edJEWcation

Your weekly dose of Jewish wit and wisdom. Each week Rabbi Abba Perelmuter, Chayaleah Sufrin, and Jay Covitz explore Jewish history, culture, and writings. Whether you're a relapsed Jew or an old pro there is something for us all to learn.

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Wednesday · 1 hr 1 min
Baruch Spinoza: Judaism’s Most Famous Heretic
In 1656, the Jewish community of Amsterdam threw out one of its sharpest young minds. His name was Baruch Spinoza, and almost four hundred years later we’re still arguing with him. Today, we dig into his philosophy, why it scared everyone, and what it means for Jews today. In this episode, we get into: Who Spinoza was: born in Amsterdam in 1632 to Portuguese conversos, orphaned young, and grinding lenses in The Hague for a living His big challenge: the Bible as a human book, the three angels visiting Abraham as a “baby fairy tale,” and God as the laws of nature The excommunication: Uriel da Costa, a name crossed out of the synagogue membership books, and a community of Inquisition refugees who really needed him to stop talking The Streisand effect, and whether booting him out made him more famous The line from Spinoza through the Enlightenment to the Reform Jewish movement Why most American Jews aren’t Spinozists (they still show up for the seder), and why Chayaleah thinks biblical criticism is the real slippery slope Further Reading on Spinoza: Steven Nadler, Spinoza: A Life (1999) and Spinoza’s Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind (2001). OUP Daniel B. Schwartz, The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image (2012). Review: Jewish Review of Books, “Brother Baruch” Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza (2006) My Jewish Learning, “Spinoza”
October 28 · 56 min
Truth, History, and the Great Man Theory
If history has always been written by the victors, and anyone with AI can now rewrite it, how do we figure out what actually happened? And does anybody really go looking for the truth, or do we mostly go looking for proof of what we already believe? In this episode, we get into: The great man theory vs. Tolstoy, and why the Rabbi thinks timing is the real reason we remember the Baal Shem Tov Why memorizing dates kills history, and the Harkness classroom that skips it Post-truth: an Elizabeth Holmes documentary built to steer you, and the ChatGPT pumpkin that only knew what ChayaLeah had told it The Rabbi’s honest admission about reading the other side of history (spoiler: he isn’t interested) Torah as a baseline for truth, Rambam’s thirteen principles, and the Talmud’s test of character: your cup, your pocket, and your anger The period of history each of us would visit, from Jesus to the Alter Rebbe’s court to the Montreal Canadiens of the 1960s We started with truth and history and ended with the Pocket Rocket. That’s how this show goes.
October 21 · 36 min
Death of the Prophet: The Life of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Part 4
This is our fourth and final episode of our series on the life of Ze’ev Jabotinsky In this episode, we get into: The 1936 evacuation plan to move a million and a half Jews out of Eastern Europe, and why Jewish leaders called it “outrageous and criminal” Jabotinsky’s uneasy deal with Poland’s Foreign Minister, Józef Beck: Jabotinsky wanted Jews saved, Beck wanted them gone The 1939 White Paper, illegal immigration, and the Sakarya, the rescue ship led by Jabotinsky’s son Eri A 25-year-old Menachem Begin publicly challenging his teacher, and Avraham Stern walking out to form what became Lehi Jabotinsky’s final campaign in America, his death, and why David Ben-Gurion refused to bring his bones home The story of Shlomo Ben-Yosef, and the legacy that outlived all of Jabotinsky’s lost battles
October 14 · 1 hr 27 min
Leaving Antisemitism Behind with Lucas Gage
Three years ago, if you’d told us we’d spend October 7 interviewing Lucas Gage, we’d have laughed. So would he. Lucas is a former Marine who did two tours in Iraq, then spent 14 years in the antisemitic “JQ” movement, building an audience of 336,000 on X, going viral with “Boom Boom Tel Aviv,” and calling Jews demons. This year he walked away, wrote about why, and started showing up at kosher restaurants in Lakewood. We wanted to know how a smart guy gets that deep, and more importantly, how he got out. In this episode, we get into: How a 9/11 “truther” video after Iraq became a gateway to every conspiracy on the menu, with the Jews as the “final boss” Why conspiracy thinking is a web, not a single belief, and why you have to take it down one strand at a time What Lucas actually believed about the Holocaust, and how “revisionism” sells itself as a free speech fight The crypto scam, the Charlie Kirk assassination theories, and the moment he watched a conspiracy get built in real time Why a calm “so what makes you believe that?” from Jake Turx worked where name-and-shame never did Russian and Iranian influence operations, bot farms, and why antisemitism treats Jews like all-powerful gods It’s one of the most important discussions should should be having right now, but it’s also funny and hopeful. People can go to very dark places and still come back. This is a good place to start with Lucas's writings - What Pulled Me Out of Antisemitism
October 12 · 23 min
Murder in Tel Aviv: The Life of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Part 3
This episode starts off with a murder on a Tel Aviv beach, how that murder would fundamentally change the future of the Zionist movement, Jabotinsky’s role within it. In this episode, we get into: Why Jabotinsky wrote “The Iron Wall” and how it set him at odds with the Zionist establishment Development of various aspects of his philosophy from Betar to Hadar to Monism The “fascist” smear and the problems Abba Ahimeir made for the Revisionists His banning from ever returning to Eretz Israel The Revisionists storming out of the 1931 Zionist conference at Basel Why are so many of the movements willing to accept the claim that Jabotinsky’s people are responsible for the murder of Chaim Arlosoroff. The London Agreement and the creation of a the Zionist organization Pull up a chair, and bring your thickest skin. The fourth and final episode is coming.
