Tradition Podcast

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks believed that, out of the science of positive psychology, and in conversation with cognitive behavioral therapy, a new Musar movement could be established. In this episode of the Tradition Podcast, Tamra Wright and Mordechai Schiffman begin to unpack what this might mean in light of their co-authored essay “Radical Resilience: Hope, Agency and Community,” from TRADITION’s recent special issue on the intellectual legacy of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. They are joined for the conversation by that volume’s co-editor, Samuel Lebens. Together, our three guests explore the relationship between hope, agency, and community; they consider whether Rabbi Sacks was unduly harsh on optimists; and discuss why he placed more faith upon philosophically inspired psychology than upon the main contemporary schools of academic philosophy. What does it mean for Torah to be in conversation with a science like psychology? What does it mean for students of a rabbi to turn their critical gaze towards their late teacher, who now becomes an object of their ongoing research? Watch a video recording of this conversation. See details of the special double-issue of TRADITION and order your copy. Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Schiffman is an assistant professor at Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School and the associate rabbi at Kingsway Jewish Center. Dr. Tamra Wright is a Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Jewish Studies. Rabbi Dr. Samuel Lebens is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa.    The post Radical Resilience: Hope, Agency and Community first appeared on Tradition Online.

As part of the Tradition Today Summit, held on November 9, 2025, convened by Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Studies and TRADITION’s publisher the Rabbinical Council of America, we hosted a community wide public Keynote Address by Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter on “Historical Realities and Educational Methodologies: Then and Now.” This was the capstone to a daylong closed conference exploring “Educating Our Children to Be Ovdei Hashem in a Modern World: Challenges and Opportunities.” Evening Keynote Address Program Greetings: R. Jeffrey Saks, Editor, TRADITION R. Chaim Strauchler, Rinat Yisrael & TRADITION R. Menachem Penner, Executive Vice-President, RCA Lecture: R. Dr. Jacob J. Schacter, Yeshiva University Respondents: R. Dr. Michael Berger, Dean, Azrieli Graduate School Ms. Miriam Krupka Berger, Associate Principal, Ramaz Upper School Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey Kobrin, Rosh Yeshiva & Head of School, North Shore Hebrew Academy View the lecture’s accompanying source packet. The Tradition Today Summit was hosted at Congregation Rinat Yisrael, in Teaneck, NJ, and supported by Henry and Golda Reena Rothman    The post Historical Realities and Educational Methodologies first appeared on Tradition Online.

On Sunday, November 9th, 75 Jewish educators, rabbis, lay-leaders, and thought leaders gathered for the second Tradition Today Summit, convened together with Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and TRADITION’s publisher, the Rabbinical Council of America, on “Educating Our Children to Be Ovdei Hashem in a Modern World: Challenges and Opportunities.” Together we considered what we can do as a community to educate the next generation of committed Ovdei Hashem? How can students be guided to engage deeply with Jewish life and learning while navigating the challenges of a rapidly changing world? Questions such as these define the landscape of contemporary Jewish education. This second Tradition Today Summit explored how we confront these issues in different contexts: from the New York area to so-called “out-of-town” communities; from American gap-year programs in Israel to local schools and synagogues. Classical Jewish sources, Hasidic thought, and ideas from general educational teachings provide valuable perspectives for addressing these concerns. Central issues to be considered include the role of technology in the classroom and students’ lives more broadly, strategies for supporting different types of students, and models for fostering genuine spirituality. The discussion will highlight the range of approaches within Modern Orthodoxy and the broader challenges facing Jewish education today. View the program schedule. The conference proceedings will appear in an upcoming special issue of TRADITION. Listen to the opening remarks of the assembly with Rabbi Jeffrey Saks (Editor of TRADITION), Rabbi Etan Tokayer (President, RCA), and Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman (President, Yeshiva University).The post Tradition Today Summit first appeared on Tradition Online.

In this episode of our podcast, Tzvi Sinensky,  co-editor of TRADITION’s special issue on the intellectual legacy of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, speaks with author Alex Israel about his essay in the volume, “Not by Might: Aversion to Power in Rabbi Sacks’ Writings.” They begin with Rabbi Sacks’ 2016 debate with Rabbi Shlomo Riskin on the pages of The Jewish Review of Books about Judaism’s complicated relationship with power. From there, the conversation turns to Rabbi Sacks’ reading of Genesis as a rejection of myth and his vision of “Divine Image” as a moral counterweight to power. They discuss how Rabbi Sacks imagined a covenantal society bound by a shared narrative, and how he might have responded in the wake of October 7th. Watch a video recording of this conversation. See details of the special double-issue of TRADITION and order your copy. Rabbi Alex Israel, author, podcaster and international lecturer, teaches at Midreshet Lindenbaum, Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi, and the Rabbi Sacks Legacy. Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Sinensky is Director of the Lamm Legacy Project, and Director of Judaic Studies at Main Line Classical Academy.The post Not By Might first appeared on Tradition Online.

