Judaism Unbound

Dan and Lex explore Jeremiah 31, a text traditionally associated with the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

Dan and Lex explore Genesis 22, a text traditionally associated with the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

Dan and Lex explore the book of 1 Samuel, a text traditionally read on the first day of Rosh Hashanah.

Lex and Dan explore Genesis 21, a text traditionally read on the morning of the first day of Rosh Hashanah.

How can the methodology of an artist shape or re-shape Judaism in new ways? How can we begin to understand Judaism as a material of art in and of itself? In this final episode of Judaism Unbound's series on the role of art in Judaism, Dan and Lex ask explore the relationship between contemporary Judaism and the creative impulse.

Aliza Kline, Executive Director of OneTable and former Executive Director of Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh, joins Judaism Unbound for the third episode in a four-episode series on Judaism's relationship to art and artists. She explores the ways in which design thinking can play a crucial role in successful Jewish institutions, along with some of the unique contributions of the two organizations that she has directed to contemporary Judaism.

How might Judaism, atheism, and art blend together into a deep exploration of the meaning of a key Jewish practice today? Celebrated comics artist and animator Nina Paley, creator of the highly regarded animated feature film Sita Sings the Blues and the animated feature film-in-progress Seder Masochism [1], joins Dan and Lex to discuss a wide variety of issues that have arisen as she has taken on the Passover seder in her current project. This episode is the second in a four-episode series on the role of art and artists in contemporary American Judaism.

What role do art and artists play in contemporary Judaism? Amichai Lau-Lavie, founder, Executive Director, and Spiritual Director of Lab/Shul, joins Dan and Lex to kick off a unit of episodes exploring that question in detail. He speaks about his own experiences leading an artist-driven community, and he takes on a variety of related questions on issues ranging from technology, to pluralism, to literature, and more.

We are proud to release our very first bonus episode of Judaism Unbound! Listen in as Garry Stevens interviews our co-host, Dan Libenson, about The Secret Book of Kings, a new novel by Yochi Brandes. This episode was initially released as an episode of Stevens's own podcast, The History in the Bible. We thank Garry for permitting us to re-release an episode of his show on our own feed, and encourage our listeners to subscribe to The History in the Bible on iTunes by visiting http://apple.co/2bM6D3C.

In an act of role reversal, Lex enters the role of solo host of Judaism Unbound and welcomes Dan onto the show as this week's featured guest! In this episode, Dan discusses a newly published book entitled The Secret Book of Kings by Yochi Brandes, which he has been working for three years to bring to English-speaking readers. Together, Dan and Lex explore why this book's publication represents an important moment for American Judaism, along with ways in which its themes tie to many ideas that have previously been discussed on Judaism Unbound.

Professor Richard Elliott Friedman joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about modern Biblical scholarship, which his book Who Wrote the Bible? brought to lay audiences in an accessible way nearly thirty years ago (and which had a major influence on Dan and Lex). Among the most influential books on Biblical literature of the 20th Century, Who Wrote the Bible? provides a scholarly overview of the authorship of the Torah through a lens known as the "Documentary Hypothesis." Subsequently, Professor Friedman wrote additional books making these ideas available to non-experts. Along with co-hosts Dan and Lex, Professor Friedman dives deeply into his ideas and scholarship, their impact on the world, and more!

It's hard to believe, but this episode marks Judaism Unbound's six-month anniversary -- 26 weeks! In honor of the occasion, Dan and Lex look back at what they've learned from the topics we've covered thus far, and offer a lens into the next six months of the podcast and beyond.

Dan and Lex close out a series of episodes entitled "Emergent Judaism," which featured Rachel Barenblat and David Markus (of ALEPH: The Alliance for Jewish Renewal), Noa Kushner and Yoav Schlesinger (of The Kitchen), and Sarah Lefton (of BimBam). We discuss what it means to look at Judaism through a "modular" lens, such that various elements of Judaism are "unbundled" from the whole.

What does it look like to start a Jewish organization that functions almost entirely in the digital world? Sarah Lefton, the founder and executive director of BimBam (formerly G-dcast), an organization that produces animated videos about Jewish texts, practices, and ideas, as well as apps and other new media, [1] joins Dan and Lex to give us a window into that process. She outlines her own Jewish story, the evolution of BimBam over time, some of the unique characteristics of digital forms of Judaism, and more.

The Kitchen, an emergent Jewish spiritual community in San Francisco, made waves earlier this year when they launched their Hello Mazel initiative -- a "quarterly box of Jewish stuff" sent to people's homes, which quickly became the most-funded Jewish Kickstarter project ever and reached thousands of people across the country. Dan and Lex welcome two of its leaders -- Rabbi Noa Kushner and Yoav Schlesinger -- to explore what The Kitchen is, to understand its goals and methods, and to find out how Hello Mazel came to be.