There was a time not long ago when aggadah - which, broadly speaking, refers to the non-legal passages in the Talmud - was largely ignored; students studying in yeshiva would run through these texts quickly, if at all, using almost all of their mental energy and time thinking through the halachic, or legal passages of the Gemara.  While that was likely a successful methodology for most Talmud students in the past, we have witnessed in the 20th and 21st centuries a renewed emphasis on...

Over the past two weeks, there has been increasing conversation in Israel among the Religious Zionist community about the continued refusal of many ultra-Orthodox Jews to consider enlisting in the Israeli army. Many of us have been discussing this issue for months or years; but it came to a head in the past couple of weeks largely because of the attempt by the Chareidi political parties in the Knesset to enshrine this exemption through legislation. The most recent attempt was the so-called...

With the United States presidential election only hours away, I wanted to offer a supporter of each major presidential candidate the opportunity to explain why Jews in general, and Orthodox Jews in particular, would be better off supporting either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris for president. To that end, I invited two politically involved Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Pesach Wolicki and Rabbi Benjamin Kelsen, to explain why you should give your vote to their candidate.  This is not a debate; I...

Today I’m talking about something that I’ve spoken about before, repeatedly, both on this podcast and on my Substack, Orthodox Conundrum Commentary: the problem of a large number of Chareidi, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, who receive army exemptions, usually (though not always) because they’re learning in yeshivot. Why am I talking about this again? Haven't we dealt with this issue too many times already? No. There's more to say, and there's good reason to say it. I think that this issue...

As we complete our seventh season of the Orthodox Conundrum, we're pleased to present a classic episode from three years ago, in which Professor Joshua Berman of Bar Ilan University discusses academic Bible study, Biblical criticism, and Orthodox Judaism. It was a very interesting episode, which raised crucial questions that Orthodox Jews need to confront, as well as suggestions of how we should do so effectively. Because we soon complete the annual cycle of Torah readings and begin again in...

"Today marks one year since one of the worst days of all of our lives, October 7th. I actually was unsure of how to record an appropriate episode; what, exactly, could I add to the conversation? What is there to say that hasn’t yet been said? And how can I relate it to the season in which we find ourselves, right in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?" Fortunately, Scott was joined by the outstanding rav of his shul in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Rav Chayim Soloveichik, who provided insights and...

Later this week we will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, also known as the Day of Remembrance, Yom HaZikaron. According to Chazal, Hashem (so to speak) remembers us on this day for the good… and we, too, should look at those people who set sterling examples for us over the past year, and try to learn from their deeply meaningful lives. One of those people whose life was exemplary was Gavriel Bloom, zichrono livracha.  Gavriel was killed on January 8th during a mission in central Gaza. He was the...

One of the beautiful aspects of Torah Judaism is its insistence on eilu v’eilu divrei Elokim chayim - that two different and even potentially contradictory approaches can both represent the words of the living God. Opening our minds to differing ways of seeing Torah - that, in the words of many ancient texts, there are seventy facets to the Torah, and accordingly endless ways of explaining its ideas - is not merely a theological truth, but also a mandate. By accepting that, in the words of...

We stand in the middle of the month of Elul, and are moving quickly towards Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - days largely spent in the synagogue in prayer. Throughout those days as well as the rest of the Ten Days of Repentance, we ask that God grant us a year of life, goodness, and peace. While we have so much to be thankful for, we may be forgiven for looking at the past year - and the prayers we offered last Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - and wondering if our prayers failed. We may even...

Many people often talk about addiction and dependence; and in doing so, they may use those terms inexactly. When it comes to gambling, however, those words are, unfortunately, correct. Problem gambling is a growing problem in the United States - particularly online gambling, which has been growing exponentially since the Supreme Court decided, in 2018, that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act violated the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution. This in turn meant that states,...

Scott recorded this interview with Dr. Noam Weissman on Monday afternoon, the day after we learned about the terrible execution of six hostages soon before they were discovered by the IDF, presumably in order to make sure that they did not make it back home alive. And today, Hamas continued its psychological torture by saying that it will release video of these six victims. The pure, unbridled evil implicit in these acts and so many others is a reminder of the existential battle that Israel...

This podcast is being released less than a day after the Israeli army preemptively struck thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers in Lebanon, doing so just fifteen minutes before those launchers were supposed to fire hundreds of missiles into northern and central Israel. Thank God that as of now, Israel clearly won this exchange. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but for now we can breathe just a bit easier than we did when we first heard the news early this morning. This event, like...

