IKAR Podcasts: Recent Episodes
IKAR
This summer, we’ve become a city of picket lines, with more than 100,000 workers out on strike. Though the particulars of each strike might differ, screenwriters, actors, hotel employees, and city staffers are unified in demanding greater respect from their employers and the right to a sustainable livelihood. The Torah is clear that the dangerous gap between the power of the employer and the worker necessitates our solidarity with the worker’s pursuit of dignity. Let’s make our voices heard.
Our Torah teaches clearly that during war you cannot cut down enemy trees. How does that impact our understanding of the fires ravaging Maui? The horrible toll of colonization and climate change is all around us, what are we called to do?
The underexplored Jewish number of 42 traces our journey from slavery to freedom and deepens our relationship with God. What can we learn from Moshe’s experiences of that number to help inform our own journeys with God, freedom, and legacy?
There is no justice in answering violence with more violence. It’s not only that the death penalty is ridden with racism and gross inequity, and that every execution potentially risks the life of an innocent. It’s that all people—even those capable of great harm—have infinite worth, and we all—even those most set in their ways—possess the capacity for growth and change. None of us has the right to deny that to another.
Featuring stories from Josalynn Smith, Tal Kempler, Steven Rubenstein, Alicia Louzon-Heisler and MCed by Nic Lossoreli
The sin of the spies sent to assess the Promised Land? These princes couldn't fathom sharing power. That failure of moral imagination cost a whole generation, condemned to wander, landless and vulnerable for four decades before entering the land. Like so many people of privilege after them, the spies preferred that everyone suffer rather than share the abundance equitably and fairly. Let us not make the same miscalculation.
(Trigger Warning: Discussion of teenage suicidal ideation. Please keep and share the numnber 988 for those that need a little help in times of crisis.) Those feelings of aloneness, or differentness, or social irrelevance are as old as time. In Aaron, something beautiful and eternal was born from the heartache. What about in us? The reminder that together we can beat back the darkness... by honoring the light that dwells within each of us.
Source sheet here: https://ikar.box.com/s/t1tfkt5grb10t96zuxakm00j3iq0qnjo In perhaps the most heartbreaking verse of the Torah, Esav cries out to his father for a blessing just like his younger brother had received. To understand these tears and the tragic arc set into motion by this moment, we turn to a surprising source for insight: The Book of Esther. Uncovering the hidden conversation between these two texts implores us to love expansively and without limits.
There’s nothing brave about regurgitating antisemitic lies. That’s not truth to power, it’s unwitting support of white power. It’s time to deconstruct these narrative fallacies, and tell a new story.
Join us for a conversation between Rabbi Sharon Brous and leaders from Breaking the Silence, an NGO providing discharged Israeli personnel and reservists a means to confidentially recount their experiences in the Occupied Territories. This is a Q&A and discussion that surrounded a screening of Mission Hebron, a short documentary by Rona Segal based on the testimony of Israeli soldiers who served in the West Bank. To see the documentary, visit our YouTube channel here.
How can we understand so called religious people aligning with a regressive politics that relishes stripping rights rather than expanding them, that honors guns over humans, fetuses over hungry children, incarceration over restorative justice, environmental devastation over stewardship? Our core theological commitments must manifest in the reality we seek to build, a society of compassion and wakefulness, love and justice. One that honors the divine image in every person.
Love matters most when our family is in danger. A love that reminds you how far you’ll fallen, a love that helps you walk away from the path of self-destruction. Avram exhibits that kind of love towards his nephew Lot, and we must too towards Israel, as they walk an increasingly dangerous path.
Rev. Dr. Najuma Smith-Pollard, spiritual leader of Word of Encouragement Community Church, joins Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation on recent racist and anti-Semitic incidents and how true friendship and allyship is the only way to overcome bigotry.
There is a direct line from the 1995 murder of Yitzhak Rabin to the ascendance of right wing, ultranationalist extremists in Israel today. The election this past week has me revisiting a question that has haunted me for more than 25 years: did the assassin murder a man or a movement?
Rather than turn against one another, we must turn toward each another. Rather than assume that your gain is my loss, your representation is my disenfranchisement, your liberation is my oppression… we must recognize that your liberation is essential to my own. We must trust that the only way to build beloved community is together. This is the moral message of the Torah: we are our brothers’ keepers.
A new cycle of reading through the Torah! A new book! And a new season of Best Book Ever!
