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- [00:04]
A
You are listening to an art media podcast.
- [00:11]
B
I think that these last two years were almost too much for us to handle. And seeing this moment of closure, it wasn't pure joy. I feel it was more complicated.
- [00:21]
C
For me, it was just a day of family. And we belong to a nation which is a family. And this was the day in which we didn't articulate, we didn't argue, we just felt that powerful sense of a familial bond to each other. And we were a family on that day in the best sense of the term.
- [00:42]
B
We've just experienced a momentous event in Israel's history and there's this longing for taking this event and making it something more than just a celebration.
- [01:07]
C
Hi, friends. This is Daniil Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Sholem Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast, for heaven's sake. A podcast in collaboration with ARC Media. And I still have to get used to the fact that we're not calling this Israel at war.
- [01:23]
B
And the countdown, the terrible countdown, and.
- [01:25]
C
The days and the days, even though it's not finished, the murdered hostages aren't home yet, but it's not the same. I know for the families, it's still very important, but it's not the same. Getting people out alive, saving their life was a dominant concern and now it's still a concern, but it's the countdown. It's almost symbolically. I think it's important to shift and to recognize and to give thanks that we're in another era, another time, another mode. And we called today's Podcast, we choose to call Today's Podcast after the Joy. And Monday was just. It was just a remarkable day. A day from 6, 7 o', clock, maybe 8 o' clock in the morning. I think 3/4 of Israel was watching the news till about 5 o'.
- [02:15]
B
Clock.
- [02:16]
C
And you made forays to the supermarket, but you were listening. You had your iPhone with you and you were watching, but you were listening to see anything. So I don't think anybody in this country was disconnected.
- [02:30]
B
I'm watching the same clips over a loop.
- [02:34]
C
So like we did, we were cooking, we were preparing. So it was like it wasn't, but it was just nothing was going to get missed. And we want to talk today about what that day meant for us, what it meant for you and what it meant for me. And also after that joy, where are we going as a people, both in the short run and in the long run, because they're not the same and how do we feel about our future? So that's our theme. And as always, I have no one who I'd rather talk about this than you, Yossi. And so that day, let's just start. What were you experiencing? What was going through your mind or your soul or your heart?
- [03:13]
B
I felt this overwhelming sensation of gratitude to be in Israeli. I felt the privilege of being part of this country. You know, we pay a high price for that privilege. And then every so often, there's an event that reminds us why we do it. I felt that. And I also felt, you know, the most powerful moment for me, and I think this is true for many people, was when they announced the first hostages are in the hands of the idf. And just saying that, I just feel overwhelmed again. And I just broke down.
- [03:54]
C
That's when everybody broke down.
- [03:55]
B
Everybody broke down at that moment.
- [03:57]
C
That was the first crying moment.
- [03:58]
B
And so afterwards, I was really trying to understand, what was it? They're in the hands of Israeli soldiers. It was the moment that in part, undid the helplessness of October 7th. The failure of the army to protect our citizens. And now here we are, and Israeli soldiers are once again redeemers. And there was so much historical resonance in that statement and thinking of all the generations of Jews who didn't have IDF soldiers to protect them. And there was this sense of Israel's promise has been restored. And it wasn't conscious, but it was something, I think, that especially in light of the terrible failure of October 7th, this was the tikkun. This was the repairing of that rupture. And I also felt one more thing, Daniil, which was in that release of weeping. I felt the last two years, the pressure of the last two years. And I don't think we've begun to come to terms with the strain that we've been under. You know, we go through it, and that's what Israeli society does.
- [05:19]
C
We handle it.
- [05:20]
B
We. We handle it. But I think that these last two years were almost too much for us to handle. And seeing this moment of closure and seeing these faces and seeing the families and we know these people, we lived with their faces for two years. There was this sense of exhaustion mingled with joy. It wasn't pure joy. I feel it was more complicated. How about you?
