Geoffrey Stern
280 episodes listed below
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The Malcolm Gladwell of the Torah -- That's how listeners describe Madlik™ – where sharp insight meets sacred text. With the curiosity of a cultural critic and the soul of a yeshiva bochur, Madlik ignites Jewish thought from a post-orthodox perspective. Each weekly episode explores the Torah with fresh eyes — drawing unexpected connections, challenging assumptions, and offering a heterodox yet deeply rooted take on halachic and philosophical questions. Born of a lifelong love for Jewish texts and a refusal to let tradition become static, Madlik keeps the flame of Judaism burning — not by preserving the embers, but by lighting new fires. In Hebre...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Torah passages become starting points for searching conversations about Jewish law, identity, language, Israel, and communal change.
Jeffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz start with a Torah passage, then follow its pressure points into contemporary Jewish life. Their conversations move from Jacob's return from exile to American Jewish influence in Israel, from Tamar's claim on Judah's family to LGBTQ+ inclusion…
Seventy isn't a magic trick here; you get a reason to reread the Torah's arithmetic.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Halacha is framed as a cultural language, with Shabbat as the shared ideal it gathers around.
The conversation treats mitzvot as a cultural language, something to listen for as much as to observe. Jeffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz move from mitzvot to corporal punishment to Maimonides, using halacha to ask what these laws are doing beneath the surface of observance.
Sukkot becomes a layered argument about the Exodus, memory, and ritual rather than a single settled lesson.
Sukkot is framed as more than a harvest festival, with Jeffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mance asking why the Torah links booths to the Exodus and what should be held in mind under branches.
A learned case for how Jewish gifts carry obligation, reciprocity, and communal life.
This episode argues that Jewish giving is never just generosity. Gifts bring obligation, reciprocity, and a shared social order. It moves from Marcel Mauss and The Gift to terumah, Purim, and shalach manot, and the best stretches are the ones that let those worlds touch without…
Techeilet becomes a study in Jewish identity, rarity, and public solidarity.
Techeilet is treated as the load-bearing symbol in a larger conversation about Jewish identity, public solidarity, and how holiness moves from the Mishkan into ordinary life.
A feminist reading of Sarah that treats the gaps in Genesis as the real beginning.
The episode reads Sarah's story as a study in Genesis's gaps: why her burial is named while her life is not, what Abraham's absence may imply, and how feminist midrash can treat silence as an opening rather than a correction.
A live Torah conversation that turns numbers into meaning.
Sacred Numbers Without Superstition treats Torah numbers as something to listen to, not a code to crack. Rabbi Adam Mintz and his co-host move through 70 souls, 70 nations, 70 languages, 70 judges, and the old idea that Torah has 70 faces, asking how repetition can open a text…
A Torah conversation that links Tamar, Judah, and queer inclusion with halakhic stakes.
Madlik uses Tamar's masked courage and Judah's confession, "she is more righteous than I," to make a clear case for who gets to stand inside Jewish law.
A Torah argument about dignity, law, and what it means to be human.
This episode treats a foundational Jewish idea as a serious case for law, violence, and human dignity. It moves from Genesis to ancient legal systems to modern rights language with clear intent, and the links feel earned rather than ornamental.
Daily halacha, case by case.
Parsha questions carried into serious Torah argument.
This episode explores aging through Jewish texts, focusing on contradictions in the Torah about Moses' infirmities and the absence of the elderly in biblical lists of vulnerable groups.
The conversation revisits a December 2022 live recording and treats Torah numbers as structure, symbol, and lens rather than superstition.
Madlik turns to Sarah’s burial, and to the silence around her death.
Mudleek opens with a bold claim that a more-than-3,000-year-old Hebrew idea still shapes modern life.
The episode begins with Jacob coming home with wealth, family, and a changed identity.
Marcel Mauss opens the argument.
Madlik rebroadcasts a 2022 conversation about techeilet, a rare, stubborn, unforgettable blue that carries a whole Jewish story.
Jeffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz open with the surprise of hearing some of Judaism's holiest prayers in Aramaic.
Abraham opens with a question.
The hosts begin with a striking detail in the Torah’s mishkan inventory: the copper basin is the one object whose origin gets named.
Jeffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz center this Madlik episode on Deuteronomy 32, Psalms 51 and 54, and the phrase "Yehi l'ratzon imrei pi" as a way to ask permission to pray.
Jeffrey Stern ties Eli Sharabi’s underground gratitude circle to Parshat Yitro, where Jethro blesses God before the famous judiciary episode in Exodus 18.
Madlik Podcast’s “Who’s In, Who’s Out — A 3,000-Year-Old Debate” centers on Exodus 10:8–11, where Pharaoh asks who will go and Moses answers that the whole people must go.
Madlik Podcast – Disruptive Torah Thoughts on Judaism uses Parsha Toldot to ask why Genesis 27 presents Jacob stealing Isaac's blessing instead of cleaning up the story.
Madlik Podcast – Disruptive Torah Thoughts on Judaism frames Parashat Noach through Yigal Khamon, founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute, whose work translating Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Pushtu, Dari, Turkish, Russian, and Chinese media is presented as a test case for language and conflict.
Jeffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz discuss Rabbi Shlomo Wolba’s essay “The Wonder of Man,” using Exodus 6:9 and the phrase kotzer ruach to ask why the Israelites could not hear Moses.
Jeffrey Stern frames Madlik Podcast’s "The Haggadah After October 7" around a stark idea: "Most people think the Haggadah is a book you read," but the Kibbutzim treated it as "a book you write." Iran Yarkoni and Anton Amarks of the Shittim Institute bring a traveling exhibit, Haggadah of Hope, with excerpts from 17 Gaza-border Kibbutzim and 14 North American stops in 13 days.
Jeffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz frame Parashat Mishpatim around a paradox: Exodus 21 opens with laws about a Hebrew slave just after the Israelites leave Egypt.
Sukkot starts as a booth and quickly becomes a puzzle.
Madlik Disruptive Torah Thoughts on Judaism reframes Hanukkah as a conflict inside Judea, not just a fight against Antiochus or the Greeks.
Madlik opens Shemot as a New Year invitation.
Madlik Podcast’s “How the Rabbis got their Power” traces smicha from Leviticus 1:4 and Numbers 27 to the question of who authorizes rabbis after the Sanhedrin disappears.
Madlik opens with Parshat Vayeshev and Tamar, the woman pushed to the margins of Judah's family who disguises herself to claim a place in the future of Israel.
Madlik’s "Upside Down Thinking" links Purim’s v’nehapichu to Esther 9:1 and 9:22, where the day of expected destruction becomes relief and joy.
Madlik Podcast – Disruptive Torah Thoughts on Judaism links Nobody Wants This to Genesis 18, Genesis 22, and Abraham’s argument over Sodom.
Jeffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz build the episode around Exodus 13:18 and the Hebrew word chamushim, which they read through Rashi as either “provided with weapons” or “only one out of five” leaving Egypt.
This episode explores the Torah's law of the rebellious son, revealing that the Talmud declares it never happened and was meant only for study.
This episode explores the Torah portion Nitzavim, focusing on its radical inclusion of woodchoppers and water carriers in the covenant.
A Torah podcast exploring the biblical laws of house affliction and finding hope in broken walls, connecting ancient texts to modern Israel.
A discussion on how unintentional acts and forgetfulness can be holy, using the Torah portion Ki Tetze as a lens for Elul and repentance.
This episode explores the apparent contradiction between the Torah's ban on bribery and the use of sacrificial rituals as a form of cosmic payoff, particularly in the context of Yom Kippur.
A discussion on how Deuteronomy's radical restriction of worship to one location redefines holiness as a portable, everyday practice.
This episode explores the theme of listening versus seeing in the Torah portion Eikev, emphasizing the importance of auditory attention in Jewish practice.
This episode explores the concept of 'limud' (learning) in the Torah portion V'Yetchanan, questioning whether sacred texts can survive being studied as literature rather than commandments.
This episode contrasts ancient burial practices with the Torah's radical view of death as a pollutant, not sacred.
This episode explores the division of languages in the story of Noah and its implications in rabbinic texts.
This episode explores the three themes of Rosh Hashanah liturgy—Malchiyot, Zichronot, and Shofrot—and their scriptural sources.
A discussion of the weekly Torah portion Balak, connecting its blessing about goodness to contemporary issues of loneliness and violence.