These are our stories, stories told by IKAR community members about how it feels to struggle with the high cost of affording a place to live. For some of us, housing instability was caused by the breakup of a relationship we had to leave, for others, because of an illness or disability, and for some, simply because the rents keep going up and pay is not keeping pace. We’re telling these stories because we at IKAR are committed to working together for systemic change in our housing policy. Homes end homelessness, and homes are what we all need to feel a measure of safety and security. We hope you’ll feel inspired to share our stories with friends and we hope that you’ll join us in our work for building more homes.
We think of the Bible as a fixed book, but an ancient debate amongst the Rabbis reveal how close Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) came to being left out of the canon. What’s so dangerous about this book of the Bible, and why is crucially important that it found its way in?
I spent the summer reading banned books. Here’s what I learned: empathy poses the greatest threat to tyranny. Art is the antidote to numbness. And Torah is the most dangerous book of all.
This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from September 29, 2022 that has been edited for brevity. Watch the full class on IKAR's YouTube channel.
Some lessons we learn just once, but the deeper wisdom we learn over and over and over. This summer was my coping with prostate cancer and surgery. And the old lessons were there to greet me on the other side: the world is prepared for us, it takes (and we are) a village), we are marinating in love.
Culture change always starts with stories. And we aren’t the only living beings with stories to tell. The Earth’s chorus of voices demands moral engagement, a new approach to our planet in peril.
Culture change always starts with stories. And we aren’t the only living beings with stories to tell. The Earth’s chorus of voices demands moral engagement, a new approach to our planet in peril.
Our world is crying out for a subversive sequel, a redemption narrative. It’s time to write a new and better, more just and more inclusive version of our story. We must plant seeds for the future now, before it’s too late.
Our world is crying out for a subversive sequel, a redemption narrative. It’s time to write a new and better, more just and more inclusive version of our story. We must plant seeds for the future now, before it’s too late.
During this time of cheshbon hanefesh or accounting of the soul, are we keeping our corner of the body of the Jewish people healthy with communally, unified practice? I believe, it's time to create a liberally minded halacha (practice of Jewish law) to meet our sensibilities of the day yet remain true to the commandments of our tradition.
During this time of cheshbon hanefesh or accounting of the soul, are we keeping our corner of the body of the Jewish people healthy with communally, unified practice? I believe, it's time to create a liberally minded halacha (practice of Jewish law) to meet our sensibilities of the day yet remain true to the commandments of our tradition.
The warnings famously issued in this parashah are not Biblical fantasy—they are living reality. When we allow powerful people to deceive, mock and instrumentalize those most vulnerable, when we cede to a norm of heartlessness, indifference and the perversion of justice, there is no end to the cruelties that will permeate our society. It’s time to wake up—to recognize this moment and movement for exactly what it is.
The warnings famously issued in this parashah are not Biblical fantasy—they are living reality. When we allow powerful people to deceive, mock and instrumentalize those most vulnerable, when we cede to a norm of heartlessness, indifference and the perversion of justice, there is no end to the cruelties that will permeate our society. It’s time to wake up—to recognize this moment and movement for exactly what it is.
Where does our national story begin? With a wandering Aramean, according to the story told in this week's parsha. But exactly who that Aramean was is a matter of great debate.
Where does our national story begin? With a wandering Aramean, according to the story told in this week's parsha. But exactly who that Aramean was is a matter of great debate.
Sifting through a dense catalog of state regulations in search of some inspiration for the High Holy Days - with some help from the Ba'al Shem Tov and Abraham Maslow.
Sifting through a dense catalog of state regulations in search of some inspiration for the High Holy Days - with some help from the Ba'al Shem Tov and Abraham Maslow.
Buried in the laws of inheritance is a subtle reference to one of the most tragic stories in the Torah - one that we usually miss.
Buried in the laws of inheritance is a subtle reference to one of the most tragic stories in the Torah - one that we usually miss.
We live in a vast, complex world. It’s beautiful, but wracked with devastation and suffering. Infinitesimal in the face of it all, one wonders how they could possibly make a difference. The first four words of Parshat Re’eh teach us that each individual’s presence does in fact have an impact on the wider community, and a single action can even tip the whole world toward good. Let’s choose to live like every single one of us matters, like the way we live can bring us closer to a healed, redeemed world.
As we prepare to bring our oldest to college, I feel for Moses, struggling to say goodbye to his own children, poised to enter the Promised Land on a part of the journey they must take without him. Somehow, amidst the confused, rambling contradictions of his farewell speech, Moses helps b’nai Yisrael remember what matters most, and reminds us just what we need to hear as well.
