Judaism Unbound

David Seidenberg, author of Kabbalah and Ecology: God's Image in the More-Than-Human World, joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about why Shmita is the central commandment of the entire Torah. This episode is the fourth in a series of episodes about the Shmita year. The Shmita year is a once-every-seven-years occasion, first described in the Bible, and its next occurrence begins on Rosh Hashanah 2021 (September 6th, 2021). It calls for a radical recalibration of our society’s relationship to land, food, debt, work, equality, and time – all of which resonate with crises we face today. Learn more at Shmitaproject.org.If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!To access shownotes for this episode, click here.

Wendie and Lex are back for a special bonus episode, to think together about the holi-month of Elul, and the upcoming holi-year of Shmita (sabbatical year). In this conversation, they connect Shmita to the practice of land acknowledgement.This “mini-episode” is the second of two that have been released as part of Elul Unbound 2021 (our 13th and 14 Elul episodes overall). To listen to all of our previous Elul bonus episodes, released through Elul Unbound 2018, 2019, and 2020, click here. Join our bi-weekly journey through Elul Unbound 2021, our month-long preparation for Shmitah, by signing up at this link. Sign up for our September 3rd Shabbat gathering, where we will be exploring Elul and Sh'mitah in real time, with friends, by clicking here.

Cindy Milstein, editor of There is Nothing so Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists, joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about what anarchism is, and why "Jewish Anarchism" isn't at all a contradiction. This episode is the third in a series of episodes about the Shmita year. The Shmita year is a once-every-seven-years occasion, first described in the Bible, and its next occurrence begins on Rosh Hashanah 2021 (September 6th, 2021). It calls for a radical recalibration of our society’s relationship to land, food, debt, work, equality, and time – all of which resonate with crises we face today. Learn more at Shmitaproject.org.If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!To access shownotes for this episode, click here.

Eli Kaplan-Wildmann, a designer and artistic director who has worked extensively on designing spaces for television and theater, along with designing Jewish ritual objects, joins Dan and Lex on this episode of Judaism Unbound. Their conversation begins with an exploration of Kaplan-Wildmann’s new project (Shmita Steps), which is simultaneously a “cooperative strategy game about redistribution of wealth” and a ritual object meant to combine elements of the Passover Seder with the Biblical idea of Shmita.This episode is the second in a series of episodes about the Shmita year. The Shmita year is a once-every-seven-years occasion, first described in the Bible, and its next occurrence begins on Rosh Hashanah 2021 (September 6th, 2021). It calls for a radical recalibration of our society’s relationship to land, food, debt, work, equality, and time – all of which resonate with crises we face today. Learn more at Shmitaproject.org.If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!To access shownotes for this episode, click here.

The Shmita year is a once-every-seven-years occasion. For an entire year, the land is given its own Shabbat -- a chance to rest. And it's not only humans' relationship to land that gets "reset." It is also a Biblical commandment for debts between human beings to be forgiven when the Shmita year rolls around.In this first episode devoted to the topic of Shmita (the next Shmita year begins on Rosh Hashanah, in less than a month!), Hannah Knibb Henza and Sarah Zell Young, from The Shmita Project, join Dan and Lex to consider what Shmita has been in the past and what Shmita could be moving forward. In doing so, they name the centrality of art, and creativity, as we re-invigorate this ancient practice. They also undrescore the opportunity we have, as Jews and human beings, to align Shmita with a variety of contemporary fights for social and climate justice. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!To access shownotes for this episode, click here.

One year ago, Wendie Bernstein Lash and Lex Rofeberg released a bonus episode of this podcast entitled "Prepping for the Holi-Year." At that point, Sh'mitah, a once-every-seven-years opportunity to radically recalibrate our relationship to the planet, and to our society, was a year away.But now...it ain't a year away anymore! It's one month away. So it's time to really, truly gear up for this holi-year. Wendie and Lex are back, to game-plan together for what this year might mean -- on an individual level and a collective level.This “mini-episode” is the first of two that are being released as part of Elul Unbound 2021 (our 13th and 14 Elul episodes overall). To listen to all of our previous Elul bonus episodes, released through Elul Unbound 2018, 2019, and 2020, click here. Join our bi-weekly journey through Elul Unbound 2021, our month-long preparation for the "holi-year" that is Shmitah (the holi-year), by signing up at this link. Sign up for our first weekly Zoom gathering, where we will be exploring Elul and Sh'mitah in real time, with friends, by clicking here.

Dan and Lex like books! Very much! So much that...they want to consider what American Judaism would look like, if contemporary Jews centered reading Jewish fiction to the same extent that we center other elements of Jewish experience, like synagogue attendance. They also explore what might be different, if we understood that the seemingly mundane Jewish literature of one era is, potentially, the Jewish sacred text (Torah) of the next.If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!To access shownotes for this episode, click here.

Dan and Lex  continue their deep-dive into the Pew Research Center's recently-released study on Jewish Americans. They also bring in another study of American Jews -- the Jewish Electorate Institute's National Survey of Jewish Voters -- which garnered a number of headlines due to its findings around shifting approaches of American Jews to Israel-Palestine.There are a lot of numbers/percentages from studies thrown around in this episode! So that you’re able to soak them in most effectively, it may be worth having the studies themselves visible to you as you listen. You can access the Pew 2020 study of Jewish Americans here, and the JEI’s National Survey of Jewish Voters here.If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!To access shownotes for this episode, click here.

Tema Smith, Director of Professional Development for 18 Doors, joins Dan and Lex to discuss -- and re-frame -- the Pew Research Center's 2020 study of Jewish Americans.If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!To access shownotes for this episode, click here.

Philip Graubart, author of Planet of the Jews and Women and God (and many other books), joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about those two books. Each of them, in different ways, provides commentary on what it is to be an American Jew, and what Judaism could look like in various alternate universes.If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!To access shownotes for this episode, click here.