- [05:49]
C
First of all, it was an unbelievably moving day in which you cried over and over again. And you're right, that moment, or when they declared they're in the hands of the Red Cross, also did something. But it's not the same. It's not the same. Not the same. And the part that was for me, even the most meaningful was they're now in Israel. They crossed the border. There were three stages. They're in the hands of the Red Cross, they're in the hands of the army. They're now home. They're home. And it was a year in which our emotional roller coaster was unending. But we almost had to protect ourselves all the time. On Monday, I didn't have to protect myself like when we, our previous pilot, we called it breathing. You could just let yourself feel. But there was another dimension that for me was very important for many people. They posited the return of the hostages as a victory and even yourself as a correction of October 7th. I didn't feel that. I didn't feel that it corrects or balances and I didn't feel it was a victory. I didn't put it in these political or strategic terms. For me, it was just a day, a family. And we belong to a nation which is a family. That's who we belong to. And for me, Zionism is a combination of three things. One is to create a place where the Jewish people could be agents who engage in protecting ourselves. I didn't say that we could be safe. I said we are agents to protect ourselves. Like what you said. We have an army that we're sovereign, have the ability to try to protect ourselves. The second idea of Zionism is a mission to create an exemplary society, to create something outstanding where the best of our values shape a public sphere. But the most meaningful day to day depth of my love of this country is this is the place where I'm at home with my family, I belong.
- [08:08]
B
So this is, you know, you had said, and I actually had wanted to ask you to go back to that word. When I asked you what did you experience, you said it was the moment, not necessarily when they were in the hands of the idf, it's when they crossed and they were home.
- [08:23]
C
They were home.
- [08:24]
B
So what does that mean to you see, home?
- [08:25]
C
You know, I wrote a book on, you know, we never actually spoke about this book together about who are the Jews and who could we become. But for me, a very.
- [08:34]
B
I tried.
- [08:35]
C
I know, but it was in the middle, the war, and I just, I felt like it was just. It was unholy for me to start talking about my book and I'm still not talking about it.
- [08:43]
B
Even though.
- [08:43]
C
Jps, please don't be angry at me. It's a really good book, please buy it. But it doesn't matter. But it does matter.
- [08:49]
B
We should, we really should.
- [08:51]
C
One day we Will. But, but the point. One of the core features that I develop in the book is the complexity of Jewish identity that Judaism is so much about doing and believing. You know, we have 613 commandments. Judaism is a religion that keeps you busy all the time. It's busy, busy, busy. And it fits to this notion of being an exemplary.
- [09:12]
B
Even if you only keep half of the 613.
- [09:17]
C
Just the 10 Commandments are enough, like, whatever it is. But the deepest part of my Jewishness is what I call in the book the covenant of being. That Judaism as a religion is about belonging and being part of a 3,000 year old story and a 3,000 year old people. It's about that deep sense of belonging. And that's why in our tradition, no matter what you do, there's no exit. You could exit, but the community never could say, you've exited. A Jew, regardless of what they do, will remain a Jew. And by the way, it's not a racial category because it applies to a convert too. It's just. It's who you are. This day, Monday, was a day of remarkable empathy. It's not even solidarity, it's just we're together. And I'm thinking about this, all of us. We know the names of the hostages, we know their faces. Think about it strategically. 20 hostages, why should that matter? Why should that matter? A government could have said, I can't. I have certain strategic moves right now. I got back the majority.
- [10:22]
B
Well, they actually did say that.
- [10:25]
C
I know Netanyahu, but it didn't play.
- [10:27]
B
Because the country didn't let him get away with.
- [10:30]
C
This was the day in which we just connected to each other as one in a beautiful way. And it just was right. It was a day in which everything was moved aside and our children were brought home. And that feeling of what this country creates, we don't always get it because we have so much partisanship, but a moment where we felt it. This is the essence of what Israel for me and what being a part of this country and why I raise my children and my grandchildren. This is your people. And it was such a deep sense, I imagined in other places in the world, they look at us. You're insane. 20 people, it's like, what do you care about? There's 10 million people here. What are you caring about? And you're in the midst of an existential war and an enemy, and you're making this a goal of your war to bring back your hostages. And this was the day in which we didn't articulate, we didn't argue. We just felt that powerful sense of a familial bond to each other. And I love being in Israel. That's my biggest part of my Israel. This is my home. And we were a family on that day in the best sense of the term.
