Thu, 27 July 2023
Perhaps more than any other major religious tradition, Judaism is mediated through words. God first communicated to Abraham through intelligible speech. Moses brought down from Mount Sinai tablets inscribed with words codifying the structure of Jewish moral order. The book of Deuteronomy commands that every Jewish king write his own Torah scroll. For millions of Jews, the study of Jewish texts constitutes the holiest activity of all. So perhaps it is not surprising that, seen in this light, words, letters, the technology and artistry of writing, the vocation of the scribe—the sofer, in Hebrew—deserve an elevated place in Jewish tradition. The English word calligrapher comes from the Greek phrase kalos graphos, beautiful writing; the vast tradition of Hebrew calligraphy offers no small amount of beautiful writing. This week on the podcast, host Jonathan Silver looks at a stunning new book, The Beauty of the Hebrew Letter by the sofer Izzy Pludwinski, and speaks with its author. It's a lavish coffee-table book full of gorgeous illustrations; it can be bought here. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.
Direct download: Izzy_Pludwinski_with_INTRO.mp3
Category:Great Jewish Essays and Ideas -- posted at: 6:38pm EST |
Thu, 20 July 2023
Direct download: Tikvah_Podcast_Berman2_Final.mp3
Category:Great Jewish Essays and Ideas -- posted at: 7:16pm EST |
Thu, 13 July 2023
The first century Roman essayist and philosopher Plutarch is perhaps most famous today for his stylized, paired biographies of Greek and Roman statesmen. In Plutarch’s parallel lives, Alexander, who conquered the Mediterranean world, is compared to Julius Caesar, who did the same a few hundred years later. Alcibiades and Coriolanus are paired together to show how spiritedness and martial virtue, when not tempered by political judgment, can wreak havoc. Plutarch’s lives are moral portraits; their task is the moral formation of the reader, civic education, and the inculcation of virtue. They inspired Shakespeare’s portraits of Coriolanus, Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, and Casca. The Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau likewise drew inspiration from them in, for example, his treatise Emile. And the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson once called Plutarch’s parallel lives “a bible for heroes.” But what about the Bible, and the Jewish tradition it inaugurates? Meir Soloveichik, the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, the director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, and host of the podcasts Bible365 and Jerusalem365, believes that Jewish history offers its own examples of Jewish leadership. He's just published a new book, Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship, that attempts to do for the Jews what Plutarch did for the ancient Greeks and Romans. He joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver here to talk about that new book. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.
Direct download: Tikvah_Podcast_Soloveitchik_Final.mp3
Category:Great Jewish Essays and Ideas -- posted at: 6:51pm EST |
Thu, 6 July 2023
At the end of May, the Biden administration released the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Anti-Semitism. This document looks at the threat anti-Semitism poses to America, outlines ways the federal government can improve the safety and security of Jewish communities, offers plans for countering anti-Semitic discrimination online, in media, and in schools, and describes the administration’s vision for partnering with various religious and civic groups to address the issue. The existence of this strategy is both praiseworthy and worrying. Often in Jewish history it has been the very governments to which Jews are subject that themselves fuel or carry out anti-Semitic attacks; now, the government is trying to prevent them. Still, the fact that such a national strategy is now needed is a sign of some disturbing trends in American culture and American public life. Tevi Troy, a veteran of the American government, recently analyzed the Biden administration’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism in a new essay, called “How to Combat Anti-Semitism,” for the journal National Affairs. Here, he joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to discuss his ideas. In particular, he wonders if, however, praiseworthy or well-intended the impulse behind this national strategy might be, the federal government has the wherewithal to do any good here. Then, looking a little more deeply into the report, he raises other questions—questions having to do with the definition of anti-Semitism, the strategic conceptions deployed to fight against it, the partners that have been enlisted to help implement these initiatives, and so forth. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.
Direct download: Tikvah_Podcast_Troy_Final.mp3
Category:Great Jewish Essays and Ideas -- posted at: 5:56pm EST |