Iyun Podcast

In this episode, we take a hard look at a growing crisis within the Torah world: what happens when a system built around the ideal of total Torah immersion leaves too many young men without genuine learning, productive work, responsibility, or purpose? Drawing on Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer’s provocative essay, we explore how idleness can lead not only to boredom, but to anger, extremism, and the erosi...

Dr. Nechumie Yaffe is a Haredi scholar and lecturer at Tel Aviv University whose work focuses on Haredi sociology and the challenge of translating the lived experience of the ultra-Orthodox world to audiences outside of it. Her research explores the tensions, assumptions, and internal complexities of Haredi society, offering a rare voice from within the community who can both analyze it academical...

Esti Salomon is the founder and CEO of Atida, a pioneering Israeli nonprofit creating new pathways for ultra-Orthodox women to serve in elite technological units within the IDF as civilian employees. Under her leadership, Atida has placed more than 400 women in prestigious roles in units such as Unit 8200, the Air Force’s Ofek Unit, the Communications Corps, and the Ground Forces Command. In addit...

Mrs. Miriam Kosman is originally from Baltimore, Maryland, a longtime resident of Bnei Brak, and now lives in Afula in Israel’s north. The daughter, descendant, and wife of distinguished talmidei chachamim, she has emerged as one of Orthodoxy’s most compelling thinkers on the subject of Judaism and gender. Her groundbreaking work, Circle, Arrow, Spiral, draws on academic insight, psychological dep...

Rabbi Shraga Freedman, a resident of Baltimore, Maryland, has dedicated himself to restoring the centrality of Kiddush Hashem as a defining value in Jewish life. Through the work of the Living Kiddush Hashem Foundation, he has developed programs, educational materials, and practical resources designed to inspire Jews to live in a way that reflects honor, integrity, and moral beauty. In this episod...

SHOW NOTES: PROFESSOR BENNY BROWN Professor Benjamin (Benny) Brown is one of the foremost experts on charedi ideology and identity in the modern Israeli academy. He has published widely on a range of topics, including mussar and chassidus, in addition to our topic on this episode, Daas Torah. We explore what Daas Torah means, how it evolved into the operational principle governing much of charedi...

On November 19, 2025, Rabbi Nathaniel (“Nati”) Helfgot - a congregational rabbi and Judaics teacher at SAR in Riverdale - wrote an article at The Lehrhaus titled, “Ben Gurion and Hazon Ish: The Sequel.” In the article, Rabbi Helfgot traces the history of the iconic encounter between these secular-political and chareidi leaders, respectively, in the State of Israel’s earliest days. He then proceeds...

We tend to assume that all chareidim sit on the political Right in Israel. This week’s interview with Pnina Pfeuffer interrogates that assumption. As a chareidi woman firmly stationed on the Israeli Left, Pnina Pfeuffer, founder of the “New Chareidim” organization, promotes the embrace of progressive values while maintaining fidelity to chareidi standards of observance and communal affiliations.

On Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah 5786/2025, the Jewish world lost a titanic leader, Rabbi Moshe Hauer, a man who modeled Jewish living and leadership in an extraordinary manner. Rabbi Hauer was the Executive Vice President of the Orthodox Union, as well as Rabbi Emeritus of Baltimore's Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion. He spearheaded a wide variety of communal initiatives while occupying a rare "middle grou...

Yitzik (pronounced "Itzkik") Crombie is a long-time tech entrepreneur who founded Mego, a training program aimed at integrating into the higher-level Israeli workforce. The work is supported through the Kemach Foundation. Yitzik also runs Bizmax, a co-working space geared for chareidim, among other ventures. Several years ago, he published a book, "When the Chareidim Will Be the Majority," (Hebrew...

Iyun Institute founder and director Rabbi Yehoshua Pfefferrecently “put his body where his pen is,” enlisting in the IDF in its “Shlav Bet” program within the Homefront Command. Fresh off a month-long basic training, R’ Pfeffer shares his reflections and takeaways from the field.

Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie is a longtime Chabad Shaliach (emissary), co-director of the North County Chabad Center in Orange County, California. Author of the book Secret of Chabad , he has recently released a groundbreaking biography of the “Friediker Rebbe” - the Sixth Rebbe of the Chabad chassidic dynasty - called “ Undaunted: How the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn Saved Russian J...