- [11:42]
B
It's interesting, the hostages and the outpouring of solidarity over the last two years. And anyone who hasn't been in Israel the last two years can imagine what the streets look like. And everywhere you're covered with banners and slogans and yellow ribbons. So in one sense, that's our greatest strength, but it's also a weakness, and that's what the terrorists understand. And so, in a way, the debate that we experience at this wrenching debate over the last two years between the government supporters and those who are demanding to prioritize the fate of the hostages, even if it meant foregoing victory over Hamas, this was really a debate over our essence. And the government had a strategic point, but they didn't. They didn't, because this solidarity is not only an emotional experience, it also has a strong strategic component.
- [12:42]
C
A strong strategic component. Now, I've said this over the years, you know, it was a little bit of a retrospective feeling. If I felt that the military attack was going to lead to significant strategic benefits to the country, I felt that that could be prioritized over the life of the hostages. I felt it was a moral, legitimate position you couldn't talk about in Israel because everybody was just, you know, every position saw itself as self evident, but I felt that it was coherent.
- [13:11]
B
To me, it was a coherent position. It is a coherent position.
- [13:16]
C
The fact that I began to feel that the war was predominantly aimed at certain political benefits and that the prolonging of the war was involved too much in other agendas, that the prioritizing of the hostages, because at the end, that's the family. But it's true for most of the country, they didn't do that calculation.
- [13:34]
B
It's interesting. Yeah.
- [13:35]
C
The interest of these kids, for them, this was Nitzachon male. This was the total victory. Nothing else. This was just more important. And everything else we'll deal with later. I'm sorry, Yossi.
- [13:45]
B
Yeah, just that it's interesting because your calculation was really this deepening mistrust that you had in the government's political goals. For me, it played out. As you know, we've talked about this a little bit differently. I felt that we'd reached a point in the war where we had reasserted military deterrence. And as a result of that, we could now afford to prioritize the hostages. And there was an additional element here for me, which is the growing realization that if, God forbid, the government allowed the hostages to die, there would be an irreparable tear in the sense of solidarity in this country. Many, many Israelis would say, this is not the same country anymore. And I don't recognize it, and I don't see why I need to be sacrificed.
- [14:35]
C
You know, the Jewish tradition agrees with you when it says, you know, we. Everybody now knows the category of pidon shuim, the centrality of redeeming hostages in our tradition. And Maimonides says this commandment takes precedence over all. Now, you think in a religion of 613 commandments, where God and worship of God is actually quite important, like, why would you make pidyanshui redeeming hostages the most important? They had a sense that's what holds the Jewish people together, that all the rest. If there isn't the Jewish people being held together, if we don't feel that you are most important to me, then God won't be. Again, I don't want to say putting God second. That's another book. I don't want to make this whole episode about my books. I just did.
- [15:23]
B
Neat trick.
- [15:24]
C
Neat trick, right? Oh, I'm such a subtle marketer. I'm so touched by myself. This is the guy who barely did one public event for his books.
- [15:33]
B
But I tried again. You tried.
- [15:37]
C
But there's something very healthy, and I think it's the health of Zionism, too. And that's why the whole issues of state and religion, which we haven't talked about for years, someone feels a violation of what this country's supposed to be when somebody determines the religion for everybody else and makes this a home that people don't feel comfortable in. But we'll leave that aside.
