PODCAST · religion
IKAR Podcasts
by IKAR
Sermons, talks, classes, and more from IKAR Rabbis and the IKAR community.
Episodes
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After the Flood / Parashat Noah - Rabbi David Kasher
Source sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y2T1DiQxUoOGxy9u526GfyNrkRc_Z3Nx/view?usp=sharing This is a recording of the Weekly Parashah - Rabbi David Kasher's Torah study class co-sponsored by Hadar and IKAR. Please note that the first few minutes of this week's class were not recorded due…
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Lunch & Learn with The Parents Circle - Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation with Sima Awad and Maayan Inon
Hear from Sima Awad and Maayan Inon as they share their journeys towards reconciliation. Sima is a bereaved Palestinian sister whose brother was killed by an Israeli soldier when she was just 3 years old. Maayan is a bereaved Israeli daughter whose parents were both killed on October 7 by Hamas....
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It’s Time to Write a New Beginning - Rabbi Sharon Brous
The Cornell 57 has reawakened critical conversations around violence, complicity, and the bystander effect. It also reveals the failure of the dominant stories we tell around gender, subjugation, dehumanization. This is an urgent reminder that another world is possible.
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The Knowledge of Sweet and Bitter / Parashat Bereishit - Rabbi David Kasher
Source sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JAg6k6KfzAw-1PN1l6Vk7cWxiL13leRM/view?usp=sharing This is a recording of the Weekly Parashah - Rabbi David Kasher's Torah study class co-sponsored by Hadar and IKAR. Please note that the first few minutes of this week's class were not recorded due to…
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Sukkot Drash - Rabbi Hannah Jensen
Rabbi Hannah Jensen's teaching on Sukkot before the Torah reading on Shabbat 9.26.2026
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It's Getting Hot in Here - Rabbinic Intern Jacob Schatz | Sukkot
The Talmud's story of a sweltering sukkah illuminates our urgent need for authentically Jewish answers and action as we face the mounting climate crisis.
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IsraAID’s Yotam Polizer and Rabbi Sharon Brous in Conversation in the Sukkah
Yotam Polizer is the Global CEO of IsraAID, Israel’s leading humanitarian NGO. Yotam oversees IsraAID’s global operations, strategy and partnerships across 15 countries. He became IsraAID’s co-CEO in 2017 and Global CEO in 2019. Polizer is the 2023 Charles Bronfman award laureate. He has 15…
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Writing Yourself into the Book of Life - Rabbi Dvora Weisberg
One of the central prayers of the High Holy Day liturgy reminds us of the uncertainty we face in the year ahead. But the prayer also offers us ways to maintain equilibrium in the midst of uncertainty. This in turn allows us to be the authors of our own Book of Life.
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How a Bereaved Father Found Solace By Encountering the Humanity of the Person Who Killed His Children
Rabbi Sharon Brous and Colin Campbell in conversation: Choosing Love: How a Bereaved Father Found Solace By Encountering the Humanity of the Person Who Killed His Children. Colin Campbell is a writer and director for theater and film. He is the author of Finding the Words: Working Through…
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When What We Love Falls - Rabbi Morris Panitz | Yom Kippur
What does it mean to remain connected to something we love when it disappoints us? How do we hold love, criticism, belonging, and moral involvement in the same hands?
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The Torah I Learned From the Pope, and From My Father - Rabbi Sharon Brous | Kol Nidre
From estrangement to engagement: How small, steadfast acts of love will be the bridge to the healing we need.
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To Live and Love Well Not in Spite of Death, But Because of It - Rabbi Sharon Brous & Dr. BJ Miller | Rosh Hashanah II
Palliative care specialist BJ Miller helps patients and families face illness and death realistically, comfortably, and on their own terms. Miller is cultivating a model for palliative care organizations around the world, and emphasizing healthcare’s quixotic relationship to the inevitability of...
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Avinu Malkeinu | Rosh Hashanah II
"We've tried everything, and we nonetheless fear that it just wasn't enough. Now we are here standing before you with no more plays in the playbook. There's nothing more we can do, and we just hope that you can be satisfied with what we were able to fix and forgive us for the rest. Avinu…
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Zealots Are Driving Us to the Cliff’s Edge - Rabbi Sharon Brous | Rosh Hashanah I
Extremism becomes palatable only in the absence of robust moral alternatives. That’s where we come in.
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This Is Your Life - Rabbi Hannah Jensen | Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon
Don't let your life pass you by. It may be that your life is not what you imagined. Grieve what you need to grieve about where you are. And then invest in the life you have and find the beauty in it.
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Taller On The Inside - Rabbi Deborah Silver
The High Holyday liturgy is full of images of emptiness and abasement, as if to tell us, “You got nothing.” How does this week’s parashah, always read just before the High Holydays, put itself into conversation with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?
