IKAR Podcasts

For millennia, we’ve tried to understand how Aaron, Moshe’s brother, remained silent, even acquiescent after suffering unimaginable loss. Some say his heart turned to stone—he simply could no longer feel. Prophetic grief, in contrast, is born at the intersection of heartache and fury, and rages against reality. When experienced by not only by individuals but by the collective, bursts of prophetic rage and grief—while imperfect political movements—have the power to overturn world orders. Some reflections on my recent trip to Israel and the meaning and potential of this protest movement.

Three times a year, the Torah instructs, we’re meant to drop everything and set off on a collective journey to a sacred destination. While these pilgrimages have disappeared from our practice, it’s worth wondering why the Torah selects this religious behavior as the primary way to capture and reanimate the core values of these holidays. Pilgrimage, it turns out, is the ideal way to tell the story of Passover. 

In Pirkei Avot, we read that "A free person isone who studies Torah." How can the study of Torah help us understandand appreciate what it means to be free?

Rabbi Kasher’s farewell sermon, a pre-Passover reflection on the role of mitzvot in Jewish life. 

Right now we find ourselves approaching Passover where we are reminded of our oppression and slavery in Egypt and our eventual path toward freedom. This year it's coinciding with proposed new national policies to turn away more asylum seekers are our borders. How can we reconcile what is happening now with our own central narrative as a people who left everything to seek freedom? What lessons can we learn about how to use our voices to fight for more justice?

Spring is springing and the month of Nissan is coming! What will your renewal and regeneration look like this year?

How our artists—then and now—transform even the deepest suffering into worlds suffused with beauty. Celebrating Betzalel, Robert Russel, and the artist within us all.

Astrologer Chani Nicholas joins Rabbi Kasher to discuss astrology in the Torah and one of the greatest Jewish thinkers who just happened to be an astrologer himself. They discuss Ibn Ezra, the intersection of Judaism and astrology, the implications astrology has for concepts like fate and freewill, and so much more.

After a week of violence, we must hear the torah of the streets of Tel Aviv. Brief reflections on the heartache and the hope.