Judaism Unbound

We are proud to introduce the 3rd podcast in the Judaism Unbound family of podcasts: Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness, hosted by Jericho Vincent. "We are the ancestors of the future." This new podcast offers a spiritual home for listeners seeking to connect Jewish ancestral, feminist wisdom with their own svara: moral intuition. Each episode of this limited series delves into a different story of our ancestor Miriam, illuminating her mystical teachings and offering practical tools for navigating and flourishing in personal or political spiritual wildernesses. We're thrilled to periodically feature episodes of Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness here on Judaism Unbound. But we don't only feature those episodes alone. Lex Rofeberg and Rena Yehuda Newman, two members of Judaism Unbound's team, supplement each episode with some gemara (commentary) as well. We hope that our ideas will help spur you to form your own gemara, and channel your unique teachings -- about this podcast and beyond -- into th

In Pirkei Avot, one can find the Hebrew teaching to “carry the burden with your friend.” In today’s episode, Torah Studio leaders Lexi Kohanski and Liana Wertman join the Judaism Unbound podcast to discuss their latest offerings in keeping with this lesson, including a class on personal torah and stewardship called Trans Torah for Our Terrible Times. They also share ideas regarding what the significance of torah/Torah can mean for communal and creative learning, in a moment that demands a new level of spiritual grit and gentleness.------------------------------Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!

Now, we’re down to the marrow. Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg wrap a mini-series dive into the role of meat— and specifically, the pig — in Jewish life. They do this with an assessment of their own eating habits, reflections on autonomy and identity, and thoughts for practitioners the world over on how to incorporate more openness into our understandings of what it means to eat Jewishly.------------------------------Catch up on previous episodes in this mini-series on the Jewish discourse around meat with Episode 488- Meat: The Key to Jewish History? - John Efron and Episode 487: Pigs Are Very Jewish - Jordan Rosenblum.Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!

We’re back at the trough this week. Author John Efron joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg to share some of the findings in his latest book, All Consuming: Germans, Jews, and the Meaning of Meat. Efron encourages us to get on eye-level with the pig, from symbol to sinew, as a vital indicator of eating — and therefore living — Jewishly throughout history. This episode is the 2nd in an ongoing mini-series of Judaism Unbound episodes exploring Jewish history through meat (with an emphasis on pig)!Apply for the UnYeshiva's Certificate Program for Unbound Judaism by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/certificate!Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clicking here! 

Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg are joined by author Jordan Rosenblum to discuss his National Jewish Book Award-winning book, Forbidden: A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig. Interested in learning more about why the pig has felt so terribly treyf (yid. “non-kosher”) all these years? Rosenblum peels back the thick layers of meaning to get to the gristle. Apply for the UnYeshiva's Certificate Program for Unbound Judaism by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/certificate!Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!

In moments of polarization, the wisdom of Tehora Hee — the recognition of inviolable goodness in all people—can be a revolutionary tool. In this episode, R' Jericho talks about seventy faces, checking Biblical assumptions, Tehora he (It is pure), pre-prayer tests, two villains from one of my own spiritual wildernesses, Anne Frank, and a practice for bringing Miriam’s living Torah into our own lives.-------------------------------------We are proud to introduce the 3rd podcast in the Judaism Unbound family of podcasts: Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness, hosted by Jericho Vincent. "We are the ancestors of the future." This new podcast offers a spiritual home for listeners seeking to connect Jewish ancestral, feminist wisdom with their own svara: moral intuition. Each episode of this limited series delves into a different story of our ancestor Miriam, illuminating her mystical teachings and offering practical tools for navigating and flourishing in personal or political spiritual wildernesses. We're thri

Dan and Lex are joined by Rena Yehuda Newman, their colleague at Judaism Unbound who directs the UnYeshiva Certificate Program in Unbound Judaism! This certificate program's 3rd cohort will be beginning in Fall 2025, and applications for it just opened. Together, they explore what the certificate program has achieved so far, and ways in which it will be upping its game in the near future.Apply for the UnYeshiva's Certificate Program for Unbound Judaism by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/certificate!-----------------------------Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!

