JH David Yastrab Podcast

Rabbi Wein treats us to a double-screen show as he describes the development of the Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities. Contrasting the Islamic approach toward the Jews with Christian, Rabbi Wein shows the political and religious forces that shaped each community and the great sages each produced.• The end of Babylonian Jewry & the rise of North Africa• The legend of the four captives• The Moors and the Berbers - who were they?• The Rif - rosh yeshiva for 60 years• Rabbeinu Gershom and his famous decree against polygamy

Life is seldom quiet for a Torah leader, and this was certainly true for Rabbi Saadia Gaon, author of the first book of Jewish philosophy for the masses, Emunos v'Deos. He fought and won three major battles in his life, thus establishing the primacy of Babylonia over all Jewish communities worldwide, defeating the corrupt Exilarch Dovid ben Zakkai, and sending the Karaite movement on the path to its ultimate downfall.• The stormy life of the Saadia Gaon• Known genius from the age of 25• The terrible privations he faced for standing up for Torah• Babylonia vs. Jerusalem - the debate over the Jewish calendar

Jewish leadership in 7th century Babylonia was divided into two spheres. The Exilarch held political and economic power while the Gaonim, the heads of the yeshivas, controlled all religious matters. But because these is so much overlap between them, this division was a recipe for disaster. Rabbi Wein narrates the power struggle that gave rise to the deviant movement of the Karaites and details the works of Torah scholarship that arose to combat it.• competing yeshivas meant competing Gaonim• the Sherira Gaon and his famous letter• the "culture of corruption" and how it affected the Jews• Anan - how one man's petty conflict nearly destroyed the Jewish people

In the 7th century, Islam spread like wildfire, taking down both the Byzantine and Persian Empires. With a thorough analysis of the tenets of Islamic theology, including the historical origins of the anti-Semitism of the Koran, Rabbi Wein uncovers the massive influence Islam held over the world in religion, technology, culture, and war.• Mohammed's failed to attract and convert the Jews• Conversion by the sword - a Moslem invention• The march from Mecca to Medina and the original jihad• The Biblical distortions, especially of the Akeida

With the fall of Rome, the non-Jewish world plunged into the Dark Ages, but for the Jews of Babylonia, these were times of enlightened scholarship. While war raged on in the world at large, the Talmudic scholars put the finishing touches on the monumental work which has sustained the Jews through the long centuries of exile.• how Christian theology brought on the Dark Ages• the strange theory of the "witness people"• the Eastern Orthodox versus Roman Catholic Church• how the end of Jewish autonomy in Babylonia meant the end of the Talmudic Era• the mind-boggling accomplishment of writing the Talmud in the age before pen and paper