- [15:58]
B
But no, no, no. I stay there for a moment because you're touching on something elemental here, which is the feeling of home. And I think that that's what we were reaffirming. That's right. And look, the operation was called and the children shall return to their borders, which is a biblical phrase. And there was this literal sense of. These were people who were dragged out of their homes on October 7th, and they're back. And they're back. And so what was so beautiful about the moment is that the distinction between the national home patriotism and the most tangible sense of one's personal home were conflated.
- [16:46]
C
I didn't feel this was a patriotic day.
- [16:48]
B
Oh, I think it was. It's interesting, but in that sense, I.
- [16:52]
C
Didn'T feel patriotism at all. Even though there were flags. For me, it was. It wasn't about.
- [16:58]
B
But that's the deepest meaning of Israeli patriotism, is home.
- [17:01]
C
I appreciate what you're saying.
- [17:03]
B
For people that didn't have home, I understand for 2000 years, this was a reaffirmation of what the Israeli experience is about.
- [17:12]
C
Being part of a people who are willing to put care, love, compassion in so central a place and to have a day in which that defines us. It was a glorious day, but from.
- [17:26]
B
I think, you know, it's interesting. You're right. It was a whole day, then it was a holiday.
- [17:31]
C
Yeah.
- [17:32]
B
We all consciously took off. We suspended everything. Daily life.
- [17:37]
C
Yeah.
- [17:38]
B
And we wanted to be part of that experience.
- [17:41]
C
And so this.
- [17:42]
B
Do you know that there were. Not only were there tens of thousands of people in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, but many of them slept there through the night. They wanted to be sure they had a place.
- [17:52]
C
They had a place. And every one of the rest of us, Hostage Square was in our house. It was on television. It was live. It was all of the above. So, you know, we called this podcast after the Joy, and we ended up spending a lot of time on the Joy, which is fine for the after. We'll have lots of time. But let's start talking a little bit this day. What do you think it means for Israeli society in the long run? What are your hopes, your concerns? And if we can, let's focus more on the short term now, the larger strategic, big moves. If we get to that, that'll be fine, but we'll get to the longer, because we'll have to change our opinions on the longer impacts every week, by the way.
- [18:30]
B
Yeah. I mean, look, what I'm about to say actually does have a very strong strategic component, but that's not what I'm looking at immediately, which is this was a day when we reminded ourselves of what this country can be when we're not at each other's throats. And it was a day that also, in some sense, and this is all very subliminal, but it expressed the longing for healing, for healing this society. And I don't only mean the most obvious example of healing the hostage crisis and bringing them home, but more deeply, even the sense of where are we going as a society? The war is now winding down, apparently. Are we going to go back to October 6th and tear each other apart? Which is exactly where this government is now moving us. When Trump came here and addressed the Knesset the speaker of the Knesset, who was a Netanyahu partisan, didn't invite the Chief justice of the Supreme Court. It's unprecedented, the spitefulness, the smallness, because.
- [19:45]
C
The government doesn't recognize the Chief justice as the Chief justice.
- [19:49]
B
Right. And so we can presumably function as a decent society without a court system. And so the pettiness. And so it was petty. It was just so small. And so that was.
- [20:01]
C
It wasn't even ugly. It was like, pathetically small.
- [20:03]
B
So that was one that's a model of this government immediately reverting to October.
- [20:09]
C
6Th, back to business as usual.
- [20:11]
B
Business as usual. But that's not where the country is at. And you saw that, you felt it. So in a way, that was a holiday that celebrated the Israeli family and that celebrated our cohesiveness, or maybe was an expression of longing for cohesiveness.
- [20:31]
C
It's very beautiful, what you're saying, but for it to hold, it needs leadership, it needs ideas, it needs language.
- [20:39]
B
Oh, it won't happen until we have a new government. That's clear.
- [20:43]
C
And whether that new government, that partisanship is on both sides. Yossi, we talk a lot of our audiences in North America. It's like you just this just Netanyahu, just not Netanyahu. Language doesn't enable you. You know, there's a very beautiful term in Yiddish, fergin. You know the term.
- [21:03]
B
Sure.
