Today I talked to Roslyn Weiss, editor of Hasdai Crescas: Collected Writings (Library of the Jewish People, 2023).
Hasdai Crescas spent his life in public service - as a rabbi and community leader in desperate times in 14th-century Spain. Despite having limited time for writing, he produced several important works, which Collected Writings presents in their ... Show More
Yesterday
Luca Cottini, "The Rise of Americanism in Italy, 1888-1919" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked a pivotal time for the United States as the nation emerged as a political and industrial powerhouse and fashioned its new value system. Amid waves of emigration and evolving cultural exchanges, Italy’s relationship with Ame ... Show More
59m 3s
Yesterday
Arnoud S. Q. Visser, "On Pedantry: A Cultural History of the Know-it-All" (Princeton UP, 2025)
A lively and entertaining cultural history of a supremely annoying intellectual vice Intellectuals have long provoked scorn and irritation, even downright aggression. Many learned individuals have cast such hostility as a badge of honor, a sign of envy, or a form of resistance to ... Show More
34m 12s
Feb 1
Danielle N. Boaz, "Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Coined in the middle of the nineteenth century, the term "voodoo" has been deployed largely by people in the U.S. to refer to spiritual practices--real or imagined--among people of African descent. "Voodoo" is one way that white people have invoked their anxieties and stereotypes ... Show More
1h 2m
May 2024
Assaf Tamari, "God as Patient: The Medical Discourse of Lurianic Kabbalah" (Magnes Press, 2023)
In a broken world, in which even God Himself is in a state of deep crisis, what is required in order to mend the rupture? How can one heal God and His world? Moreover, what might allow our actions to be effective? These questions stand at the heart of the Lurianic Kabbalah, the a ... Show More
40m 56s
Nov 2023
Providence and Power: Rabbi Meir Soloveichik on Jewish Statesmanship from King David to David Ben Gurion
For thousands of years, the Jewish people lacked a political state; yet, what can we say about the Jewish tradition of statesmanship? What makes it distinctive, and what can we learn from it? In Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship (Encounter Books, 2023) , ... Show More
53m 39s
Sep 2023
the esoteric tradition under the surface of early christianity (part 2 of 5)
This marks part 2 of a 5-part series where I will read aloud chapters from Manly P. Hall's “The Wisdom of the Knowing Ones: Gnosticism, the Key to Esoteric Christianity.” In this episode, we'll be reading chapter one, “Gnostism, The Key to Esoteric Christianity.” What you'll lear ... Show More
2h 3m