The Torah warns us against someone - maybe even someone very close to us - who might come try to entice us to worship other gods! But when we look a little closer at the commentators, we begin to wonder if the real enticement might be coming from… a higher source.
Stories from Rabbi Kasher’s early prayer days. A rabbinic list of ten types of prayer. And a prayer reframe from the Sfas Emes.
Tisha b’Av is a day of communal grief-- we fast, lament and hold the memory of the greatest catastrophes the Jewish people have endured. The danger in revisiting the tragedies of generations past is that our rituals foster a distorted self-perception, a feeling of eternal victimization. Instead, we must remember because grief is an expression of love, because there is an urgent moral message in the stories of our suffering that we must hear today, and because we are drawn again and again, through our collective grief, into community.
If Moses speaks for God and the People of Israel, what happens when he decides to speak for himself?
What’s the first step of a spiritual journey? According to the Me’or Einyaim (18th century Hasidic Master), it’s not a grand gesture or a dramatic departure. Instead, it’s the recognition that we’re disconnected, spiritually dehydrated and yearning for something more. Once that realization is acknowledged and felt, the journey has already begun. We’ll find the water we need.
Moses has a problem. This is an edited down recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly Parsha studies class from July 28, 2022.
The last stop in the itinerary of the Israelites' desert journey has a very strange name. And a heartbreaking story.
It's one of the most difficult problems in theology: does God know everything we're going to do, or do we have free will? This week, we consider an answer by Judaism's most deterministic thinker: Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner, the Mei HaShiloach, and a response by his most illustrious student.
If Bilaam is really so bad, that brings us back to our original question - what is he doing in the Torah? What are we reading this bizarre story at all???
The Red Heifer. Supposedly the greatest mystery of the Torah. Our Sages have puzzled over it for centuries. But isn’t this just a distraction from the main events of Parshat Hukat: the deaths of Miriam and Aaron!
Every June, we turn our attention and love to the LGBTQ+ community at IKAR. For many years we have taken the opportunity during PRIDE month to stories from LGBTQ+ folks and their family members. We're excited to share a compilation of the past three year's stories.
“There were four judges in Sodom, and they were named for their actions: Shakrai, meaning liar, Shakrurai, habitual liar, Zayfai, forger, and Matzlei Dina, perverter of justice” (Babylonian Talmud). In our grief and rage for the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, it is clear that we are living through the return of Sodom. But, Sodom and subsequent corrupt societies were undermined and ultimately destroyed through clarity of conscience and determined action, both of which are urgently needed today.
Ours is a tradition of stories. We see this from the flawed humanity of Adam and Eve through the tangle of relationships in Genesis and the struggle and redemption of Exodus, to the creative rabbinic interpretations of Midrash and Talmud, to the spiritually rooted Chasidic tales. Stories are essential to understanding one another and informing how we make sense of and choose to live in the world. Right now, we need to be telling and hearing our abortion stories.
The Israelites have begun complaining. They say they miss the meat and melons they had back in Egypt. Really?! After God freed them from slavery and is raining down manna from heaven?! These ungrateful wretches! Disgraceful. But, then again…are really they so different from us?
Someone must have slipped something into my drink. I’m reading my Torah late one night and, suddenly, the letters start to run backwards...
In such a turbulent time we need to remember what love looks like. The unique mutual devotion of the biblical heroines Naomi and Ruth teaches us that our interpersonal relationships can have transformative and healing power — for us, our descendants, and the human community.
Three striking midrashim help us understand how the Hebrew name for this fourth book of the Torah can help frame our journey through it.
After the tragic shooting in Buffalo rooted in White Supremacy and hate, we look to the Omer, a time on the Jewish calendar associated with mourning. The themes of Lag b’Omer offer some guidance on what our society needs.
Pop Quiz: What Biblical verse is on the Liberty Bell? This is an edited version of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly Parsha Study class from 5/19/2022
A Jewish response to the recently leaked Supreme Court draft opinion intending to overturn Roe v. Wade. Find the transcript on our website: https://ikar.org/sermons/im-a-private-person
How did counting the Omer become so much more than numbers? This is an edited down version of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly Parsha Studies Class from 5/12/2022.
Between Passover and Shavuot, Jews all over the world devote themselves to the study of Ethics (Pirkei Avot). This custom follows the famous rabbinic teaching that before we can receive the Torah, we must learn Derekh Eretz - how to live together in harmony with all human beings. One of the greatest Jewish philosophers, the mighty Maharal of Prague (famous from the legend of The Golem!) called this course of study "The Path of Life."
Right in the middle of the first major list of the Jewish holidays comes a major interruption.