The October 7th massacre, and the subsequent war against Hamas, other Iranian proxies like Hezbollah and the Houthis, and Iran itself, have caused many people throughout the Jewish world to reconsider what Israel means to them, and what kind of society Israel should create. Many continually return to the idea that Israel should be a light unto the nations, an Ohr laGoyim, or a Medinah l’Mofet, an exemplary nation and society. Although, given the rampant anti-Israel and antisemitic attitudes...

“What does Eichah have in common with climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, Holocaust deniers and those that claim that the 2020 presidential elections were stolen?” Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman sent this to Scott, who was intrigued and immediately invited him back onto this podcast to discuss what he meant. More than anything else, we need a way to relate to Megillat Eicha in a world which seems so distant from that described in the book. And even the world described in Eicha is complicated;...

Sometimes it’s called a move to the right. Other times it is seen as a rejection of lax religiosity. Some people think of it as an admirable commitment to serving God as best as possible. Others decry it as representing an unacceptable change from traditional Jewish practice. All these and more are reactions to the unquestionably real phenomenon of greater stringency in the Orthodox world. Determining whether this is a positive or negative development, however, is not simple. Scott spoke...

This is a rush-release bonus episode of the Orthodox Conundrum, to help us all get to the bottom of what happened yesterday at the military detention center at Sdei Teiman.  We will learn what the nine arrested soldiers were accused of, the manner that they were arrested, and the reason for the protests of numerous right-wing members of Knesset. What does it mean, and why should you care? What is the rationale of those who decry the arrests, and is there validity to their complaints? What...

One of the most difficult issues facing Modern or Centrist Orthodox Jews today is the question of how to increase and encourage the participation of more women in leadership roles, while also working within the halachic parameters that set limits on how extensive those leadership roles are allowed to be. When we add two thousand years of socialization where women’s leadership was quite rare, along with the reality that advanced Torah education for women is a relatively new phenomenon, we...

For the past two thousand years, Torah observant Jews have acknowledged that our greatest scholars deserve respect, and have an extraordinarily deep and broad understanding of the vast sea of the Torah sheba’al peh, the Oral Law. In recent times, however, proper respect for talmidei chachamim has often morphed into a pseudo-idolatry of gedolim, where they are seen not just as great experts in Torah, but also as oracles who are, for all intents and purposes, close to infallible. There’s no...

68 years ago, Rav Soloveitchik zt'l identified the timidity of Orthodox Jews as representing a failure to respond to the miracle of renewed Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. Today, tragically, we seem to have the opposite problem. In 2024, Israel has a religious establishment which has completely lost its sense of shame, and is not only involved in nepotism alongside a lust for money and power, but barely even tries to hide it.  To put it bluntly: it’s almost unimaginable that...

This podcast is dedicated לעילוי נשמת אלעזר בן ישראל, a man who accepted the vicissitudes of life with a simple and pure faith. What does it mean to believe in God? This question is absolutely fundamental to Jewish life and living - yet many people feel uncomfortable discussing God at all. In our educational institutions, we often have a broad curriculum that includes subjects such as Talmud, Chumash, Nach, Halacha, and more - but questions in emunah are frequently shunted aside or ignored...

When you learn Torah, do you consider yourself to be in dialogue with Chazal?  According to Scott's guest, Simi Peters, a key element of learning midrash aggadah is being able to become participants in a conversation that began thousands of years ago and continues today. But in order to do so, we need to become students of midrash: learning how to approach it, understanding both the methodologies Chazal used and why they conveyed their messages in that way, and adopting effective methods in...

Schools which identify with the Modern Orthodox world and espouse a Centrist Orthodox hashkafa, nevertheless will sometimes hire teachers who profess a Hareidi worldview. In some ways, this is a welcome development; breaking down the barriers that separate our various communities is generally a good thing, and we should be pleased when we discern a willingness to engage Jews with different viewpoints. On the other hand, it often seems that Modern Orthodox institutions are more willing to...

(This episode was originally released on Septetmber 26th, 2023, but its message is perhaps even more relevant now, after October 7th and its aftermath, than before. Scott will be back with a new episode next week.) Megilat Kohelet is one of the most difficult books in Tanach: it jumps back and forth between conflicting assumptions, it lacks any obvious narrative or thematic structure, and its statements sometimes seem at odds with what most people would consider standard Rabbinic theology....

We’re approaching the holiday of Shavuot, when we celebrate and commemorate the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The Rambam explains that our belief in Torah and in Moshe is predicated upon the fact that all of us were present at Sinai, where we together heard God talking to Moshe. And we have a longstanding tradition as well that God did not stop speaking once ma’amad Har Sinai was over; in fact, He never stopped speaking at Sinai. What made the revelation 3300 years ago unique was not...