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Read it both ways - Rabbi Candice Levy
Ki Tavo offers a theology of reward and punishment, of cause and effect, but lived experience teaches us that the world does not work so neatly. What becomes possible when we read the parashah forwards and backwards, not only as protest against injustice, but also as a guide to rebuilding a...
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Rabbi Sharon Brous and Daniela Gerson discuss "The Wanderers"
Part genealogical detective story, part gripping history, part contemporary reporting on war-torn territories, The Wanderers - A Story of Exile, Survival, and Unexpected Love in the Shadow of World War II, chronicles Daniela’s journey to unearth this past and reveal its echoes in still-contested...
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IKAR High Holy Days Bootcamp 5787
Grab a glass of grape juice or wine and a comfy chair, and join your rabbis for a launch of the season. We’ll cover many of the High Holy Day basics (What can I expect if I’m coming for the first time? Wait, another Amidah? And which service do I wear white to?), along with some of the most...
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The Verse That Made Me Want to Throw Out the Whole Book - Rabbi Myra Meskin
What do we do when Torah contains laws that violate our deepest moral commitments? A troubling passage from Parashat Ki Teitzei invites us to wrestle with difficult texts-and to see interpretation not as an escape from tradition, but as our obligation within it.
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On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear - Ami Fields-Meyer & Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation
Ami Fields-Meyer discusses his New York Times best seller "On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear" with Rabbi Sharon Brous. Co-Sponsored by J Street and New Israel Fund.
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The Relentless Pursuit of Peace - Rabbi Sharon Brous
I hunger for a leadership with the moral seriousness, the moral imagination to recognize that the greatest achievement is not brute force and military victory, but the embrace and affirmation of human life. Of peace.
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Between Two Mountains - Rabbi Tova Leibovic-Douglas
What happens when we have the courage to really see what is before us—the blessing, the curse, and everything in between? Re’eh invites us to look up, pay attention, and enter Elul and this season with our eyes and hearts wide open.
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Perhaps The Word Was For Me - Rabbi Morris Panitz
From the broken brotherhoods of Genesis to the final conversation between Moses and Aaron, the Torah asks what it truly means to become our brother's keeper. Through a relationship shaped by speech, silence, conflict, and compassion, a vision emerges of how even fractured relationships can find...
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Say it Anyway - Rabbi Hannah Jensen
ASL Interpretation for this sermon is available on YouTube. In this week's parsha we read that Moses pleads with God, and the form of that word (va'etchanan) only shows up in one other place in the Torah - with Joseph. What do these two moments come to teach us about yearning for things we may...
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The Dust and the Stars - Rabbinic Intern Jacob Schatz
The book of Deuteronomy has begun, and our people are as numerous as the stars in the sky. But Moses cries out, “Eikhah!” The famous heart-broken “how” that foreshadows the tragedies of Tisha B’Av. What mournful message does Moses see in the stars? And what, instead, can we learn from the dust?
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Rabbis and Prophets: The Challenge of the Moral Critic - Rabbi Sharon Brous and Donniel Hartman
Join Donniel Hartman and Rabbi Sharon Brous at the Shalom Hartman Institute for a profoundly honest and challenging conversation on the moral responsibility of Jewish leadership today. Together, they explore the complexities of holding onto faith and hope in a world facing overlapping crises—from...
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Choose Mercy Before Vengeance Chooses Us - Rabbi Morris Panitz
What happens when the man who once found refuge forgets the power of mercy? Drawing together Moses' flight to Midian, the cities of refuge, and one of the Torah's most difficult passages, we discover an enduring challenge to break the cycle of vengeance before it breaks us.
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Rabbi Sharon Brous and Reverend Raphael Warnock in Conversation
Join Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation with Raphael Warnock, Baptist pastor and senator from Georgia, to discuss his new book The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America. Join us on June 27 during services, virtually and in-person.Senator Reverend Raphael G....
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Guest Sermon from Reverend Raphael Warnock
Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock is a transformational voice in Congress and the pastor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and for the semiquincentennial of America, he exhorts us to reach for the highest and noblest aspects of our national character. Senator Warnock argues...
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Kissing Girls on Shabbat w/ Dr. Sara Glass + Lani Santo
A conversation with Dr. Sara Glass, author of Kissing Girls on Shabbat, and Lani Santo, CEO of Footsteps, discussing LGBTQ+ identity, chosen family, and building a self-determined life after leaving ultra-Orthodoxy.
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The Only One - Rabbi Deborah Silver
In this week's Torah reading we meet a character who is mentioned just once and then vanishes from the story. Who is he, and what does he teach us? And what does all of that have to do with being 13?
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Before It’s Too Late - Rabbi Sharon Brous
The window of opportunity is closing.But as long as the spark of vitality remains within us, it’s not yet too late.