October 7 · 1 hr
King Solomon's Book of Proverbs
Hashem offers a 12-year-old king anything he wants. Wealth, power, conquest, all on the table. Solomon asks for wisdom, and nearly three thousand years later we’re still reading what he did with it. This week we discuss the Book of Proverbs, Solomon’s advice to his kids, and find that a lot of it reads like a group text to modern America. But first, a mazel tov: ChayaLeah’s other show, Ask a Jew, got picked up by Ark Media and is now Chosen People Problems. Yes, CCCP. We had jokes. In this episode, we get into: Solomon’s three wisdom books and the old argument over which came first: Song of Songs, Proverbs, or Ecclesiastes “The beginning of wisdom is to acquire wisdom,” and why the Rabbi says a real scholar needs a good tuchis Discipline, corporal punishment, and why kids don’t need their parents to be their friends Aristotle in the classroom vs. Aristotle outside it, and how Jabotinsky’s Hadar connects Why God made mosquitoes and sloths: “Go to the ant, you sluggard” Why Jay’s favorite proverb is Proverbs 15 Thirty-one chapters, one a day, and you’ve finished the book in a month. Start with this episode.
October 5 · 20 min
15 Years for Defending Jews: Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Part 2
Picking up where we left him last time…Jabotinsky is in a refugee camp in Egypt with 12,000 Jewish refugees, who had been expelled from Palestine by the Turks. He surveys the camp, the Jews within it and comes out with one conclusion: pity won’t build a nation, soldiers will. What follows are the three of the loneliest years of his life, followed spending time in a British prison for the crime of defending Jews against Arab violence. In this episode, we get into: The Jewish Legion, and why nearly every Zionist leader thought Jabotinsky was a mad man How Joseph Trumpeldor became one of his lone allies early in his fight His failed effort to recruit Jews from London’s East End to fight for their homeland. The Balfour Declaration and his crossing the Jordan as part of the Legion His defense of the Jews in Jerusalem during the Nebi Musa riots in his sentence by a British court of 15 years of hard labor Grab a seat, and bring your stubborn streak. Part three is coming.
September 30 · 58 min
What Do Diaspora Jews Owe Israel
In this episode we discuss Compulsory service vs. a Second Temple style tax to Jerusalem, and why the Law of Return covers even Noam Chomsky Israelis flying home to vote, and the rabbis who spend Yom Kippur bashing Israel The Rabbi’s rules for when to confront someone and when to keep your mouth closed (hint: it’s called wisdom) A grandmother’s edible sukkah, magicians and moon bounces in shul, and why American Judaism is in triage Hillel vs. Shammai on thin Jewish identity, plus why Hebrew school is a concession A sneak peek at Jay’s four-part series on Ze’ev Jabotinsky, including the only words he ever exchanged with Herzl Our episode on Judaism and abortion
September 29 · 23 min
"Why Don't You All Go to Hell?" The Life of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Part 1
Ze’ev Jabotinsky could have been a great Russian novelist. Everyone, including the Russian novelists, said so. Instead, a spring evening in Odessa in 1903 set him on the hardest road available to a Jew in the Russian Empire, and he never got off it. This week Jay goes solo for the first episode in a four part series about Jabotinsky’s life. In first episode of the series, we get into: What growing up in Odessa would mean for what Jabotinsky became How the Kishinev pogrom influenced his perspective on where Zionism was and where it needs to go Why he ran out of patience for the leaders of Zionism. His perspective on the importance of Bialik’s poem “In the City of Slaughter” The only four words that he and Herzl ever exchanged Constantinople, the Young Turks, and why he decided to side with the Allies in World War I
September 23 · 1 hr 3 min
Sour Milk, Shots of Gin, and Dual Loyalty
The Rabbi’s Ten Days of Repentance began with a bowl of cornflakes topped with rancid milk, which somehow leads to him doing shots of Gin on Simchas Torah…with an MIT fraternity. Once we helped him process the milk tragedy, we get into our real discussion. We talk about: Is it American-Jew or Jewish-American? And what two thousand years of never quite belonging has to do with it. Why Jewish emancipation made antisemitism worse, and why America is the one country besides Israel where being Jewish has nothing to do with your rights On the accusation of dual loyalty: Why pointing the accusation at Jews is BS because everybody has more than one loyalty. Haredim, the Amish, and the woman on the train who yelled at the wrong guy in a black hat Three sayings put on trial: everything happens for a reason, God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, and suffering makes you stronger. Pour yourself something that isn’t gin, hasn’t gone sour, and join us.
