This Yom Kippur, Justin Pines welcomes back his teacher and rebbe, Rabbi Avi Weiss, for an hour-long journey through the holiest day of the Jewish year. Rabbi Weiss, founding rabbi of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (the Bayit) and founder of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and Yeshivat Maharat, opens with a tefillah he wrote and recites […]
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Can God be vulnerable? National Jewish Book Award winner Gila Fine explores the stunning talmudic tale of Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha, who entered the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur and was asked by God for a blessing (Berakhot 7a). What does it mean for an omnipotent God to ask a mortal for help? Through […]
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The Talmud is the foundational text of Judaism — every law, every debate, every dissenting opinion preserved across 2,711 pages. For centuries it was accessible only to scholars. That is changing. Rabbanit Michelle Farber is the founder of Hadran and the host of Daf Yomi for Women, the first and only women’s daily Daf Yomi […]
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The Shema is Judaism’s most iconic declaration — six words carried across thousands of years, countries, and circumstances. Now, a bold new initiative is inviting a million Jews to reclaim them. Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, founder of New Jewish Outreach Program, and Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff, co-founder of Simchat Torah Challenge, join Rabbi Justin Pines to discuss […]
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After October 7, Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer did something almost no Haredi rabbi has done: he put on a uniform. A community rabbi, he completed IDF basic training alongside soldiers half his age, served in the reserves during the Iran War — and his sons study in yeshiva and serve in the IDF. But Rabbi Pfeffer […]
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What is the true purpose of music? Is it merely to entertain, or is it a vessel designed to uncover the soul and connect us directly to the Divine? In this episode of Jewish Insights with Justin Pines, Justin sits down for a deeply personal, wide-ranging conversation with a true master of Jewish song and […]
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How do we rebuild after shattering loss? Steven Exler, Senior Rabbi of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, explores the landscape of grief, the weight of pastoral care & how a radically welcoming community can help heal personal & collective trauma.
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Holocaust and Auschwitz survivor Tova Friedman recounts her life before World War II, surviving a Jewish ghetto and Nazi labor camp and her views on faith.
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Tova Friedman recounts her surviving Auschwitz and a Nazi gas chamber. And her grandson Aron Goodman discusses their viral TikTok Holocaust education account.
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Justin Pines travels to Philadelphia’s historic district to explore the deep, centuries-old intertwining of American liberty and Jewish history, from the Liberty Bell to the Weitzman Museum’s new revolutionary exhibit to Congregation Mikveh Israel.
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