The Stoic Jew

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: Today’s episode was unplanned. I was feeling a bit emotionally raw on Tuesday night when I recorded this (for reasons I discuss on the podcast), and I decided to express what was on my mind and just let that take the episode wherever it went. ---------- Seneca – Letter #7 (conclusion) In order, however, that I may not today have...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: In today’s episode we discuss Seneca’s surprisingly hardline assertion that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to avoid blushing and other symptoms of stage fright. As a public speaking teacher, I take issue with this, and I support my opposition by citing some core teachings of Epictetus and Mishlei. If any of you have...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: We’re going to jump around a bit from letter to letter and topic to topic for the next couple of weeks. In today’s episode we read about Seneca’s reluctance to advise his student, Lucilius, from afar. The reasoning he provides is a core tenet of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, which is the foundation of my approach to teaching. Over th...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: On Asarah ba’Teves, our most recent fast day, we read Seneca’s Letter #18 and examined the differences between the Stoic and Jewish views of fasting. In today’s episode we focus on the “on festivals” part of his letter, in which Seneca advises his student Lucilius on how the philosopher differentiates his own behavior from that o...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: In today’s episode we take a deeper dive into the letter we read yesterday, beginning with a reflection on a mistake often made by some Torah educators, including myself. We then follow up with a counterpoint (which I accidentally teased in yesterday’s episode) examining a topic in this week’s parashah – the aesthetic perfection...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: In today’s episode we begin a new letter in which Seneca warns his student Lucilius about becoming supercilious in his philosophical lifestyle and its external trappings. We compare Seneca’s advice to the guidelines for how a chacham (wise man) should be behave in the framework of kidush ha’shem (sanctifying God’s name) and in th...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: Today we celebrate our 100th episode! In this episode I reflect on the production of this podcast through the perspectives provided by Epictetus, Aurelius, Thoreau, and Rabbi Moskowitz. (And yes, Epictetus actually talks about what makes someone a good Stoic Jew.) Please take a couple of minutes to fill out this 5-question survey...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In today’s episode we wrap up this discussion of friendship with an excerpt from another letter about friendship. I reflect on some realizations I had about friendship during the pandemic in light of these ideas – realizations that ended up sounding less earth-shatteringly profound when I said them out loud than they seemed in my head when...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Seneca states that the fear of opening up to others often stems from the fear of opening up to oneself. The question we explore in this episode is: What is the effect of knowing that there is a Being to whom EVERY aspect of yourself is revealed? In other words, what is the psychological impact of the metaphysical fact of God’s omniscience?...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In today’s episode we take a deeper dive into Seneca’s advice about differentiating between trustworthy and untrustworthy friends. The question is: How do we know which is which? We examine one answer based on Rabbeinu Yonah’s interpretation of a pasuk in Mishlei, and the idea we learn from this pasuk sheds light on a distinction made by t...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In today’s episode we begin a new letter on a topic we haven’t explored before: friendship. We compare Seneca’s criteria for real friends vs. fake friends with the Rambam’s broader criteria, as stated in his commentary on Pirkei Avos. Which classification of friends do you agree with more? ---------- Sources: - Click here to access the ful...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: Since today is George Washington’s Birthday (a.k.a. Presidents Day) I thought it would be fun to take up the question: Was George Washington a Stoic? The answer is clear not only from biographical accounts but from the way he lived. Additionally, one of the two “non-platitudinous” eulogies given at the time of his death (accordin...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Seneca – Letter #1: On Using and Wasting Time (excerpt ) You may desire to know how I, who preach to you so freely, am practicing. I confess frankly: my expense account balances, as you would expect from one who is free-handed but careful. I cannot boast that I waste nothing, but I can at least tell you what I am wasting, and the cause and...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In today’s episode we examine Seneca’s statements about wasting time in light of a pasuk in Tehilim 90 (a.k.a. Tefilah l’Moshe), as explained by the Ibn Ezra. The difference between these two seemingly similar messages reveals a major difference between Stoicism and Judaism. ---------- Seneca – Letter #1: On Using and Wasting Time (excerpt...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In today’s episode we examine Seneca’s statements about wasting time in light of Saadia Gaon’s remarks about God’s relationship to time, noting the underlying metaphysical absurdity of going about life as though you have infinite time to spend and waste. This might not be “pshat” in Seneca or in Saadia Gaon, but I hope you’ll find the thou...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Click here to access the full text of Seneca's Letter. The video version of my shiur entitled Elohai Neshamah Upon Waking can be accessed by clicking here , and the podcast version by clicking here . ---------- If you have questions, comments, or feedback, I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to contact me at rabbischneewei...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Augustine of Hippo – The City of God, Book 6:11 What Seneca thought concerning the Jews Seneca, among the other superstitions of civil theology, also found fault with the sacred things of the Jews, and especially the sabbaths, affirming that they act uselessly in keeping those seventh days, whereby they lose through idleness about the seve...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Seneca – Letter #2 Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future. You do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit. The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability t...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Seneca – Letter #2 Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future. You do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit. The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability t...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Seneca – Letter #2 Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future. You do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit. The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability t...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Seneca – Letter #2 Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future. You do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit. The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability t...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Epictetus – Enchiridion (The Handbook) 1:1 – On the one hand, there are things that are in our power, whereas other things are not in our power. In our power are opinion, impulse, desire, aversion and, in a word, whatever is our own doing. Things not in our power include our body, our possessions, our reputations, our status, and, in a wor...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Today's episode is a sneak peak of what's in store for next season, when we switch from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius to the Letters of Seneca. Today's reading is from the first letter of Seneca I ever read. It's been on my mind because of a conversation I had with a student about what it means to be a reader - som...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! You will soon die and are not yet simple, untroubled, void of suspicion that anything from outside can hurt you, nor kindly disposed towards all, nor counting wisdom to consist only in just action. ---------- Epictetus - Discourses 3:10 (conclusion) Yirmiyahu 22:16 “He judged the case of the poor and the destitute, and then it was good. Is...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! I recorded this episode yesterday morning, in anticipation of getting the first dose of my COVID-19 vaccine. It's a few minutes longer than the usual episode, but that's because it covers three texts: one from Marcus Aurelius, one from Epictetus, and one from Seneca. ---------- The sources cited in today's episode are too lo...