In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, David Bashevkin moderates a dialogue between Aryeh Englander—the ex-Orthodox Jew known as “Philo Judeas,” who is a moderator of the ambitious Frum/OTD Dialogue Facebook group—and Daniel Hagler, a frum surgeon and a moderator of the Facebook group Respectfully Debating Judaism.
Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages by Hyam Maccoby
Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by David J. Chalmers
18Forty Podcast: “Rav Moshe Weinberger: Can Mysticism Become a Community?”
“Worlds Together” in Mishpacha
Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life: Rosenzweig, Buber, Levinas, Wittgenstein by Hilary Putnam
How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought by Leora Batnitzky
18Forty Podcast: “Malka Simkovich: The Mystery of the Jewish People”
A Letter in the Scroll: Understanding Our Jewish Identity and Exploring the Legacy of the World’s Oldest Religion by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Leviticus 10:16
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We do our best to have transcripts available the week an episode is released.
We mark the yahrtzeit of Rav Ezra Dovid Halevi Neuberger with remembrances from Dovid Bashevkin and David Fohrman.
As a Haredi woman of the Israeli left, Nechumi Yaffe lives between a few different worlds—and she feels at home in Israel’s new “Religious Left” movement.
Rabbi Dr. Meir Sendor joins us to discuss prayer, human will, and the dangers of mysticism.
We talk to Judah Mischel about how to become a Jewish optimist by choosing to see the good in every corner of Klal Yisrael.
We talk to Elliot Kaufman about what happened inside Israel’s war room after October 7 and how Israel came to lose the battle over its own story.
Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer answers 18 questions on Israel, including the Haredi draft, Israel as a religious state, Messianism, and so much more.
We talk to Rabbi YY Jacobson about how each of us can experience redemptive consciousness by feeling Hashem’s infinite love and presence in this moment.
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we sit down with Rav Moshe Weinberger, rabbi and educator, to discuss the role of mysticism in modern-day Judaism.
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Rabbi Menachem Penner—dean of RIETS at Yeshiva University—and his son Gedalia—a musician, cantor-in-training, and member of the LGBTQ community—about their experience in reconciling their family’s religious tradition with Gedalia’s sexual orientation.
Rabbi Shmuel Braun joins us to discuss spirituality and free will.
In this episode, we talk to a father and daughter who were estranged and then reunited.
We talk to Rabbi Shlomo Pill about how Torah and teshuva have helped him handle his struggle with addiction.
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we sit down for a special podcast with our host, David Bashevkin, to discuss the podcast’s namesake, the year 1840.
The true enemy in Israel’s current war, Einat Wilf says, is what she calls “Palestinianism.”
Haviv answers 18 questions on Israel.
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we sit down with Joey Rosenfeld, social worker and kabbalist, to talk about the differences between mysticism and rationalism and the roles they should play in our lives.
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Malka Simkovich.
We speak with Mark Wildes, founder and director of Manhattan Jewish Experience, about Modern Orthodox outreach.
Micah Goodman doesn’t think Palestinian-Israeli peace will happen within his lifetime. But he’s still a hopeful person.
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, David Bashevkin opens up about his mental health journey.
Efraim Palvanov answers questions on misinformation, prayer as self-reflection, and every Jew’s role in bringing Mashiach.
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Judah, Naomi, and Aharon Akiva Dardik—an olim family whose son went to military jail for refusing to follow to IDF orders and has since become a ceasefire activist at Columbia University—about sticking together as a family despite their fundamental differences.
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Frieda Vizel—a formerly Satmar Jew who makes educational content about Hasidic life—about her work presenting Hasidic Williamsburg to the outside world, and vice-versa.
We talk to Michael Eisenberg about the state of the Jewish People in Israel and the diaspora.
Perhaps the most fundamental question any religious believer can ask is: “Does God exist?” It’s time we find good answers.
Koren’s latest Tanakh Graphic Novel brings a fresh midrashic lens to Bereshit and Noach.
As America grows lonelier, Rav Soloveitchik’s vision of the self offers a challenge to Emersonian self-reliance.
Children don’t come with guarantees. Washing machines come with guarantees.
To talk about the history of Jewish mysticism is in many ways to talk about the history of the mystical community.
At some point, my husband and I will need to tell my children that I’m agnostic. But for now, we’re focused on…
My family made aliyah over a decade ago. Navigating our lives as American immigrants in Israel is a day-to-day balance.
Children cannot truly avoid the consequences of estrangement. Their parents’ shadow will always follow.
When the world you knew no longer exists, how do you rebuild a self—or a world—that is worth returning to?
Rav Froman was a complicated character in Israel and in his own home city of Tekoa, as people from both the right…
Watching AI spread through every corner of life raises an unsettling question: What kind of world are we building for our children?
I consider the Rebbe to be my personal teacher, and I find this teaching particularly relevant for us now.
Joy and meaning can be found not only despite the brokenness, but even because of the brokenness.
Christianity’s focus on the afterlife historically discouraged Jews from discussing it—but Jews very much believe in it.
A 94-year-old Holocaust survivor, a lone soldier, and more. Here are seven olim sharing their stories of aliyah.
From Freud through today, our desire to heal asks us to consider why we care so badly—and maybe if it’s hindering the…
Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wears the mantle of Kahane in Israel. Many Orthodox Jews welcomed him with open arms.
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro asks us to reconsider what, if anything, separates humans from machines.
Their motivations are not ideological extremism but a basic survival instinct to protect their families from the past’s failed paradigms.
It isn’t only censorship that creates the narrative of our history, but it is every creative endeavor that we engage in.
From verses in Parshat Bo to desert caves, tefillin emerge as one of Judaism’s earliest embodied practices.
Silicon Valley promises ethical AI. But do we even know how to raise ethical children?
I’d advise reading Rav Kook as you would read a poem, with an eye less to the argument or claim he is…
A Hezbollah missile killed Rabbi Dr. Tamir Granot’s son, Amitai Tzvi, on Oct. 15. Here, he pleas for Haredim to enlist into…
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Rabbi YY Jacobson, one of the foremost online teachers of Torah, about…
Talking about the “Haredi community” is a misnomer, Jonathan Rosenblum says, and simplifies its diversity of thought and perspectives. A Yale-trained lawyer…
In this episode, Liel Leibovitz reflects on falling in love with the Talmud precisely because it is so difficult—and on how its…
We speak with Naftuli Moster about how and why he changed his understanding of the values imparted by Judaism.
We talk to author and theoretical physicist Berel Leib Epstein about rational reasons to choose to believe in Judaism and live a…
We talk to Tania Friedlander about how her husband’s Parkinson’s diagnosis challenged her expectations and taught her to become capable of more.
What is Jewish peoplehood? In a world that is increasingly international in its scope, our appreciation for the national or the tribal…
On this 18Forty panel, we speak with Alex Jakubowski of Lightning Studios, Sara Wolkenfeld of Sefaria, and Ari Lamm of BZ Media…
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we speak with Diana Fersko, senior rabbi of the Village Temple Reform synagogue, about denominations…
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we speak with Mark Wildes, founder and director of Manhattan Jewish Experience, about Modern Orthodox…
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