The Jewish Story

The Rambam was the second famous Moses in Jewish History. His accomplishments in Jewish law and philosophy tower over his contemporaries, and are pillars of of the Torah to this very day. Nonetheless, he was the source of great controversy in his day, igniting a struggle which ended in excommunications and book burning. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through th...

Yehudah Halevi was the poet of a generation, and perhaps the most celebrated poet of medieval Spain. He also swam against the tide of philosophical rationalism and invited his readers to experience the Torah from the inside. But how did the national poet of Jewish Spain die outside the walls of Jerusalem? Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkab...

The 10th and 11th centuries of Jewish life in Al Andalus were so rich and productive that they were known as the Golden Age. The Jews struck root deeply in the soil of Muslim culture, and produced warriors, philosophers and poets. In this time of passion, it was not clear what would define Am Yisrael - the call of the spirit or the call of the flesh. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a Peopl...

Spanish Jewry viewed itself as the nobility of the Jewish people, whose roots were in the legendary past. This episode traces history of the community from the fall of Rome until the rise of the Muslim Kingdom of Al Andalus and the linguistic origins of the Golden Age of Spain. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic hi...

There is a debate whether great individuals shape history or history shapes them, but there is no argument about the role which R' Saadia Gaon played in shaping the Jewish Middle Ages. A mastery of poetry, polemics, Bible and language R' Saadia revolutionized Jewish literature. Nevertheless. his quest to reconcile reason and revelation sowed the seeds of conflict to come. Deepen your relationship...

It has been quite a long while since R' Yochanan fled the Roman siege of Jerusalem, but now after seven hundred years the Jews have been united under what can be definitively called Judaism. But the birth of unified identity is itself what invites schism into the world. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history of...

The rise of Islam will offer new opportunities and pose new challenges for the survival of Am Yisrael. On one hand, the struggle to claim the title of true Israel which dominates life in the Christian world will be absent. On the other, the ease of cultural fusion with Islam will sometime cause confusion about where one leaves off and the other begins. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a Peo...

Identity is always a battle. In this episode Rabbi Mike Feuer explores the struggle between Christianity and Judaism in late antiquity, as well the inner struggle of Am Yisrael to preserve its unique voice in the text of the gemara. These two together will fix the topic of our conversation for some time to come. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most r...

It is the end of an era. In this episode Rabbi Mike Feuer explores rabbinic chronology, textual evolution and socio-political context in order to illustrate the shift between the time of the Tanaim and the time of the Amoraim. 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...

R' Yehudah HaNasi redacted the Mishna but he inherited its form and content from R' Akiva. In this episode, Rabbi Mike Feuer explores the nature of the mishna and traces its development in the hands of R' Akiva's students. 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 Sto...

The ruins of the Temple were still smoldering when Judea burst into the flames of rebellion once again. In this episode Rabbi Mike Feuer discusses the final two rounds of the Roman Jewish wars. Filled with brutal bloodshed and failed messiahs, this is the time period which convinced Rome that the Jews were the indigestible element of their Empire. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People a...

In this episode, Rabbi Mike Feuer describes the destruction of Jerusalem from without and from within. In order to do so he compares the perspectives of the great Jewish historian Josephus and the leading Sage R' Yochanan ben Zakkai. In the end it is clear that the real question is not how was Jerusalem destroyed, but rather - why?

In this week's installment, Rabbi Mike Feuer focuses on the eve of the destruction. As the national vessel begins to fray at the seams and the Temple's burning looms, the cultural battle within the text of the Torah erupts. When the smoke clears from the destruction it will be the divergent understandings of God's will as embodied in the text which will serve as the foundation of the future. But f...

In this episode of The Jewish Story, Rabbi Mike Feuer discusses the persona of Hillel the Elder. Hillel was named Nasi, prince, at the same time as Herod was king. In addition, Jesus of Nazareth was born in his lifetime. Together, these three represent competing models of the kingdom of God, and they and their followers will live out a struggle over who will be king. Deepen your relationship with...

Herod the Wicked or Herod the Great? In this episode Rabbi Mike Feuer talks about Herod's kingdom, the final phase of Judea preceding the destruction of the Second Temple. Herod's complex personality matched the fragmented nature of his kingdom, but the state he built was strong enough to hold off the disaster to come. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the...

In this week's episode of The Jewish Story, Rabbi Mike Feuer discusses the rise and fall of the Hasmonean dynasty, from a kingdom of priests to Hellenestic king. Also hear how Judean society began to tear along lines which will define things for some time to come. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic and dramatic history of any p...

In this episode of The Jewish Story, Rabbi Mike Feuer describes the rise of Hellenistic Judaism as the background for the Hanukah story. Judah and his brothers rose in revolt because they understood that identity is a matter of life and death. 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 encounter between Greek and Jewish culture was love at first sight, and one of its great products was the Septuagint - the Greek translation of the Bible. But the closer these cultures grew, the more their conflict came to the surface. Today we fast on the anniversary of this translation. Deepen your relationship with Israel as a People and take a journey through the most remarkable, majestic...

In episode 3 of The Jewish Story, Rabbi Mike Feuer focuses on The Men of the Great Assembly, who lie on the other side of the Persian period from Daniel. They will begin to lay the foundations of Judaism as we know it, but what makes them so great? 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 h...

In Episode 2 of The Jewish Story, Rabbi Mike Feuer explores the walls built by Ezra and Nechemia, and the nature of the identity which emerged. 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 in the series.

The opening episode of the Jewish Story! Rabbi Mike Feuer touches his perspective on history and then tells the story of Daniel as the link between the age of prophecy and the age of wisdom. 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.