- [21:03]
C
Fergin is. It's more than just forgiving. It's just. It's like you enable the other one to have his best or her best reading. You allow them to have some value. Because otherwise, you'll see if we don't start fairginning each other as a country, if we can't allow some level of complexity, then it's never going to happen. I think one of Netanyahu's greatest weaknesses, which actually President Trump showed in the Knesset, is he doesn't fergin anybody. It's just this shutdown. It's all my camp, your camp. And for your vision to come true, we need a different language, Yossi.
- [21:40]
B
So we need a different language. I agree with you. And that applies to the Netanyahu voters. It applies to the camp. It does not apply to the leadership that day and night is scheming and pressing on all of the most sensitive points of this society to divide us because it believes that its power, Netanyahu believes that his power comes from activating the base against the internal enemy. And to have a leadership of a country under siege that sees its power as drawing not from appealing to the best, but appealing to the most base instincts of the base. If I can make a little unintended pun there, this is what worries me.
- [22:30]
C
This is what worries you. I hear you. For me, as I think on the short term, where this is going to go, I believe that this process has brought a new language back into our public discourse that we haven't had, I think, for almost a generation. Since Oslo, nobody's talked about peace. Since Oslo, we have no partners.
- [22:53]
B
So now we're not talking about internal peace.
- [22:55]
C
For me, it's different.
- [22:57]
B
For you, it's all about internal peace first.
- [23:01]
C
I appreciate that. For me, the biggest shift potentially after the joy, is to see to what extent this language could grab hold into Israeli public discourse, because there's been no place for it. If essentially you believe that we have no partners and Netanyahu, and not just Netanyahu, it's across the board. But when he said his notion that the Palestinian Authority is worse than Hamas basically says, there's nobody to talk to, you know, we could expand the Abraham Accords as much as we want, and our condition is we'll give peace for peace. That's all. But we're not, basically, the Palestinians aren't part of our political machinations or expectations or even aspirations. And here it was, you know, if we look at some of the language that Donald Trump used at the Knesset, and he says, you know, you can't fight the world. He said to Netanyahu, I thought it was a very powerful moment. You can't fight the world. The world is big. He simplified. He said, it's a really big world. It's a big world. You know, you can't fight the world. And this is, you know, the isolationist, like, who cares about the world? No, no, no, they're too big. You can't beat the world. You can't fight everybody all the time. And the second idea is that you achieved a victory. You've gone as far as you can with your military. You've done everything that you can. And we could keep on fighting for another year and two years and it wouldn't be further. So you kill another person, another. There wouldn't be a strategic, dramatic transformation. And for whatever reason, we now are on the verge of a political process. But that political process is a process that we could choose how to portray it. We could portray it with a play on Clausewitz, the general, who says that war is diplomacy by another means. And we could see this agreement as a form of war by another means. You know, what we could achieve in war, we could also achieve without war, but it's more or less the same. And if it doesn't work, we'll go back to war again. We'll go back. So if Hamas doesn't live up to all of its conditions, all the 20 things don't happen, America will threaten, will threaten and thank Kadulil to go back to war. That's possible. We could see it that way. But there's another language being put forth here. And I think President Trump put it, and I think part of Israeli society, at least it's there now. Is there another term? I know there's fatigue, I know there's a sense of enough. I know there's a sense that we got our kids home. But now could we go to another level and say one second, is peace something that we could afford to put on the table again and then talk about? What does that mean? Does it mean naivete? And it doesn't mean that we think that all of a sudden now Hamas is a lover of Israel? Not at all. This plan is a plan which basically neutralizes Palestinian leadership until in which time it could prove itself worthy. It creates a process. But leaving all that aside, just talking about peace again, aspiring for it, yearning for it, thinking about it, thinking about its consequences, and in the short term, I wonder whether a two year war with all of its price elevates the possibility in language and even the value. Maybe we're going to be less frightened of the term because the reverse, the consequence of not having it is also very severe. We don't have anymore the simple status quo of occupation in Judea and Samaria, which was almost on Israel side. The price was negligible. Now we see the price. Maybe I'm wondering in the short run how that term is going to reemerge. You spoke about vis a vis internal Israeli society. I'm worrying about or concerned about or thinking about what type of changes could happen in a larger psyche on vis a vis our neighbors.
