Judaism for the Thinking Person

Jan 14 2025 100 ep. 16 mins 177
Judaism for the Thinking Person Podcast artwork

In addition to explicating individual chapters of the Torah using traditional sources to apply directly to our daily lives, Rabbi Caine or "Rav Nadav" (as he is affectionately known) teaches on topics such as The Soul, Mysticism, Theology, Ethics, Comparative Religion, Science & Religion, and Psychology of Religion. Rav Nadav studied religion and philosophy at Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford Universities. An award winning teacher and Conservative rabbi, he now serves as senior rabbi at a congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

  Religion & Spirituality  Society & Culture
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A People of the Book and a Generation That Has Never Read One

Jan 14 2025 13 mins  
If you want to understand the crisis in education, look no further than Natalie Wexler's "The Knowledge Gap," one of the most important books of the past ten years. Is reading a skill you apply to any text, like stretching a muscle, or playing a video game, or is it, as our tradition defines it, something entirely different, something based on knowledge of the world, of life, and o

The Tower of Babel and the Problem of Identity-Based "Truths"

Jan 07 2025 12 mins  
The plain sense of the brief Tower of Babel story is that dividing people up by their own languages is a curse that prevents cooperation (even if the Rabbis read the story differently). Using Coleman Hughes's essay on the Civil Rights hero Bayard Rustin, I wonder if the curse of our times is the identiy-based division of truths: is this modern paradigm a blessing of diversity or a

Did Isaac Have Imposter Syndrome? Is it a Curse or a Blessing?

Dec 18 2024 14 mins  
Isaac's entire story arc suggests that he continually sees himself as the opposite of how folks see him. But is imposter syndrome a curse, or a blessing?

Misunderstanding Consent, Property and Patriarchy in Jewish Wedding Ceremonies

Nov 26 2024 16 mins  
Using the text of Genesis chapter 24, Talmud Bavli Ketubot 82b, and the Conservative Movement responsum by Rabbi Pamela Barmash, I try to correct the pervasive misunderstings around the Jewish wedding ceremonies: Does arranged marriage (historically and today) exclude female consent? Is the Jewish wedding ceremony one of male acquisition of a female? Is the ketubah a wedding docume

Moving Beyond the Progressive Lens to True Religion (Yom Kippur 2024)

Oct 22 2024 26 mins  
How do the ideals of progressivism become the idols of antisemitism? As a rabbi in one of the most progressive cities in America, I try to understand this phenomenon through scapegoat theory and through my own heartbreaking experiences. So what do we tell our college students? How do we heal instead of hurt? How do we get to the Thou? (Sermon, Yom Kippur 2024/5785)

We're All Looking for Empathy after October 7th, Including Me! (Rosh Hashanah Sermon 2024)

Oct 06 2024 27 mins  
As a Conservative rabbi in one of the most progressive cities in America, it's been an incredibly painful year of feeling unable to ask for empathy from my own fellow Jews, as I see this year's events as Good vs Evil, and so many of my congregants want me to be condemning Israel while declaring moral equivalencies. And I know they, too, need from me what I cannot give them: validat

Writing G-d and the Danger of Idolatry

Sep 03 2024 17 mins  
This dvar Torah uses the amazing article by Rabbi David Golinkin on the history of the halakhah and the practice. It can be found at: https://schechter.edu/must-gods-name-be-written-in-english-as-g-d/

Did a Biblical Outlaw Understand the Arab-Israel Conflict Better than Today's Students?

Jul 14 2024 11 mins  
It is commonplace to hear today's Israel-Arab Conflict portrayed as an example of Settler-Colonial European Jews settling in the nation-state of indigenous-dwelling Palestinians. This is a modern invention and is not how the conflict was understood by local Arabs a hundred years ago, who did so in rational terms that match the Biblical arguments between the Israelites (Gideonites)

The Biblical Battle of the AI Priesthood Lineage

May 21 2024 6 mins  

Amalekites, Gaza and the End of Megillat Esther on Purim

Mar 24 2024 14 mins  
As Purim became a holiday of tremendous festivities and lightheartedness, the Rabbis knew that the end of the Megillah in Chapter 9 has a dubious quality, that of a massacre on Haman's people. Is this a happy ending, a desirable ending, that of massacre, that of Jews finally (and really for its time, only possible in the Jewish imagination but not in practice) having power? So the