What a cleaning day can bring

Today we were cleaning the house all day (as if cleaning it before Passover was not enough) and I put in several hours of consecutive podcast listening which gave a lot of interesting material to write about, when I finish the to-do list I gave you a couple of days ago.


Apart from a review of one of the SALT seminars which featured Ian Morris, I will certainly review some of the stuff I heard today:

Partially Examinied Life about Kierkegaard

Kol Hadash, a second lecture on the Synagogue

Mahabharata Podcast, the temptation of Karna (with some unexpected takes on Dharma)

Partially Examinied Life about Montaigne

The introductory lectures to three new lecture series on Yale:
Epidemics in western society since 1600
Early Modern England
Moral foundation of politics

In Our Time: The Pelagian Controversy

Myoclonic Jerk: Episode about _why_ does Dan Kaufman play World of Witchcraft

The two episodes of a new Hebrew podcast פרורי מידע

The house is very clean now....

Listening ideas for 22 April 2011

New Books In History
Michael A. Reynolds, “Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918″
Prior to the nineteenth century, people generally did not live in a world of nations. They lived in a world of empires. Now in hindsight, we say that these empires were “multinational,” that is, they were made up of nations. But the elites who ran the empires didn’t think so. They saw them as made up of territories where the sovereign’s writ ran, not “nations” that the sovereign ruled (though there was some of that as well).
(review, feed)

A Short History of Japan
Tsunami
A look at the history of tsunami and Japan
(review, feed)

Shrink Rap Radio
A Door into The Unconscious with Jerry Trumbule
Jerry Tumbule, M.S, ABD and I have yet another one of our wide ranging conversations, picking up the thread that we left off on SRR # 259. In the beginning of our conversation I mention three very inspiring documentaries. The three films are: “I Am,” “Happy, The Movie,” and “Genghis Blues.” And Genghis Blues is [...]
(review, feed)

Listening ideas for 21 April 2011

In Our Time
The Pelagian Controversy
Melvyn Bragg discusses The Pelagian Controversy. With Caroline Humfress, Martin Palmer and John Milbank.
(review, feed)

Center for Near Eastern Studies
Violence's Law
A lecture with George Bisharat, UC Hastings College of the Law
(review, feed)

Adam Chalom at Georgetown University

What is Secular Judaism is a difficult enough question, but what to think of secular Jews having a community and a rabbi of their own? That seems a bit of an oxymoron. I am much fascinated by the congregation of that sort in Chicago and their rabbi Adam Chalom, who can be heard on the podcast Kol Hadash - new voice (feed).

On 11 April Kol Hadash published a guest lecture Adam Chalom held at Georgetown University in which he explains better than ever what is Secular Jewish congregation he is leading. One of the strongest elements is this: these people identify with Jewish Culture, feel attached to it and feel the need to congregate even if they do not believe in God and do not keep kosher and Sabbath and all the other Mitzvot. Chalom works out the philosophy and describes how it works in practice.

Of course this triggers a lot of questions and a good half hour of the recording is spent on Chalom answering questions from the audience. For example the question: how does Chalom's Humanist Judaism define who is a Jew and who is not? And how does it offer entry to the club. Do they do conversions and if so how? His answers seem rather pragmatic: the person who identifies with Jews and Jewish culture, for him, is a Jew. And one who wants to enter... well, let him have it. Should you want some kind of ritual, or formal acceptance - it can be arranged.

More Kol Hadash:
The Synagogue,
Intermarriage,
Rabbi Adam Chalom - Kol Hadash Podcast

Listening ideas for 20 April 2011

Witness
Gandhi's Salt March protest in India
How Gandhi's Salt March against British rule in India showed the power of peaceful protest.
(review, feed)

KQED's Forum
Francis Fukuyama: The Origins of Political Order
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, political theorist Francis Fukuyama predicted the "End of History" in his seminal essay. In his latest book, "The Origins of Political Order," he tracks the development of political institutions since pre-modern times. He joins us in the studio to discuss this new book.
(review, feed)

UCLA History 182G - History of Secular Judaism

A very interesting course has begun running at UCLA: History 182G - Secular Jewish Culture (feed). David Myers teaches a relatively small group of students, so it sounds, the history of Jewish people looking for their secular versions of Judaism. The fact that this is a small group, warrants a lot of interaction with the audience, which on the one hand makes it extra fascinating. On the other hand, for the passive podcast listener, breaks up the structure of the lecture frequently especially when you cannot hear the questions and remarks by the students.

I was expecting that this history of Secular Judaism would start with Spinoza, but Myers takes us much much further back in history and tries to point at much earlier versions of Judaism that were not exactly according the main stream religious precepts. Take for example how the Greek culture in a way threatened Jewish culture. We know in the story of Hanuka how the Jews fended this off, but upon closer inspection we still discern the influence. With a figure like the philosopher Philo who comes from the Jewish community on Alexandria the Hellenistic influence is let in.

The next figure to come up in Myers's course is Maimonides. Like Philo, he let's in the Greek culture - which comes to him through Arabic and just like Philo he gives a genuine Jewish twist to it. And so, even if Maimonides is a great figure in mean stream Judaism when it is about his commentaries to the Halakhah, his philosophy is deemed less so and serves for Myers as example of secular Jewish Culture. And we haven't reached Spinoza yet at all.