The Tikvah Podcast

What is the condition of modern Judaism? It is simultaneously rationalist and non-rationalist, Israeli and Diasporic, nationalist and individualist, powerful and fearful of rising anti-Semitism, particularist and universalist. To sort out modern Judaism's camps and contradictions and to offer some thoughts on Judaism's theological, sociological, and political future, Tikvah hosted a conversation between two very different thinkers who taught in Tikvah's summer fellowship and advanced institutes. Leora Batnitzky is an American scholar of modern Jewish philosophy, a professor at Princeton University, and the author, most recently, of How Judaism Become a Religion. Micah Goodman is an Israeli educator and the Founding CEO of Ein Prat Academy, a Beit Midrash instructing secular and religious young leaders in Israel in both religious and philosophic texts. Goodman is also the author of two Israeli bestsellers: The Dream of the Kuzari and The Secrets of the Guide for the Perplexed.

Recording took place on July 28, 2014.

 

Direct download: Leora_Batnitzky_and_Micah_Goodman_-_Modern_Judaism.mp3
Category:Event -- posted at: 12:00pm EST

What is the proper relationship between Jews and political power? To what extent should Jews eschew worldly power for the sake of piety? How Machiavellian can Jews allow themselves to be? Two of the Jewish world's most esteemed intellectuals, Ruth Wisse and Moshe Halbertal, examined these questions for participants in the Tikvah Fund's Summer Fellowship and Advanced Institutes. Wisse, an American expert on Yiddish literature generally associated with the right, and Halbertal, an Israeli expert in Jewish philosophy and ethics generally associated with the left, engaged in a discussion marked by passion, wit, nerve, and collegiality. About halfway through the panel, the moderator, Allan Arkush, opened the floor to audience questions on everything from the possibility of anti-Semitism in America to the Israeli Defense Forces' Code of Ethics. 

 

Recording took place on July 28, 2014.

Direct download: Ruth_Wisse_and_Moshe_Halbertal_-_Jews_and_Power.mp3
Category:Event -- posted at: 12:00pm EST

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