This is the first session from Rabbi David Kasher's five-part series that began on May 2, 2022. As we return to our yearly tradition of studying Pirkei Avot, and learn to walk the Path of Life with the Maharal as our guide. Between Passover and Shavuot, Jews all over the world devote themselves to the study of Ethics (Pirkei Avot). This custom follows the famous rabbinic teaching that before we can receive the Torah, we must learn Derekh Eretz - how to live together in harmony with all human beings. One of the greatest Jewish philosophers, the mighty Maharal of Prague (famous from the legend of The Golem!) called this course of study "The Path of Life."
John Destler was born in Berlin on October 13, 1931. One of his earliest memories is watching from the balcony of his family’s apartment as Hitler and Mussoilini drove by in a motorcade. In the week of Yom HaShoah, we welcome John to our community to talk about his unique experiences, trauma, and challenges. Including a life long battle with addiction that he was able, at the age of 72, to face and heal. (From Samara Hutman's Intro) In partnership with Righteous Conversations Project.
Our Passover story was made possible by a quiet revolutionary spirit manifested through four female archetypes.
One of the silver linings of the pandemic is that we have all become better readers of Leviticus.
Reflections on mourning from Moed Katan and Parshat Shemini. In memory of Steven J. Kasher, Z"L.
You know the cycle. Front page headlines retreat to the back pages and eventually disappear from both the paper and our attention. Even the most horrifying headlines, those emerging from the brutal war in Ukraine, risk being ignored in the frenetic pace of our news cycle. We must not turn away. Even in the absence of a clear political path forward, we need to keep our hearts open to the stories, pleas, and suffering of the Ukrainian people, responding with empathy, advocacy, and resources.
This week, we receive the first major list of kosher laws. But whyare we supposed to keep kosher? There are some classic answers. But Rabbi Kasher's got a theory of his own.
In this drasha we explore how Esther and Moses overcame their resistance to action, when that action involved risk; Serah bat Asher and Ruth's capacities to draw strength and purpose from the past and imagine themselves as agents of a better future; and how all their stories shed light on our lives and world today, particularly in relation to our responsibility for the children in the LA County Foster Care system.
The Book of Leviticus spends a lot of time explaining what to do once we have committed sins. But how did we get there in the first place? What drives us to sin? For that, we turn to the great commentary of the Kli Yakar.
To maintain that only certain expressions of humanity are sacred, that some lives are inherently more valuable than others, is fundamentally incompatible with the truths of our tradition and the core principles of a moral society. As we face the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine alongside a growing refugee crisis worldwide, we must heed the call of our tradition to love the stranger, opening our hearts and borders to all those in need of safe refuge. We are all made in the image of God, interconnected and morally accountable to one another.
As we close out the Book of Exodus, a 13th century Spanish preacher helps us, finally, make sense of all the details.
A sermon on our relationship to technology (in which Rabbi Kasher gets his dates confused and accidentally adds a year to the pandemic!)
We pray for the safety of all the people of Ukraine as they face the terror of war and for the wisdom of our own leaders to guide our country to a response rooted in justice.
Who knows how to take the prophet's heavenly vision and bring it down to the ground? The Shadow knows!
What if the redemption our tradition intended was not that of some cataclysmic historical shift, but was about brief and fleeting moments of goodness and light that shine within the chaos and darkness that invariably surrounds us. Real moments with real meaning, and that neither could nor should last forever.
Wandering through the library of Jewish legal texts, the careful observer may take notice of a curious trend. For reasons unclear, many of the classic books of Jewish law take their titles from - of all things - the various pieces of the High Priest's clothing.
We aren’t just shaped by the past. It isn’t a one-way street, dead ending in the present. Our tradition asks us to continue to be in active relationship with our loved ones even after they die. Caring for the deceased means advancing their core values, their life work, and dreams. And it means upholding our responsibilities, both as individuals and a community, in the moments of most profound loss.
hevrakadisha #mourningrituals #yahrtzeit #love&loss
On my final shabbat before sabbatical, we explore the connection between na’aseh v’nishmah—doing and discovering—and shmita, a periodic break in the rhythm of doing to digest lessons learned and deepen our roots as we prepare for the next chapter of our flourishing.
"This week," says Rabbi Kasher, "we are going to look at an idea that seems so far outside of mainstream Jewish thought that if I came up with it myself, they’d kick me right out of Judaism!"
Jewish vulnerability is rooted in the enduring awareness of those who want to do us harm. And the world is full of goodness. We must learn to hold both.