Chag Sameach! Shavuot, the annual festival of receiving Torah/revelation, is coming up soon. And that means.....ShavuotLIVE, Judaism Unbound's 24-consecutive-hour extravaganza of Jewish learning and Unlearning, is back and better than ever! Dan and Lex are joined in this episode by Annie Prusky, a Jewish educator and current rabbinical student who has presided over many of ShavuotLIVE's most popular sessions over the years. The three of them kibbitz about how Shavuot has evolved over the millennia and where ShavuotLIVE fits into that ongoing evolution.You can register for ShavuotLIVE 2025 via bit.ly/2025shavuot, and learn more about what it is by heading to JudaismUnbound.com/shavuot2025. It begins May 31st at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT and concludes on June 1st at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT.-----------------------------Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clicking h

The "semi-quarterly glossy home for subversive Jewish culture" during the Bush years -- better known as Heeb Magazine -- is back! Re-launching as Heeb Media, this storied publication is returning, and two of the people behind its revitalization -- Mik Moore and Libby Lenkinski -- join Judaism Unbound for a conversation about reconnecting with those who knew and loved Heeb the first time around, along with building a new audience of younger readers.ShavuotLIVE, Judaism Unbound's annual 24-hour extravaganza of Jewish learning and unlearning, is returning! From May 31st at 8 pm ET through June 1st at 8 pm ET, join hundreds of your friends from all around the world for the biggest event of our calendar year. You can register at bit.ly/2025shavuot!Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!

Tirzah Firestone is a rabbi, author, Jungian psychotherapist, and leader in the international Jewish Renewal Movement. She joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation exploring intergenerational Jewish trauma, through the lens of her book Wounds Into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma.-----------------------------------------ShavuotLIVE, Judaism Unbound's annual 24-hour extravaganza of Jewish learning and unlearning, is returning! From May 31st at 8 pm ET through June 1st at 8 pm ET, join hundreds of your friends from all around the world for the biggest event of our calendar year. You can register at bit.ly/2025shavuot!New UnYeshiva mini-courses, leading up to Shavuot, are now open for registration! Learn more about Spirit Guides & Past Lives: Reincarnation in the Kabbalistic Imagination, Disability Torah and Spiritual Subversiveness, and The Torah in the Tarot: The Lost Jewish History of the Tarot by heading to JudaismUnbound.com/classes.Access full shownotes for this episode via

We are proud to introduce the 3rd podcast in the Judaism Unbound family of podcasts: Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness, hosted by Jericho Vincent. "We are the ancestors of the future." This new podcast offers a spiritual home for listeners seeking to connect Jewish ancestral, feminist wisdom with their own svara: moral intuition. Each episode of this limited series delves into a different story of our ancestor Miriam, illuminating her mystical teachings and offering practical tools for navigating and flourishing in personal or political spiritual wildernesses. We're thrilled to periodically feature episodes of Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness here on Judaism Unbound. But we don't only feature those episodes alone. Lex Rofeberg and Rena Yehuda Newman, two members of Judaism Unbound's team, supplement each episode with some gemara (commentary) as well. We hope that our ideas will help spur you to form your own gemara, and channel your unique teachings -- about this podcast and beyond -- into th

Brent Spodek, one of Newsweek's "rabbis to watch" and one of the Hudson Valley's "people to watch," joins Judaism Unbound for a conversation linking recent discussions about Israel-Palestine with an upcoming episode (featuring Tirzah Firestone) on intergenerational Jewish trauma. In it, Spodek argues that Judaism shouldn't be "about Judaism" -- but rather be a platform to channel Jewish wisdom toward pressing questions in our lives as human beings.-------------------------------New UnYeshiva mini-courses, leading up to Shavuot, are now open for registration! Learn more about Spirit Guides & Past Lives: Reincarnation in the Kabbalistic Imagination, Disability Torah and Spiritual Subversiveness, and The Torah in the Tarot: The Lost Jewish History of the Tarot by heading to JudaismUnbound.com/classes.Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clickin

Israel-Palestine, one of the world's most contentious conversations, is also (all the more so!) one of the most contentious conversations among American Jews. Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg close out their recent mini-series of episodes, exploring American-Jewish discourse about Israel-Palestine, with a discussion about Zionism and Anti-Zionism, Jewishly loving Palestinians, and how all of this connects to Judaism Unbound's many years of podcasting about other Jewish topics.----------------------New UnYeshiva mini-courses, beginning just after Passover, are now open for registration! Learn more about Jewish Theology Unbound, Untangling Tselem Elohim, and Moses, Tzipporah and Us (Powerful Interfaith Families, Past and Present) by heading to JudaismUnbound.com/classes.Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!