- [27:12]
B
I think it depends on three factors. And here, forgive me for aggravating you, but I think that it's premature to imagine that even the word peace is going to reenter the Israeli lexicon. I think there are three preconditions that need to happen. The first again is a new leadership. This government will not take us to the next stage. The second is the situation with Hamas has to be resolved. Hamas has to disarm. And the reason I say that is because that has now been made by Trump a precondition. Sure. And so that is now on the agenda and it's on the agenda of the international community, and that needs to be the next step. And finally, the possibility of some regional realignment within the framework of the Abraham Accords, which will give Israelis a tantalizing alternative to the vision of this government.
- [28:16]
C
You haven't aggravated me at all. I take what you're saying is self evident, but I'm a teacher and my specialty is in teaching is very deeply embedded in psychology. How do people change? Is it. Then you need imagination. Of course the actual translation will involve all the details that you mentioned. And those aren't just little trivial details. They're worlds. They're worlds. But do we even aspire for it? Do we even yearn for it? Are we just yearning for another place that we could travel to? Like, you know, the first day when we go, okay, now we go to Abu Dhabi, life is great. Like, what has it really done to transform our identity? It hasn't. The day to day life, it hasn't. It hasn't transformed our aloneness. It hasn't changed our isolation or even transformed the burdens that we. It's like, it was nice. So everybody, once you went Abu Dhabi, it's nice. And now you can fly in the Emirates. They're a great airline. Lovely. And you can get now to India or Thailand, much shorter. We're talking about a bigger transformation. And I think President Trump was trying to. That's what his speech was about. He was trying to present to Israelis two paths. You've gone down one path and you did great. That path we won't go into calculations now, brought you to a new juncture. A new juncture, a new possibility. A deal, a peace treaty that none of us could have imagined. It's as positive as it could be. But now at this juncture, where do you want to go? Do you want to revert back or do you want to enter into a direction?
- [29:54]
B
No, I appreciate it. I very much appreciate it.
- [29:55]
C
And I think you're right. The weakness of our leadership is that they're not mirroring Trump's language. They're just nodding, they're giving him standing ovations. But he's talking bigger than that. He's talking. Is there something bigger that you want to aspire for again? And I know it's difficult, but part of the last 25 years is we are all specialists in all the things that have to change in order for change to happen. And I'm asking that maybe change also happens when you begin to imagine it, and that alone is not enough. Then you become a catalyst for those processes. Yossi, we're at a time for last thoughts of any form.
- [30:35]
B
So I think that the thread that I hear running through our conversation today is longing for transformation. And we've just experienced a momentous event in Israel's history and there's this question, or really more than that, a longing for taking this event and making it something more than just a celebration. So we've talked about the possibilities of internal transformation, external transformation, and you know, thinking about key moments, emotional moments, the high points in Israeli history. You know, there was the Entebbe Rescue in 1976, Sadat, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat coming to Jerusalem in 1977, the airlift of Ethiopian Jews in 1991. These key emotional moments that gathered around.
- [31:33]
C
Each one of them. I remember physically.
- [31:36]
B
Yeah, I remember in my body, absolutely. And maybe, maybe what we're really kind of groping for is that, you know, the 12 day war in Iran, the Beeper attack on Hezbollah, those were turning points militarily in this war. What happened to us this week with the hostages was a spiritual turning point. And that's what I hear us trying to say, that you take an event where we transcended ourselves and we all did, we were not recognizable as a society and as individuals for those precious hours and do we just forget it or did something happen to us that we can carry into the next phase of the story?
