The Memorial Lectures at Drisha cover art

All Episodes

The Memorial Lectures at Drisha — 65 episodes

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Title
1

Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz: The Renee and Alexander Bohm Memorial Lecture

2

The Seder Ritual and the Formation of Community: 2024 25th Annual Rapoport Lecture

3

All Israel Are Guarantors for One Another: The History of a Metaphor

4

https://turnitandturnit.podbean.com/e/and-it-was-on-that-night-how-the-gideon-story-revolutionizes-pesach/

5

What Have They Done to My Holiday, or Rosh HaShanah Through the Ages

6

Yonah vs. God: A Prophetic Polemic?

7

The Prophet Who Stole Chanukah: The Biblical Roots of a Rabbinic Holiday

8

Yom Kippur or the Challenge of Authenticity

9

Mah Nishtanah — The Mishnah’s Fifth Question!

10

Does Jewish Law Recognize Righteousness?

11

Satan: The Evolution of Evil - The Stanley Rudoff Memorial High Holidays Lecture

12

From the Sea to Sinai, Tests of the Wilderness

13

Praying for the Welfare of our President: Perspectives from Halakhah and History

14

Each Person A Tree: A Short History of a Tall Metaphor

15

Ne’ilah: Ends and Beginnings

16

How did the Pesach Seder become a Family Affair?

17

Holidays and Theology in the Biblical Calendar: From a ’Holy Land’ to a ’Holy People’

18

Jewish and American Ethos During Tumultuous Times: Complementary and Conflicting Visions of Human Dignity and Worth

19

Dirshu Et Shalom HaIr Asher Hegleti Etchem Shama: On American Jews and American Citizenship

20

Hebrew and Jewish Identity in America

21

Jewish Philosophical Perceptions of Gentiles in (Early) Modern Europe

22

“You didn’t Build That”: A Morally Mature Theology of Thanksgiving

23

Mushrooms And Lullabies: The Public/Private Divide in Rabbinic Sources

24

Esther, Ruth, and Insider/Outsider Jew

25

Humans and Animals in Tanakh

26

Separation of Shul and State: Torah Study as an Alternative to Theocracy

27

The Rule of Law: Promises and Pitfalls?

28

Under the Sea: The Song of the Sea and the Creation Stories of the Ancient Near East

29

Light Against Darkness: The Miraculous Survival of the Holiday of Chanukkah

30

Everyone Believes: Rosh Hashana and the Renewal of Faith

31

Guiding Lights: Illuminating the Distinctions of the Chanukiah and the Menorah

32

All These Vows: The Kol Nidrei Conundrum

33

Love, Longing and Liberty: Reflections on Shir HaShirim

34

Symbolism and Meaning in the Seir Hamishtaleach: Reenacting the Story of Creation

35

The Omer Festival: Recovering a Lost Holiday and its Surprising Roots

36

Joseph’s Temptations and Chanukkah: Delivering the Powerful into the Hands of the Weak

37

From Cases to Concepts: R. Jose’s views on property rights as reflected in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmudim

38

Commandment and Control in Marriage: The Poetics of Mishnah Kiddushin Chapter 1

39

Mishnah and Memory: An Educational Exploration

40

Introduction to Kohelet: Confronting Religious Challenges

41

The Machine-Made Matzah Controversy: Law and Tradition in Conflict

42

Assimilationists Or Maccabees

43

The Death of the Martyrs: A Lesson for Living

44

Let Me See That Good Land: The Story of a Human Life

45

Understanding Our Selichot Service: A Rabbinic Tapestry of Biblical Themes and Verses

46

The Ten Commandments: Principles of a Humanistic Practice

47

Home for the Holiday: The Miraculous Crossings of Passover

48

Voices of Our Fathers: The Patriarchs and Today’s Challenge of Prayer

49

Yom Kippur and the Imagination of the Aggadists

50

Fast of Gedalia: Then and Now

51

Blood, Bread, and Redemption: What is the ”True” Story of Pesach?

52

Creation Narratives in the Book of Exodus

53

Two Creation Stories — Contradictory or Complementary

54

Is God’s Presence Within Us?

55

New Year, Judgment Day, and Coronation: The Many Faces and Single Nature of Rosh Hashana

56

Gates of Favor: Sephardic Cadences of the Akeida

57

Hagar, Ishmael, and the Phantom Akeidah

58

Deception in the Exodus Story

59

Teshuva Drasha

60

Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li - I am for my Beloved and my Beloved is for me: Forgiveness, Atonement, and Humility

61

Repentance and Free Will

62

Awaken: A Maimonidean Imperative

63

In Your Blood Live, In Your Blood Live: Understanding the Blood of Circumcision, the Blood of the Pascal Lamb and the Blood of Childbirth

64

Fellow Passengers: Teshuva as a Community

65

God, Nature, and Community in Mishnaic Thought: A Literary Study of Mishnaic Passages