The Jewish Story

Just when you think the Sabbateans have had their last say in the story, one the greatest conflicts of 18th century rabbinic culture breaks out. This episode explores the controversy between R' Yaakov Emden and R' Yonatan Eybeschuetz and how it contributed to the crisis of European Jewry's encounter with the Enlightenment. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through...

Within two decades after the Baal Shem Tov died, a movement had sprung up from his revolutionary thoughts. But this new current of Jewish life did not emerge without controversy. And as the chasidim and their opponents were struggling over the soul of Am Yisrael, the body of Polish Jewry was suddenly split in three by the partition of Poland. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and ta...

The institutions of the middle ages have already run their course, and the way ahead into modernity is far from clear for Polish Jewry. Out of this darkness and confusion a new light will emerge, infusing religious life with vitality and joy. This is the first of two episodes on the rise of the Ba'al Shem Tov and the chasidic movement. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a jo...

Baruch Spinoza the was the most famous philosopher the Jews ever produced, but he had to leave the fold in order to speak his truth. He crowned reason king of creation at the same time as the mythic imagination of the Sabbatean heretics was coming to a boil. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history of any people...

The appearance of Shabbetai Zvi evoked a tidal wave of messianic hope which swept Jews and Christians in its wake. Was his advent just a case of the "perfect storm" conditions in history, or was there something more fundamental to the Jewish story which drove his ascent? Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history o...

Hope is a powerful force. The conversos who escaped from Iberia and built a new life were driven by the hope for freedom, prosperity and ultimately redemption. But even once the New World colonies were established, the one place in the world where the Jews were absent was the British Isles. Was their return to England the secret to finally realizing their ultimate hope? Deepen your relationship wi...

The Golden Age of Tzefat had more to it than the writing of authoritative legal texts. There was also a flowering of kabbalistic thought which returned the experience of the Divine to its central place in the culture of Am Yisrael. And the most powerful master of this esoteric wisdom was certainly R’ Yitzchak Luria – the Holy Ari z”l. Listen now to the latest installment of The Jewish Story by Rav...

The history of Zionism can be seen as a long conversation about what it means to be a nation. In honor of the State of Israel's 70th birthday, Rabbi Mike Feuer gives an overview of the meaning of the word Am, and makes a call to continue the conversation. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history of any people in...

Though the early modern era was a time of throwing off tradition for many Europeans, in the city of Tzefat its power was alive and well. This is the story of how R' Yosef Karo became the greatest legal authority of his day, and wrote the work which would "set the table" for the legal discussion of the next 500 years. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the m...

Gracia Mendes was the most powerful Jewish woman since Queen Esther. Defying princes and Popes she amassed a fortune, supporitng the poor, patronizing culture, and building an underground railroad to aid conversos escaping the clutches of the Inquisition. Here is her story. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic histor...

Epistemology is not about what you know, but about how you know anything all. The word may seem unsettling, but that is nothing compared to the breakdown which Europeans suffered as the foundations of medieval thought dissolved in the 16th century. Copernicus started a revolution which removed the Earth from the center of the Universe and the Church from the middle of science, and we want to know...

The printing press helped spark a knowledge explosion which changed the world, and of course, less than fifty years after Gutenberg printed his Bible, Jewish presses were already transforming the face of the Hebrew book. As one good revolution deserves another - this episode also explores the role that text played in the dawn of the Protestant Reformation. Europe will never be the same, but is it...

One of the hallmarks of the early modern era is mobility, which means we will be jumping around a bit. This episode follows the story of the exiles upon their arrival in Italy. They take with them a messianic hope that the end is near, and they find their the spirit of Italian humanism. When the two unite, new horizons will open for Christian and Jew alike. Deepen your relationship with Israel as...

When the Jews of Ashkenaz moved east, they brought their customs and language with them. And what they found waiting in Poland was a refugee that would allow them to prosper for hundreds of years. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history of any people in human history with The Jewish Story. Click here for more ep...

You can tell a historian by where he begins and ends his story. Here is a prologue to season two, which begins at the Expulsion from Spain and ends at the rise of the State of Israel. The question is - why is this episode about the 3rd Temple? Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history of any people in human histor...

The national existence of the Jewish people revolves around the question - what is an Am. In this special Independence Day episode, Rav Mike takes a look at the history and theology behind Jewish national embodiment. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history of any people in human history with The Jewish Story. Cl...

The Sages teach that Jerusalem has seventy names. Rav Mike speaks a bit about how these names hold our relationship with the city over time, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Jerusalem's reunification. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history of any people in human history with The Jewish Story. Click here for...

The Expulsion from Spain marks a turning point in Jewish history. In addition to a national trauma which evokes the memory of the Temple's destruction, it challenges the model of identity which has served the Jews for nearly 2000 years. In this epilogue, Rav Mike takes a look back at where we have been in order to raise some thoughts about where we are headed. Stay tuned for season two! Deepen you...

A lot more happened in 1492 than Columbus sailing the ocean blue. Upon their marriage, Ferdinand and Isabella are determined to make newborn Spain a unified country, which means that there is no place for Am Yisrael. The tools of Inquisition and war will earn them the title of the Catholic Monarchs, and will birth the means of oppression employed by totalitarian societies down through the ages. De...

The forced conversion of tens of thousands of Jews may have seemed like a great victory for Christianity, but in reality these conversos were a ticking bomb in the heart of Christian culture. In this episode Rav Mike Feuer speaks about the lead up to the great expulsion - the last great Christian/Jewish debate of the Middle Ages, the first historical appearance of racial Jew hatred and the civil w...

When the storm broke in 1391, thousands were dead and even more converted. A new model of identity was born in the century before the expulsion, and it poses challenges that are present down to our day. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history of any people in human history with The Jewish Story. Click here for m...

When faced with the choice between the cross and the sword, the Ashkenazi communities of the middle ages chose martyrdom. Why was the decision of their Spanish contemporaries so different? Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history of any people in human history with The Jewish Story. Click here for more episodes i...

In the thirteenth centuries the stories of Ashkenaz and Spain begin to draw together. This is the great age of Christian expansion, which brings on book burning and religious disputation. It is also the age in which the kabbalah emerges as an answer to the challenge of evil. Listen now to this latest episode of The Jewish Story by Rabbi Mike Feuer. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People...

The twelfth century was a time of spiritual expansion as the Tosafists transformed the Talmud and the Pietists of Ashkenaz awakened new depths of the soul. Darkness grew as well, as the Crusades rolled through Europe and the terrible new accusation of the blood libel was born. But it was specifically out of this darkness that the depths emerged. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and...

The origins of Ashkenazi Jewry are bound up with the rise of Christian Europe. As the kingdoms of the Middle Ages began to take shape, teachers like Rashi gave form to a kingdom of the Torah which the Jews could inhabit while living among their neighbors. But the tranquility of the early years was shattered by the horrors of the First Crudsade, and Ashkenazi Jewry would never be the same again. De...