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Confronting Settler Violence: Voices from the Jewish Solidarity Movement
A conversation featuring Elly Oltersdorf of Achvat Amim, sharing a firsthand perspective on Jewish solidarity work in the West Bank amid escalating settler violence. Joined by Joe Goldman of New Israel Fund, this conversation will explore what solidarity, moral witness, and shared responsibility...
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Senator Booker in Conversation with Rabbi Brous: I had to do my part
Source sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H8amu8GaAckmuDgd7HIknLHTIyz6YQ5UvmZDKExjriY/edit?usp=sharing We are a nation built by people who dared to believe the unbelievable, even when the odds were far worse and the stakes much higher than at any blackjack table… Our shared history, our...
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Magical Mind of Midrash Session 3 - Rabbi Morris Panitz
Source sheet: https://ikar.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Midrash-Class-1.pdf In the gaps, the ambiguities, the contradictions, and the mysteries of Torah, Midrash is born. Like a flower emerging from the crack in the sidewalk, a new image captures our attention, transforming the entire…
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11:59 - Rabbi Morris Panitz
The Torah's most repetitive chapter may conceal one of its most urgent lessons. Through a series of surprising midrashic connections, we discover that the leaders bringing gifts to the Mishkan are the same figures who once clashed bitterly with Moses during the struggle against Pharaoh. Their...
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Magical Mind of Midrash Session 2 - Rabbi Morris Panitz
Source sheet: https://ikar.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Midrash-Class-1.pdf In the gaps, the ambiguities, the contradictions, and the mysteries of Torah, Midrash is born. Like a flower emerging from the crack in the sidewalk, a new image captures our attention, transforming the entire…
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The Jewish Art of Resolving Contradictions / Parshat Naso - Rabbi David Kasher
This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly parsha study class from 5.27.2026, co-sponsored by Hadar and IKAR.
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But...How Do We Prepare to Listen? - Rabbi Hannah Jensen
Source sheet: https://ikar.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Shavuot-Day-1-Source-Sheet-5786.pdf We spend so much time preparing to speak, but what does Shavuot and revelation teach us about how we can prepare to listen?
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Don't Forget the Poor on Shavuot! - Rabbi David Kasher
This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly parsha study class from 5.20.2026, co-sponsored by IKAR and Hadar.
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Magical Mind of Midrash Session 1 - Rabbi Morris Panitz
In the gaps, the ambiguities, the contradictions, and the mysteries of Torah, Midrash is born. Like a flower emerging from the crack in the sidewalk, a new image captures our attention, transforming the entire landscape. In this three-part series, we’ll investigate the project of Midrash– where...
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Firstborn All Over Again / Parshat Bamidbar - Rabbi David Kasher
This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Weekly Parsha study class from May 16, 2026, co-sponsored by Hadar and IKAR.
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The Curse of Exile: ‘If’ or ‘When’? / Parshat Behar-Behukotai - Rabbi David Kasher
This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Weekly Parsha study from May 6, 2026, co-sponsored by Hadar and IKAR.
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Why Our Benches Must Bend, and We Must Never Stop Seeing Each Other - Rabbi Sharon Brous
Two extraordinary moments of recognition in the Book of Ruth remind us that the simple act of seeing one another—of identifying with another’s pain—can restore our humanity and redeem the world. May 16, 2026 – Bamidbar 5786
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Lunch & Learn: World War II Incarceration of Japanese Americans
In 1942, Executive Order 9066 laid the foundation for the mass removal and subsequent incarceration of over 125,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans. The federal government built ten concentration camps throughout the interior of the country where they incarcerated the majority of the Japanese...
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A Democracy that Celebrates Disenfranchisement is No Democracy At All - Rabbi Sharon Brous
How ancient Biblical agricultural laws call us to imagine a radically inclusive social, political, and economic reality. Behar Behukotai 5786 – May 9, 2026
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Siyum: For the Love of Learning with Rabbi Sharon Brous & Rabbi Morris Panitz
Source sheet: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1u9DAtF5hBMeh46i6JUiXeLmT4TRpaqR4 This is a recording of the final class of the For the Love of Learning series with Rabbi Sharon Brous and Morris Panitz.
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One Day at a Time - Rabbi Hannah Jensen
Between Pesach and Shavuot, we count the days of the Omer. What does this practice offer us about being present, making the most of the time we have, and cultivating faith in what is to come?
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Sermons, talks, classes, and more from IKAR Rabbis and the IKAR community.
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IKAR
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How many episodes does IKAR Podcasts have?
IKAR Podcasts currently has 564 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is IKAR Podcasts about?
Sermons, talks, classes, and more from IKAR Rabbis and the IKAR community.
How often does IKAR Podcasts release new episodes?
IKAR Podcasts releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 564 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.
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IKAR Podcasts is created and hosted by IKAR.
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