Happy Passover! Chag Sameach! The holiday known simultaneously as Pesach (Passover), Chag HaMatzot (Matzah-Fest), Z'man Cheruteinu (Time of our freedom), and Chag Ha-Aviv (Spring/Barley-Fest) has arrived. Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg, co-hosts of Judaism Unbound, are joined by guests Daniel Spiro and Marques Hollie for a conversation that explores how we can get more wacky and creative with our Passover seders (traditional ritualized Passover meals) -- along with how we might play with the rest of the holiday, once the seder(s) have concluded.-------------------For a whole library of Judaism Unbound's Passover resources, including past podcast episodes, digital afikoman hunts, seder supplements, videos, and more...just head to JudaismUnbound.com/passover.-------------------New UnYeshiva mini-courses, beginning just after Passover, are now open for registration! Learn more about Jewish Theology Unbound, Untangling Tselem Elohim, and Moses, Tzipporah and Us (Powerful Interfaith Families, Past and Present) by h

Rafael Neis is a professor, talmudist, historian, artist, and author of When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species. They join Judaism Unbound for a conversation about why the notion of Tselem Elohim is more dangerous than it appears. They explore human exceptionalism, rabbinic texts that place humans alongside other living creatures, and more -- all as a sneak preview of their upcoming 3-week mini-course in the UnYeshiva, entitled Untangling Tselem Elohim (The Image of God).Register for Untangling Tselem Elohim (The Image of God) by clicking here! Apply for financial aid for the class via this link. Learn more about other mini-courses in the UnYeshiva, including Jewish Theology Unbound and Moses, Tzipporah and Us (Powerful Interfaith Families, Past and Present) by heading to JudaismUnbound.com/classes.Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- s

Amichai Lau-Lavie, co-founder and spiritual leader of Lab/Shul, is a leading voice calling for compassion toward all Palestinians and all Israelis. He joins Dan and Lex for a conversation exploring how the notion of V'ahavta (and you will love) could be channeled more thoroughly in the world -- toward peace and justice for all people. They consider connections between contemporary work for liberation, and the holiday of Passover as well. This conversation is the 9th episode in an ongoing mini-series, exploring American-Jewish discourse about Israel-Palestine.New UnYeshiva mini-courses, beginning just after Passover, are now open for registration! Learn more about Jewish Theology Unbound, Untangling Tselem Elohim, and Moses, Tzipporah and Us (Powerful Interfaith Families, Past and Present) by heading to JudaismUnbound.com/classes.Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- suppor

We are proud to introduce the 3rd podcast in the Judaism Unbound family of podcasts: Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness, hosted by Jericho Vincent. "We are the ancestors of the future." This new podcast offers a spiritual home for listeners seeking to connect Jewish ancestral, feminist wisdom with their own svara: moral intuition. Each episode of this limited series delves into a different story of our ancestor Miriam, illuminating her mystical teachings and offering practical tools for navigating and flourishing in personal or political spiritual wildernesses. Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness charts a radical, fresh Jewish path for its listeners and the world. We're thrilled to periodically feature episodes of Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness here on our feed. But we don't only feature those episodes alone. Lex Rofeberg and Rena Yehuda Newman, two members of Judaism Unbound's team, supplement each episode with some gemara (commentary) as well. We hope that our ideas will help spur yo

Matthew Boxer and Janet Krasner Aronson are both sociologists whose work focuses on American-Jewish life. They join Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about two studies that they've been working on, that explore the wide range of meanings that the terms "Zionism" and "Anti-Zionism" hold for American Jews. This episode is the 8th episode in an ongoing mini-series, discussing American-Jewish discourse about Israel-Palestine.Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!

Alissa Wise is the founder and lead organizer of Rabbis for Ceasefire. Andrue Kahn is the executive director of The American Council for Judaism. They join Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about the role of rabbis in this heightened political moment, the work of their two organizations, and the growing movement of Jews creating communities grounded in Jewish diasporism.Together, they are co-teaching a class in Judaism Unbound's UnYeshiva entitled Jewish Diasporism(s): Approaches to Nation, Home, and Responsibility, which begins just a few days after this episode is released. Financial aid is available to those who apply via this link.Check out other classes you can take in the UnYeshiva, beginning in the next few days (as this episode is released), via JudaismUnbound.com/classes!Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation -- support Judaism Unbound by clicking here!

People sometimes call Jews "people of the book." And when they say that, they tend to be referring to the Bible, or the Torah (first five books of the Bible). But Eva Mroczek, the Simon and Riva Spatz Chair in Jewish Studies at Dalhousie University, thinks that Jews may actually have a relationship to far more books than we've realized -- including many "lost books," and even many "imagined books" that likely never existed. She joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about lost Jewish books, and about her upcoming class in the UnYeshiva entitled Lost Bibles, Fake Apocrypha: The Hidden History of Jewish Books.Learn more about Eva Mroczek's upcoming course in the UnYeshiva (and register for it!) here -- financial aid is available for anyone who needs it, via this link.To check out our other courses that are now open for registration in Judaism Unbound's UnYeshiva, head to www.judaismunbound.com/classes!Access full shownotes for this episode via this link. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, pleas