Keep the Faith with Shammai Engelmayer

It's time to put worrying about nuclear proliferation back on the front burner. A nuclear expert, Eric Weis, explains why in this interview. Support the show

Jewish texts, Christian texts, neither of them matter to the man who claims he wants to make America a Christian nation espousing Christian values. Immigration is the perfect example. On a scale of 1 to 10, when it comes to honoring biblical law regarding "the stranger," Trump rates a ZERO! Support the show

There's no disconnect here. The laws of permitted and forbidden creatures have much to say about the rule of law and what it means to act as if one is above the law. The audio quality may not be great this week, but the message is an important one. Support the show

All things Passover, all things Pesach , are high up on the contemporary issues list, starting with the budge-busting shopping needed to buy the foods we're allowed to have in our homes on Pesach. And what about some of the foods we’re not allowed to have, like corn flakes for breakfast or maybe a hot bowl of oatmeal? Corn and oats are considered no-nos on Pesach—but are they really? Before t...

On Sunday morning, February 9th, I couldn’t help but do exactly the opposite after I ran through my morning news feed. That’s because one item in the news that morning made my heart rejoice and my mind to conjure up the image of Elon Musk running through the White House West Wing muttering the name “Engelmayer” in disgust. You probably know why, and there is danger for our democracy built into tha...

Planning on celebrating New Year's tonight and tomorrow? If yes, listen at your own risk! The kvetch who ruined Chrismukkah is at it again. If you do listen, it runs under 20 minutes and there's a lot of study material packed into it, so you might want to take notes. Support the show

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Don't be fooled by what the pundits tell us about why Donald Trump won and Kamala Harris lost. While their analyses have some merit, they skirt the two issues that the results themselves prove were the real reasons Harris lost: she was a she, not a he, and she didn't have the "right" color skin. Judaism rejects both factors--and it does so starting "in the beginning,"...

Given the devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton and other horrific storms around the world, all blamed on global warming, Sukkot, which arrives Wednesday night, offers us an opportunity to discuss this question: What does “green,” which symbolizes things environmental and ecological, have to do with Jewish festivals? The answer is “everything,” and so, that’s the topic for this week. ...

We’re podcasting a few days early this week because the High Holy Days begin tomorrow evening, which is when Rosh Hashanah 5785 begins. Very few people really understand what the purpose of this 10-day period that ends on Yom Kippur is—but we need to understand it because the very future of the world is at stake. And that’s not an exaggeration. Support the show

Shammai's Episode No. 151 We need to take the issue of hate very seriously as we approach the Election 2024 finish line, because of North Carolina Gubernatorial Candidate Mark Robinson’s long well-documented history of hateful rhetoric, including outrageous Holocaust denial comments and statements wishing Adolf Hitler was still alive. We also have to take very seriously the support Donald Tru...

Summer is over and we’re back to our biweekly schedule. The topic for this week is how Benjamin Netanyahu has dishonored the memory of his brother, someone over whose dead body he built his career. That is what Benjamin Netanyahu did. He began building his entire career on the legacy of his dead older brother, Jonathan (Yonatan in Hebrew), whom the IDF calls “one of Israel’s greatest soldiers.” Yo...

In this special summer episode, the contemporary issue being explored is the one day in every Jewish year that way too many of us choose to ignore (assuming that we even know it exists): the grueling nearly 35-hour fast smack in the middle of summer known as Tishah B'Av, which this year begins on Monday at sundown. Those of us who are aware of it want nothing to do with it because it is the u...

I contend that former President Trump, because of his rhetoric, is to blame for creating the atmosphere that allowed that horror to happen. I also blame his rhetoric for the culture of violence in America. I cite chapter and verse from his statements since mid-2015 to support this. Someone for whom I have great respect said I was an idiot for thinking this way. This episode gives you the chance to...

As we prepare to celebrate the creation of this democratic republic of ours, two seemingly unrelated events (they are very much related in a profound way) threaten to fundamentally change this country--and not in a good way. Those events are the effective creation of an imperial presidency by the U.S. Supreme Court and President Biden's so-far steadfast refusal to end his campaign for re-elec...

Once again, a state’s display of the Ten Commandments has become an issue that will most certainly be appealed all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which narrowly decided the issue 44 years ago, but this time may be different. The Ten Commandments, are not commandments at all, but a preamble to the Covenant God made with Israel, which does contain commandments--613 commandments, not just 10....

The ignorance being displayed by college campus protestors is astounding--and it bodes ill for this country as well as for Israel. This isn't a very long episode, but it IS an important one. Support the show

The way to have constructive and meaningful s'darim next week is to study the Haggadah beforehand.  That requires some help from more modern versions and haggadah commentaries. This episode explains why. It's being released several days early to give everyone time to buy one of these volumes and to study it. Support the show

What do I know about Jewish law? I'm a heretic. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that nonsense over the years—including from some members of my own family. So this week I'm going to let someone else say the things about keeping kosher that I've been saying—an Orthodox rabbi, no less. This episode is a newly edited version of one I presented last year. Support the...

Purim begins after Shabbat ends and lasts until sundown on Sunday. You might think you know all there is to know about Purim. If you do, this episode may show how much more there is to know about the book from which Purim sprung--Megillat Esther, the Scroll of Esther. This episode runs for about a half-hour but I hope you find it both interesting and informative. Support the show

What with last Thursday having been Leap Day, with the leap month of Adar II beginning on Saturday evening with Rosh Chodesh, and the Muslim month of Ramadan beginning on Monday, I thought it would be interesting to leap into a discussion of how the secular and Jewish calendars we use today came to be. Did you know, for example, that there was one year that was 445 days long? Do you know why there...

At 10 a.m. this morning, when I recorded this episode, there already had been 2,266 people who died by guns so far this year. That number is now up to 2,294. That averages out to nearly two gun deaths every hour since the new year began. Between January 1st and today, there have been 55 mass shootings and eight mass murders. As of this morning, 37 children under the age of 11 had been killed by gu...

The weather these days is a killer--literally. Scores of thousands of people died in 2023 of severe weather-related causes, and deaths are already mounting in the first six weeks of 2024. Judaism has much to say about our role in minimizing the threat climate change is posing on us. Support the show

On Monday, we here in the United States and also in Israel will celebrate Martin Luther King Day. That we celebrate this day here is understandable and commendable. After all, he was a great warrior for equality and justice for all people. But why is this day marked in Israel, too? And why will many synagogues and Jewish organizations here hold their own celebrations this weekend and throughout Mo...

We who do not live in Israel have always maintained that we have no right to interfere in the Jewish state's internal affairs. Given the explosion of Jew-hatred we are seeing around the world, however, it is clear that "Jew" and "Israel" are synonymous in the eyes of the world, so this Diaspora hands-off attitude is a luxury we no longer can afford. We need to do all that...