September 16 · 1 hr 3 min
Our Sins of Omission and Commission
In honor of Yom Kippur, we talk about two kinds of sins we commit. Sins of omissionand sins of commission. Sins of omission are the things we should have done and didn’t, and almost nobody puts those on their list of things to repent for because, well, we may not have known we committed them. Sins of commission are the things we were aware did: the thing we said, the thing we took, the person we hurt. In this episode, we get into: Sins of omission: the Noda B’Yehuda, the widow at the edge of town, Bilaam’s “I have sinned, for I did not know,” and John Wooden coaching only the mistakes his players didn’t notice Sins of commission: why we ask forgiveness for traits God gave us, and the filter of Daat that is supposed to run passion, anger, and speech (a 25-year friendship can be destroyed in two minutes of talking) Whether your community owes you a correction, why nobody in America wants to give one, and the art of the well-timed apology (do not bring the flowers on Friday afternoon) Hannah, the mother of Samuel, what it means to pray “on” God instead of “to” Him, and why hope is not a plan Avinu Malkeinu: whether we want God as a king or a father, praying for money, and what fear does to free will Shifra and Puah, the Righteous Among the Nations, “please don’t test me,” and why Teshuva means return, not repentance If you are heading into Yom Kippur with a list of things you did wrong, this episode might convince you to add a second list: the things you didn’t do at all. Listen before the fast, and may we all be sealed for a good year Past Yom Kippur episode
September 9 · 1 hr
No Apologies: Antisemitism and Rosh Hashanah
Jay has been doing some reading, and he opens this week with an essay he refuses to attribute until the Rabbi guesses. From there the Rabbi gets on a roll about Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem, and Hasan Piker (he calls him something else), and why the four in ten Jewish college students pulling back from Jewish life are a bigger threat than any of them. Then we hit the holidays, because Rosh Hashanah 5787 is a week away and ChayaLeah brought questions. In this episode, we get into: Jabotinsky’s “No Apologies” and why we should stop defending ourselves to people who already wrote the verdict When to fight antisemitism and when to let the buffalo be a buffalo Ben Shapiro’s “as Jewish as a ham sandwich” line, why the rabbis were right that he doesn’t get to decide, and why ChayaLeah thinks Bernie Sanders belongs in a category of his own Amalek, the first nation to attack us after Egypt, and the people who give everyone else cover How to walk into shul on Rosh Hashanah when you don’t know Hebrew, the tunes, or anyone in the room Whether parents should guilt their adult kids into coming home for the holidays (the Rabbi has a phone call script, and it involves a fake divorce) What to say to a young adult with no hope, no friends, and twelve hours a day of video games, from Elie Wiesel to Pirkei Avot to a Talmudic line about prisoners Why nobody is inviting the single mom or the divorced friend for Shabbat, and what to do about it Shanah Tovah from all three of us. Come sit with us for an hour, nobody is checking whether you know when to stand. Subscribe now Share Leave a comment
September 3 · 48 min
Jonah Ghosted God. It Did Not Go Well.
Jonah gets swallowed by a fish, and that is the part everybody remembers, but the real story is what happens after: Nineveh repents, Hashem forgives, and Jonah sits down under a plant and sulks about it. In this episode, we get into: The kikayon, the plant that grows over Jonah and dies overnight, and the question God closes the book with about 120,000 people Why justice and mercy are not opposites, and why the Rabbi says everyone alive needs some measure of both How a tzaddik does teshuvah when he has not sinned, and what unreached potential has to do with it A murder trial in the news right now, the insanity defense, and the Talmud’s category of a shoteh Whether the right answer for someone who is already suffering is prison, execution, or therapy Jonah the seer, who knew Nineveh would come back for us, and what that has to do with Israel and Yahya Sinwar Why the Yom Kippur Mincha haftarah sells for thousands of dollars, and why you should stay in shul for it If you usually go home after Musaf and come back for Neilah, this is the year to stick around for Mincha. Come sit with the hardest question in the machzor with us.