Listen to the recording of our online event marking the publication of TRADITION‘s special volume, published in partnership with the Rabbi Sacks Legacy, exploring the intellectual legacy of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l (November 2, 2025). Host: Jeffrey Saks, with greetings from Menachem Penner and Gila Sacks. Editors Samuel Lebens and Tzvi Sinensky in conversation with authors Dov Lerner, Raphael Zarum, and Malka Z. Simkovich. Learn more about this volume or order a copy. Watch the video recording of the event.The post The Intellectual Legacy of Rabbi Sacks first appeared on Tradition Online.

December 16th will mark the 250th birthday of the renowned English novelist Jane Austen, and “Janeites” (as her fans call themselves) are aflutter worldwide. In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast Mali Brofsky chats with Yaffa Aranoff about her recent essay “The Perils of Gentle Selfishness: Jane Austen’s Emma and Halakhic Morality,” TRADITION 57:1 (Winter 2025). Brofsky and Aranoff are both avid lovers of Austen’s writing, and in this conversation they discuss  how her novel Emma interacts with Aranoff’s reading of Hazal’s understanding of the principle to not “put a stumbling block before the blind,” revealing the depths of Austen’s wisdom and Hazal’s ethical sensitivity. The conversation concludes with a few words about Austen’s literary skill as it is conveyed through Mansfield Park, which was Brofsky’s pick for our 2025 Summer Book Endorsements.  They also consider Austen’s philosophy of virtue and the ways it is conveyed in her writing. Altogether, this episode serves as a demonstration of engagement with “the best” in literature, showing how it can redound to our growth as thinking religious beings. Yaffa Aranoff teaches at Midreshet Lindenbaum’s Darcheynu program and at other institutions in Jerusalem. Mali Brofsky, a member of TRADITION’s editorial board, is a senior faculty member at MMY and a social worker in private practice. Watch a video recording of this conversation.The post Jane Austen and Halakhic Morality first appeared on Tradition Online.

For many mothers, especially literary-minded ones, raising young children may feel like an intellectual regression. In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast, Ilana Kurshan and Sarah Rindner Blum discuss how the time spent reading books with our children can also yield profound intellectual and spiritual insights, not to mention deeper and more enjoyable relationships. Kurshan’s new book, Children of the Book: A Memoir of Reading Together (St. Martin’s Press), explores the ways in which reading books and learning Torah in the context of family life can be uplifting and transformative. In their conversation, Ilana and Sarah compare repeatedly reading the same children’s books to prayer, and the rejection of screens in favor of books to the Biblical transition from idolatry to monotheism. They also delve into the unique challenges of raising enthusiastic English language readers in Israel. Sarah Rindner Blum, a teacher and writer living in Israel, reviewed Children of the Book in TRADITION’s recent Summer 2025 issue. Ilana Kurshan’s first memoir, If All the Seas Were Ink, won the Sami Rohr Prize in Jewish Literature. Watch a video recording of this conversation.    The post PODCAST: Children of the Book first appeared on Tradition Online.