Dr. Yechiel Reit is an American-born emergency medicine doctor, an IDF reserve combat physician and the author of "Applied Monotheism: The Chareidi Response to Modernity." In our wide-ranging conversation, we discuss Dr. Reit's IDF experience and his analysis of "Charediism," as he argues for an ideological, not cultural, definition.

Sam Sokol is a veteran journalist, currently the Knesset Affairs correspondent at the Times of Israel . In this episode, we explore his journalistic background, and his unique perspective on the charedi parties in the landscape of Israeli politics.

After a long hiatus, we return with a crossover episode - Yaakov Wolff, host of the Shtark Tank podcast, interviews Rabbi Yehoshua and Rebbetzin Tamar Pfeffer. More original episodes to come shortly!

Since inaugurating this podcast, and focusing a long series on charedim and army service, one episode has conspicuously been missing: a full treatment of the halachic parameters of the notion of milchemes mitzvah, as well as an analysis commonly advanced ideals such as "Torah magneh u'matzleh" ("Torah study protects"). In this episode we remedy that void and address these issues that are vital to...

Dr. Moshe Koppel is a leading computer scientist in Israel, with a specific expertise in AI. But over past twenty years he has led an intellectual movement promoting judicial reform within Israel. Through his Kohelet Policy Forum, Dr. Koppel researches alternatives to the entrenched judicial dynamics, and advocates for what he considers a more balanced and democratic approach, in line with other W...

Tzili Schneider has created one of the most remarkable bridge-building educational operations in Israel, Kesher Yehudi . Ari Koretzky has previously interviewed Tzili on his other show, Jews You Should Know . Relevant to the Iyun Podcast, however, we focus in this episode on Tzili’s recent efforts with hostage families and NOVA survivors; she has engaged each of these populations with Shabbatonim...

The charedi communities of the United State and Israel are separated physically by an ocean, but culturally and psychologically by a great deal as well. Many Americans lack basic awareness of current developments on the ground in Israel, the actual attitudes towards army service and general integration being promulgated there. The resulting gap leads to widespread misconceptions, and inhibits Angl...

Tuvia Tenenbom is quite a colorful character. An author, playwright, mathematician, computer scientist, and all-around polymath, Tuvia was raised in a chareidi Israeli home, in the lap of the Chazon Ish, Rav Shach and other great luminaries. His own life veered on a different course, but he recently returned to those ideological precincts, spending a year in Mea She’arim, Jerusalem, fully immersed...

Why are we here? What’s it all about? Obviously, Judaism has quite a bit to say about this topic. In fact, it may be its entire animating essence! Still, as expressed in contemporary living, even those who identify as strictly Torah-observant may respond divergently to this most-important question. On this episode, Tzvi Goldstein will argue that the Chareidi mindset on “the purpose of life” is ori...

Jonathan Rosenblum is a long-time columnist, pundit and observer of the Orthodox/chareidi communities in Israel and worldwide. He joins us on this episode to explore the unique role and purpose of chareidi media. His wonderful new volume, “Ordinary Greatness,” a compilation of many columns, and more, is available for purchase wherever great Jewish books are sold.

Rabbi Moshe Taragin is a long-time Ram at Yeshivat Har Etzion (“The Gush”), as well as a popular speaker and author on a wide variety of Torah topics. A student of Rav Aharon Lichsteinstein, zt”l and Rav Yehuda Amital, zt”l, R’ Taragin absorbed their weltanschauung over many years. In this episode, we ask him to sketch out, for the uninitiated, the “Dati Leumi” community in which he lives and teac...

In his role as founding director of the Haredi Institute of Public Affairs (HIPA) , Eli Paley is well positioned to evaluate the chareidi relationship to Israeli society. As Iyun founder Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer has written , the most vital factor in the entire chareidi conscription conundrum may just be whether, or to what degree, chareidim see themselves as “Israeli.”  In this wide-ranging co...

One of the under-appreciated concerns - sometimes articulated, often unconscious - held by Chareidim with respect to army service, is the concept of “chain of command.” For a young man whose guiding force in life is G-d, the Torah and rabbinnic authority, submission to faceless officers high up the IDF’s ladder can seem sacrilegious. This is compounded when considering possible halachic matters of...