August 19 · 58 min
Listener Questions: Elul, Damages, and Israel
Some weeks we pick the topics. This week you picked them for us. The Rabbi opens by informing both of us that the frivolity is over, because Elul has arrived and we have thirty days to get our act together before Rosh Hashanah. Also, he would like an apology for being cut out of last week’s episode (an apology is not forthcoming). Then ChayaLeah tells us about a 6 am Uber ride in Jackson Hole that she was too tired to want, with a driver who would not stop talking about Hashem, trees, and energy, and who turned out to be saying exactly the thing she needed to hear. And then we open the mailbag. In this episode, we get into: Why Elul works like a thirty day notice before the tax bill, what gets added to the prayers, and why teshuvah is a terrible translation of “repentance” The year Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, no shofar on day one, and the headline about 9/11, COVID, and October 7th that nobody needed to see right now The five categories of damages in Torah law, and how a family divides one lump sum among kids who were all in the car but not all hurt the same Whether settlement money is blood money, from an insurance check in America to the fight in 1950s Israel over taking German marks Where you actually start if you want to engage more with Judaism, why Judaism is a religion of deeds before creeds, and why you will never understand kosher before you keep it What to say when a friend, a cousin, or a sibling drops “genocide” at dinner, who is worth engaging, and when to just walk away You ask, we answer, whether or not we know what we are talking about. Send us your questions and we will do this again.
August 12 · 40 min
Planning a Chabad Wedding
It is just CL and I this week, because we wanted to give her a chance to speak this week (sorry, Rabbi). Her oldest son got engaged a few weeks ago, there has already been an engagement party in Crown Heights and a second one on the West Coast, and the wedding is coming fast. So we thought people would be interested: what actually goes into planning a Chabad Hasidic wedding? The answer starts with a phone call where you plan a huge party with people you have never met, and it only gets more interesting from there. In this episode, we get into: Why dating stays a secret until the engagement is announced at the Rebbe’s grave, and why the whole thing takes weeks instead of years Who pays for what, the fifty fifty split, and the gifts each side is expected to give Takana weddings, the thirty thousand dollar all in package that makes sure every couple gets a beautiful wedding, and why the community treats that as everyone’s responsibility The seven days before the wedding when the bride and groom do not see or speak to each other, get escorted everywhere, and get treated like a king and a queen Fasting on your wedding day, why it is considered a mini Yom Kippur, and the Rosh Chodesh loophole The badeken, the completely opaque veil, and the moment the next morning when the bride covers her hair for the first time Sheva Brachos, a full week of parties, and why the wedding is really a celebration of the entire family Come for the logistics, stay for ChayaLeah whispering under her own chuppah asking if anyone was even out there.
August 7 · 1 hr 6 min
The Book of Deuteronomy: Moses' Last Words
Moses has five weeks left. He starts talking on the first of Shevat, he dies on the seventh of Adar, and in between he delivers the longest, most repetitive, most urgent speech in the Torah. The traditional name for it is Mishneh Torah, the repetition of the Torah, and many commentators say this is the one book Moses spoke on his own behalf. So this week we skip the parsha by parsha treatment and take the whole book at once, because the themes only show up when you stand back far enough to see them. In this episode, we get into: Why Deuteronomy reads differently from the first four books, and what “Moses spoke on his own behalf” actually means The discrepancies with Numbers, starting with who really wanted to send the spies, plus the small differences in the Ten Commandments Who Moses is actually talking to: a generation born in the desert with no slave mentality and no memory of Egypt The warning that prosperity, not persecution, is what makes people forget, and how uncomfortably well that lands in America Why Moses was not allowed to enter, what God showed him from the mountain, and why he wanted in so badly in the first place The Shema line by line: hearing as integrating, why “one” and not “alone,” the two inclinations hiding in V’ahavta, and how anyone can be commanded to love We also end up on free will, the chocolate bar, and a sixth grade yearbook from 1992 that somehow ties the whole thing together.
