Ep54. A Liberation Journey, Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev

Ep54. A Liberation Journey, Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev

I sat down with Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev to talk about the Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets. We talk about the world's need for courage, wisdom, and vision, the three qualities inherent in every prophet: “an encounter with divine love and concern for the world, courage to name oppression, and a moral imagination to articulate an alternative future.” We also discuss the importance of art, imagination, and dialogue in the prophetic tasks, the overlapping concerns of the Hebrew Prophets and the Book of Deuteronomy, and the way biblical liberation themes are found in various contemporary figures. We end with a discussion on how the prophetic critique of stability and immutability as "currency of empire" and the importance placed on a liberation journey in increasingly mutual relationships speaks with hope and care into our current COVID19 climate, and an impassioned plea to join the work of birthing a new world.

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Ep26. What Happened at Sinai? Benjamin D. Sommer

Ep26. What Happened at Sinai? Benjamin D. Sommer

I sat down with Benjamin D. Sommer, Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. I ask him what happened at Sinai... which is a far more complicated question than you may have previously noticed. We discuss participatory revelation, dissolving the line between Scripture and Tradition, practices of close reading, the way Biblical texts destabalise their own authority whilst maintaining a commitment to Law, and whether we must privilege the redactor over the other voices in Scripture? Listen in iTunes // Watch on YouTube

“All Torah, ancient, medieval, and modern, is a response to the event at Sinai”

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