In this episode of the Tradition Podcast we update our listeners on some happenings over on our website, TraditionOnline.org. Check out the Tradition Summer Book Endorsements: Our yearly tradition of turning to our esteemed editorial board for endorsements for summer reading. Some may be amused to think of a seaside read with the 29 tomes our team chose, but that’s what you get from TRADITION’s thought leaders: sometimes surprising suggestions, but always reading worthy of your attention. Readers of TraditionOnline have been following our pair of biweekly columns which appear on Thursdays. We catch up with those authors to summarize what’s been accomplished online and to look ahead. TRADITION’s associate editor, Chaim Strauchler, the Rabbi of Rinat in Teaneck, has been offering us “Tradition Questions” prodding us to think about an array of issues facing religious life. That column is now going off on hiatus and will be replaced in the Fall with the return of his very popular “The Best” series – we spoke with Chaim about the answers and insights he found in the course of “Tradition Questions.” Moshe Kurtz, has presented 30 installments in his “Unpacking the Iggerot” series, exploring the background and reception history of R. Moshe Feinstein’s most consequential response in the Iggerot Moshe. It’s a fascinating guided reading of those teshuvot. We catch up with Moshe to survey what’s been accomplished in that series as it goes off on summer break while he settles into his new position as the rabbi of Cong. Sons of Israel in Allentown, PA. Fear not – he’ll return to TraditionOnline with new essays in the Fall. We’re also glad to let you know that Yitzchak Blau, no stranger to our readers, will be filling in over the Summer with an encore series of his “Alt+Shift” column—that’s the keyboard shortcut allowing us quick transition between input languages on our keyboards. For many readers of TRADITION that’s the move from Hebrew to English (and back again). The series will appear every Thursday until September, offering an insider’s look into trends, ideas, and writings in the Israeli Religious Zionist world and helping readers from the Anglo-sphere gain insight into worthwhile material available only in Hebrew.The post Catching Up with TraditionOnline first appeared on Tradition Online.

This episode of the Tradition Podcast features an engaging conversation about current scholarship on Maimonides—the “Great Eagle.” TRADITION’s Winter 2025 issue presented a review essay by Marc Herman on Prof. Mordechai Akiva Friedman’s Ha-Rambam u-Genizat Kahir [Maimonides and the Cairo Geniza] (Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities), and Rabbi Dr. Aaron Adler’s Al Kanfei Nesharim: Mehkarim be-Sifrut ha-Hilkhatit shel ha-Rambam (Tevunot Press at Herzog College). In this podcast, reviewer meets his subject as Herman and Ahron Adler discuss aspects of their common work on Maimonides. Among other topics, they consider differences in approach to Maimonidean research carried out by pure academicians as opposed to a rabbinic educator who dabbles in academia and benefits from its methods, and how R. Adler synthesized traditional “yeshiva style” learning with academic tools in his book.  They also speculate about whether or not and how the academic approach, utilizing the vast manuscript material available today, could or should make its way into traditional study in batei midrash. Read Marc Herman, “Maimonides in Panoramic View: New Studies of the Great Eagle,” TRADITION (Winter 2025). R. Dr. Aaron Adler is a veteran communal leader, educator, and scholar. He is rabbi emeritus of Ohel Nechama in Jerusalem, and founding Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshivat Bnei Akiva Ner Tamid in Hashmona’im. Dr. Marc Herman is an assistant professor at York University in Toronto. His first book, After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World (University of Pennsylvania Press), will be published in the coming weeks.The post Rambam in the Yeshiva and the University first appeared on Tradition Online.

TRADITION’s subscribers have already received our special Spring 2025 issue, containing content commemorating R. Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l, timed with his 10th yahrzeit marked this month. Five years ago we were pleased to publish Rabbanit Tonya Mittelman’s essay, “Women in the Torah World in the Thought of Rabbi Lichtenstein” (Summer 2020). Toni, a distinguished educator, is a daughter of R. Lichtenstein. In this episode of our podcast, Mali Brofsky talks with Mittelman, who shares insights from her father’s career, as well as her own experiences as an educator, regarding women’s participation in high-level Jewish learning and religious practice. She emphasizes that her father’s endorsement of women’s learning was rooted in his deep trust in both Torah and in women, explaining that he believed women and men have similar spiritual needs in this regard. The conversation explores the challenges and opportunities in providing comprehensive Jewish education for women, as well as their practice of mitzvot, with Toni emphasizing that her biggest challenge as an educator is transforming her students from passive to active participants in halakhic education and practice. Regarding religious practice, Mittelman notes that women should maximize participation wherever possible. On the question of the frustration often experienced by women in these areas, she asserts that there remains a difference between men and women in some religious contexts, that this reality should be openly discussed, and that women should trust the system, pointing out that these challenges are part of a broader set of life demands experienced by men and women alike. The discussion concludes by encouraging further progress in women’s religious participation while acknowledging the ongoing tensions within the traditional religious framework. Watch a video recording of the conversation. Tonya Mittelman is the Principal of Ulpanat Tzvia Sdot Negev. Mali Brofsky, a member of TRADITION’s editorial board, is a senior faculty member at MMY and a social worker in private practice.The post R. Lichtenstein on Women’s Torah Study first appeared on Tradition Online.