart-broken “how” that foreshadows the tragedies of Tisha B’Av. What mournful message does Moses see in the stars? And what, instead, can we learn from the dust?

Join Donniel Hartman and Rabbi Sharon Brous at the Shalom Hartman Institute for a profoundly honest and challenging conversation on the moral responsibility of Jewish leadership today. Together, they explore the complexities of holding onto faith and hope in a world facing overlapping crises—from climate change and the rise of AI to political extremism and the disturbing normalization of violence...

What happens when the man who once found refuge forgets the power of mercy? Drawing together Moses' flight to Midian, the cities of refuge, and one of the Torah's most difficult passages, we discover an enduring challenge to break the cycle of vengeance before it breaks us.

Join Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation with Raphael Warnock, Baptist pastor and senator from Georgia, to discuss his new book The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America. Join us on June 27 during services, virtually and in-person. Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock is a transformational voice in Congress and the pastor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Ebenezer Bapt...

Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock is a transformational voice in Congress and the pastor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and for the semiquincentennial of America, he exhorts us to reach for the highest and noblest aspects of our national character. Senator Warnock argues that we suffer not from a paucity of resources but from a poverty of moral imagination.

A conversation with Dr. Sara Glass, author of Kissing Girls on Shabbat, and Lani Santo, CEO of Footsteps, discussing LGBTQ+ identity, chosen family, and building a self-determined life after leaving ultra-Orthodoxy.

In this week's Torah reading we meet a character who is mentioned just once and then vanishes from the story.  Who is he, and what does he teach us?  And what does all of that have to do with being 13?

The window of opportunity is closing. But as long as the spark of vitality remains within us, it’s not yet too late.

A conversation featuring Elly Oltersdorf of Achvat Amim, sharing a firsthand perspective on Jewish solidarity work in the West Bank amid escalating settler violence. Joined by Joe Goldman of New Israel Fund, this conversation will explore what solidarity, moral witness, and shared responsibility can look like in this moment. Co-sponsored by Achvat Amim, New Israel Fund, and Standing Together LA.

Source sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H8amu8GaAckmuDgd7HIknLHTIyz6YQ5UvmZDKExjriY/edit?usp=sharing We are a nation built by people who dared to believe the unbelievable, even when the odds were far worse and the stakes much higher than at any  blackjack table… Our shared history, our family stories, our collective legacy is one of impossible dreams made real– …we are our ancestors’ wil...

Source sheet: https://ikar.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Midrash-Class-1.pdf In the gaps, the ambiguities, the contradictions, and the mysteries of Torah, Midrash is born. Like a flower emerging from the crack in the sidewalk, a new image captures our attention, transforming the entire landscape. In this three-part series, we’ll investigate the project of Midrash– where these new stories come fro...

The Torah's most repetitive chapter may conceal one of its most urgent lessons. Through a series of surprising midrashic connections, we discover that the leaders bringing gifts to the Mishkan are the same figures who once clashed bitterly with Moses during the struggle against Pharaoh. Their last-minute act of reconciliation raises a timeless question: what does it take for a divided people to re...

Source sheet: https://ikar.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Midrash-Class-1.pdf In the gaps, the ambiguities, the contradictions, and the mysteries of Torah, Midrash is born. Like a flower emerging from the crack in the sidewalk, a new image captures our attention, transforming the entire landscape. In this three-part series, we’ll investigate the project of Midrash– where these new stories come fro...

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly parsha study class from 5.27.2026, co-sponsored by Hadar and IKAR.

Source sheet: https://ikar.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Shavuot-Day-1-Source-Sheet-5786.pdf We spend so much time preparing to speak, but what does Shavuot and revelation teach us about how we can prepare to listen?

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly parsha study class from 5.20.2026, co-sponsored by IKAR and Hadar.