- [32:24]
C
To quote Yossi, I have nothing to add on that beautiful summary. It was just beautiful. Thank you. Could we carry it? There's something there, but now we have to carry it. And that's now our challenge. And instead of feeling that we're stuck now, we could even talk about after what it will be. You'll see, it's just a joy, truly a joy being with you. And to all our listeners, I hope you were able to feel and to share some of the emotional exhilaration that we're all feeling. And after two years of war and pain and isolation and death and suffering, maybe a new page is being turned. And may our hostages bodies be returned. Let's not forget them. It's not the same, but they're families and they're also our family. They have to come home.
- [33:19]
B
Today I heard from my study which faces the national cemetery. I heard two funerals, year two funerals. The two hostages were buried in the national cemetery. And I suddenly got it. I said, yeah, we really need that too.
- [33:33]
C
We need that closure, you know, And I, my family waited two years for my brother in law's body to be returned. So I know what the families. I know what the families are waiting for. But all of us, we're celebrating. We need one more step and God willing, we'll get very, very close. And we should have a good year, everybody. And Yossi, thank you very much.
- [33:55]
B
Thank you.
- [33:57]
A
Here are some other things that are happening at the Sholem Hartman Institute this week. Are you a college student or the parent of a college student? The Edward Fine Winter Student Seminar is taking place in New Orleans from December 22nd to 25th. Through dialogue, text, study and reflection, college students from across North America will grapple with questions of Jewish ethics, civic responsibility, free expression, and the balance between Jewish safety and power. Together, they'll imagine a more inclusive, democratic future for both Israel and North America, a future that protects all citizens, including Jews. Registration closes October 28th. For more details and to register, click on the link in the show notes. The signing of an agreement to end the war in Gaza and to return the remaining hostages leads us to cry, to rise together, and to hope. Check out our Instagram for resources from our Israeli colleagues. For this moment, our ritual center in Jerusalem has written a prayer for the physical and spiritual recovery of the hostages, while Hana Bin Hasi shares a reflection on what comes next for Israelis as the war ends and they are fully able to mourn.
- [35:03]
D
What are we supposed to do and say and be during this time?
- [35:07]
C
Judaism has so much complexity to it and so many layers to it that.
- [35:11]
E
No one layer stands by itself.
- [35:12]
C
What you have is Jews who for the very first time feel like their.
- [35:17]
D
Value system is out of sync with the broader sector. I'm your host, Alana Steinhein. Welcome to Texting irl, where we wrestle with the dilemmas of Jewish life through the lens of classical and modern Torah texts. I am so fortunate that I have a friend and a colleague who I can talk to Jacob Feinsman, Diana Ginsberg, Dalia Lithwick, helping us think through these big questions.
- [35:37]
C
Why are you guys part of this? What calls you personally to it? What are some of the other things that you work on? What's at stake for you?
- [35:44]
D
I think one of the challenges is to figure out how much failed democracy we as Jews can tolerate.
- [35:50]
C
We have to find opportunities to make enemies into friends.
- [35:54]
D
The model is so majestic in this text.
- [35:59]
A
Listen now to Texting irl, a podcast from the Shalom Hartman Institute, available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [36:05]
D
Welcome to the Beauty of Jewish Jewish Interpretation.
- [36:07]
C
Exactly.
- [36:13]
E
For Heaven's Sake is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute and ARC Media. It is produced by me, Daniel Goodman, with help from Miriam Jacobs, Adar Taylor Schechter and Aviva Katmanaur and studio support from Go Live Media. Our episode was edited by Seth Stein, Natal Friedman is our executive producer, and our music was composed by Yuval Sama. Past episodes can be found@arcmedia.org where you can explore more of Arc Media's podcasts. You can watch the video versions of our episodes on our YouTube channel. Follow the YouTube link in the Show Notes. Also, to receive updates on new episodes, please follow the link to arcmedia.org and subscribe to Arc Media's weekly newsletter. For more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute Institute, visit our website@shalomhartman.org.