The Podcast of Jewish Ideas

J.J. and Dr. Eric Lawee comment on Rashi's astounding career, and refuse to gloss over his contentious journey to join the Jewish canon.  Please send any complaints or compliments to podcasts@torahinmotion.orgFor more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsEric Lawee is a professor in the Department of Bible at Bar-Ilan University, where he teaches the history of Jewish biblical scholarship. His Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic (2019; paperback 2021), published by Oxford University Press, won the 2019 Jewish Book Award in the category of Scholarship of the Jewish Book Council and was finalist for a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award of the Association for Jewish Studies. He holds the Rabbi Asher Weiser Chair for Medieval Biblical Commentary Research and has just completed a six-year term as director of Bar-Ilan's Institute for Jewish Bible Interpretation.

J.J. and Dr. Menachem Fisch decided that this is the time for studying the philosophy of the book of Qohelet, and they don't study it in vain. Please send any complaints or compliments to podcasts@torahinmotion.orgFor more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsMenachem Fisch is the Joseph and Ceil Mazer Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy of Science at Tel Aviv University and Co-Director of the Frankfurt-Tel Aviv Center for the Study of Religious and Interreligious Dynamics. He has published widely on the history of 19th century British science and mathematics, on rationality and agency, and the philosophy of Talmudic legal reasoning. His recent work explores the limits of normative self-criticism, transformative dialogue, rabbinicliterature’s dispute of religiosity, the rationality of scientific framework transitions, Jewishresources for a pluralist political liberalism, the theo-political roots of Israel's retreat frompolitical Zionism, and reflexive emotions.

J.J. and Dr. Maren Niehoff comment on Philo's ideas and attempt to weave him back into the fabric of Jewish history. Send any complaints or compliments to podcasts@torahinmotion.orgFor more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsBefore joining the Dept. of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Maren R. Niehoff was a Junior Fellow at Harvard and received her doctorate and MA from Oxford University. Her BA studies were split between Berlin and Jerusalem. Today she is an elected member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Among her numerous publications are Philo of Alexandria. An Intellectual Biography (Yale 2018; Polonsky Prize 2019) and Homeric Scholarship and Biblical Exegesis in Alexandria (Cambridge 2011; Polonsky Prize 2011).  Currently, she completes a translation and commentary of the Philonic treatise On the Freedom of Every Righteous Person (Brill). Her research interests include the New Testament and rabbinic literature in the Land of Israel.

J.J. and Dr. Neil Rogachevsky skip down the winding (theoretical) road towards Israeli independence, and tell the story of the drafting of Ben Gurion's declaration of independence. Send any complaints or compliments to podcasts@torahinmotion.orgFor more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsNeil Rogachevsky is assistant professor and associate director at the Straus Center of Yeshiva University, where he teaches Israel studies and political thought. His commentary and essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Tablet, The Atlantic, Mosaic, Commentary, Jewish Review of Books, American Affairs, Ha’aretz and other publications. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge.

J.J. and Dr. Jonathan Garb march down the various paths of the Ram"chal's thought, and straighten out some mysteries of his life, thought, and reception.Send any complaints or compliments to podcasts@torahinmotion.orgFor more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsJonathan Garb is the Gershom Scholem Professor of Kabbalah in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2014, he received the Israel Academy of Sciences andHumanities’ Gershom Scholem Prize for Kabbalah Research. His latest book is: Does God Doubt? R.Gershon Henoch Leiner’s Thought in Its Contexts (Brill, 2024).

J.J. and Dr. Jeremy Brown circulate some of the Jewish responses to Copernicus.Jeremy Brown is the author of New Heavens and a New Earth; The Jewish Reception of Copernican Thought (Oxford University Press 2013) and Influenza; The Hundred Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History (Simon and Schuster 2018). He is an emergency physician and Director of the Office of Emergency Care Research at the National Institutes of Health. Jeremy is the author of over forty peer-reviewed papers and four books, including two textbooks of emergency medicine published by Oxford University Press. He and his wife, Erica live in Silver Spring, Maryland. They have four children, three more by marriage and two beautiful grandchildren.

J.J. and Dr. Christoph Schulte contract a serious case of mystical curiousity, and diminish the mysteries around the idea of Tzimtzum. Prof. Dr. Christoph Schulte is Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at theUniversity of Potsdam since 2001 and for many years head of the Department of Jewish andReligious Studies. He studied Philosophy, Jewish Studies, Theology and Journalism in Heidelberg,Berlin and Jerusalem, did his PhD at Freie Universität Berlin 1987 and was a fellow and VisitingProfessor in Jerusalem (1989-91), Montreal (1991), Paris (1992-93), Chicago (1995), Aix-en-Provence (1997-98), Philadelphia (2009/10), Zurich (2014), Basel (2016), Haifa (2017/2023), andHamburg (2020). He received the Gleim-Preis (Halberstadt 2003) and the Inklusionspreis (Potsdam2022). His most recent book publications are Von Moses bis Moses: Der jüdische Mendelssohn(Hannover 2020), Mendelssohn-Studien (Hannover 2023) and Zimzum: God and the Origin ofthe World (Philadelphia 2023).

J.J. and Dr. Sam Lebens prove God?! (Or at least, they discuss the history of some Jewish arguments for God.)Samuel Lebens is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa. He works in a wide array of philosophical fields including metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of fiction, and most centrally, the philosophy of religion. His recent books include, The Principles of Judaism (Oxford University Press), A Guide for the Jewish Undecided (Maggid Books), Philosophy of Religion: The Basics (Routledge) and (with Tatjana von Solodkoff) Thinking about Stories: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Fiction (Routledge). His website is www.samlebens.com

J.J. and Dr. Leora Batnitzky look for hidden truths in Strauss' thought. Dr. Leora Batnitzky is the Ronald O. Perelman Professor of Jewish studies and professor of religion at Princeton University. She is the author of Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation and Idolatry and Representation: The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig Reconsidered (Princeton).

J.J. and Dr. Daniel Matt become wiser and gain understanding while discussing the Kabbalistic ideas of The Zohar . Daniel Matt is a prominent scholar of Kabbalah and the Zohar. He has been featured in Time and Newsweek and on National Public Radio. His books include The Essential Kabbalah (translated into eight languages), Zohar: Annotated and Explained, and God and the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony between Science and Spirituality (revised edition, 2016). In 2022, his biography of Elijah the Prophet (Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation) was published by Yale University Press in their series Jewish Lives. This book was awarded the inaugural Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Book Prize, established by Yeshiva University. Some years ago, Daniel completed an 18-year project of translating and annotating the Zohar. In 2016, Stanford University Press published his ninth volume of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, concluding the Zohar’s main commentary on the Torah. For this work, Daniel has been honored with a National Jewish Book Award and a Koret Jewish Book Award. The Koret award hailed his translation as “a monumental contribution to the history of Jewish thought.” Daniel received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University and for twenty years served as professor at the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He has also taught at Stanford University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Daniel lives in Berkeley with his wife Hana. He currently teaches Zohar online. For information about these ongoing Zohar courses, see his website: danielcmatt.com