July 29 · 1 hr 3 min
Parenting Adult Children: Boundaries & Grace
Nobody warns you that the hardest parenting years might come after your kids are grown. We opened with a story Jay picked up in a Delta Lounge, a man quietly putting on tefillin who turned out to be a Soviet Jew that did not learn he was Jewish until his family reached America. That pulled us into the Rebbe and Soviet Jewry, quiet diplomacy versus loud demonstrations, and a father exiled to Kazakhstan whose wife made ink from berries so his Torah could survive. Then we turned to the question a lot of you have written in about: how do we stay parents to our kids once they are adults with lives, spouses, and kids of their own? In this episode, we get into: Why grown children still need their parents more than anyone expects, and what that means for us Where the boundary sits, and how to give feedback that lands from a place of love instead of criticism Protecting your spouse first, and why in-laws have to tread more carefully than parents Raising kids who become friendly with you without ever forgetting you are the parent Free choice, and how you can do everything right and still get a result you did not plan for Overbearing parents, helicopter moms, the Little League dad, and when to bring in a third party Whether you are the parent watching your kid make a call you would not make, or the adult child trying to keep the peace, come sit with us. There is grace in here for both sides.
July 22 · 1 hr 4 min
Lament This: The Book of Lamentations
Tisha B’Av is coming, and before we sit on the floor with the lights low, we’re doing our homework. This week we open the Book of Lamentations, the scroll Jeremiah wrote as Jerusalem fell (or was about to fall, depending on which commentators you ask). It’s a book with a wild backstory: a king who burned the first draft, a scribe named Baruch who took dictation for round two, and an alphabet-shaped message hiding in the book. In this episode, we get into: Who Jeremiah was and why nobody wanted to hear his “doom and gloom” prophecies The scroll King Yehoyakim burned, and what Rashi says was in it Was Lamentations written before the destruction as prophecy, or after as eyewitness testimony? Why Jerusalem is described as a widow, and what that metaphor really means The Dubner Maggid’s parable of the needle-and-thread wagon: trading something real for nothing Whether Jews blame themselves too much for their own tragedies, from the Babylonians to October 7th Why we end our reading of Lamentation not on despair but on “bring us back to You, Hashem, and we shall return” It’s the heaviest book in Tanakh, but we promise this isn’t a stuffy seminary lecture. Come study with us before the fast.
July 15 · 1 hr 1 min
Matot-Masei: Vows, Tribes & Cities of Refuge
The Rabbi opens with a request: can we please put a moratorium on the word “anti-Semitism” until next July 4th? (Spoiler: no, but we try.) Then we celebrate some family news and dive into Matot-Masei, the double portion that closes out the book of Numbers. The Rabbi calls it one of the juiciest parshas of the year, and he makes his case: a war, an angry Moses, a real estate negotiation gone sideways, and an ancient legal system for accidental killers. In this episode, we get into: Why some Torah portions are read as doubles, and who divided (and named) the parshas in the first place The trup (cantillation): how an ancient melody quietly narrates the story, including Joseph’s famous pause with Potiphar’s wife Gad and Reuben asking to stay east of the Jordan, and how one reversed word order exposed their priorities What the tribes’ obligation to fight alongside their brothers says about diaspora Jews when Israel is at war Cities of refuge: the Torah’s “safe space” for accidental killers, and why the tribe of Simon got scattered on purpose Whether you grew up with this parsha or you’re hearing “Matot-Masei” for the first time, pull up a chair. There’s a waffle bar story in here too. Links Parashat Matot-Masei (Numbers 30–36) Gad and Reuben’s request and Moses’ response (Numbers 32) “Every shock fighter among you crosses the Jordan” (Numbers 32:20–24) Cities of refuge (Numbers 35:9–34) The shalshelet in the Joseph and Potiphar’s wife story (Genesis 39:8) Shogeg vs. ones, laws of exile “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh” (all Jews are responsible for one another) “Those who tend a tree eat the fruit” (Proverbs 27:18)
July 8 · 49 min
Yahrzeit, Kaddish & the 17th of Tammuz
Some episodes start light. This one starts with a candle. We begin with Jay’s yahrzeit for his mom, twelve years gone and still deeply missed, and the Rabbi walks us through what the anniversary of a death really means in Jewish tradition. From there we widen out to a fast day heavy with history and a piece of tech that might change how any of us learns Torah. In this episode, we get into: What yahrzeit means and why we say Kaddish for eleven months, then every year after The Rabbi’s own story of counting down the days, and the strange sadness when Kaddish ends The five tragedies of the 17th of Tammuz and the start of the Three Weeks Why you can get engaged during the Three Weeks but not married (and what that says about free will) Yochai, the new AI tool that turns anyone into a Torah study partner

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