Torah in Motion
95 episodes listed below
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A space for exploring the great ideas at the heart of the Jewish tradition.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Scholarly interviews connect Jewish texts and movements to the historical pressures, arguments, and reinterpretations that shaped them.
The Podcast of Jewish Ideas turns intellectual history into a sustained exchange between JJ Kimri and scholars working close to texts, movements, and their historical settings.
The biblical canon looks less like a sealed box once you hear how its texts kept growing.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A measured look at sacrifice, atonement, and the competing readings that shape both.
The discussion treats korbanot as an open question rather than a fixed doctrine. JJ Kimchi and the guest move through rival ways of reading sacrifice, with metaphysics, ransom, and inward repentance kept in view.
A dense, careful Rosenzweig discussion that lets the philosophy do the work.
Franz Rosenzweig comes across as a 20th century Jewish philosopher whose work keeps faith, philosophy, and modernity in the same room. The discussion moves through his place in pre-war German Jewish thought and into The Star of Redemption, where God, humanity, and the world only…
A close reading of authorship, movement, and the danger of taking fiction for a diary.
Zechariah al-Dhahiri is treated here less as the author of a straightforward life story than as someone whose work resists that reading. The discussion makes a strong case for Sefer HaMasar as a mix of fact and invention, shaped by an unreliable narrator and by place names that…
A medieval Jewish chronicle that reshapes history with a clear purpose.
Sefer Yosippon is framed as more than a medieval curiosity: it is a Hebrew chronicle that retells Jewish history from the biblical period through the destruction of the Second Temple.
A patient, rigorous look at Buber's ideas, their theology, and their modern Jewish stakes.
Martin Buber appears here as a major Jewish thinker whose ideas still matter in theology, interfaith exchange, and the political side of modern Jewish thought. Set against pre-war German Jewish philosophy, Dr.
Heinrich Gretz becomes a guide to how modern Jewish history was written and contested.
Heinrich Gretz sits at the center of a careful discussion of how modern Jewish history was written and argued over. Dr. Jeffrey Blutinger lays out Gretz's importance in stages: his early stature as a historian, the scale of his 11-volume History of Judaism, and the way his focus…
A careful Maimonides conversation that turns medieval theology into a wider historical argument.
The episode treats Maimonides as a thinker who can feel guarded and expansive in the same breath. It moves from whether God hears Gentile prayer to Rambam's striking claim that Christianity and Islam have a messianic role, helping monotheize the world so the Messiah can come.
A wider map of the Haskalah beyond its familiar European center.
This episode treats the Haskalah as a living intellectual world rather than a neat chapter in European Jewish history. Dr. Lital Levy argues for reading it across the Middle East, the Arabic-speaking world, and beyond, while JJ Kimchi keeps the discussion anchored in history.
Daily halacha, case by case.
Parsha questions carried into serious Torah argument.
Dr.
The conversation opens with Heinrich Gretz as a major figure in modern Jewish history.
JJ Kimri opens The Podcast of Jewish Ideas with a Torah in Motion series on Judaism and universalism, then brings in Dr.
Dr.
J.J.
JJ Kimri opens The Podcast of Jewish Ideas by framing piyut as liturgical poetry that stretches language, then introduces Dr.
Dr.
The Podcast of Jewish Ideas episode on "The Meaning of Life" centers on Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
The Podcast of Jewish Ideas episode 85 features JJ Kimri speaking with Dr.
The series turns to the modern era.
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JJ Kimri speaks with Dr.
Dr.
The Podcast of Jewish Ideas episode on the Book of Ben Sira brings in Dr.
Walter Benjamin, who lived from 1892 to 1940, is introduced here as a Berlin-born Jewish thinker whose failed habilitation on the German Baroque Trauerspiel pushed him out of academia and into an itinerant life in Paris.
This first installment opens a series on Judaism and universalism.
This episode explores the life and philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig, a key 20th-century Jewish thinker, with guest Dr.
Dr.
The episode looks at Sefer Yosippon, a medieval Hebrew chronicle that retells Jewish history from the biblical period through the destruction of the Second Temple.
The conversation looks at the biblical mesorah and asks what its vowel signs, cantillation marks, and marginal notes are doing there.
JJ Kimchi opens by pointing out that a large share of Jewish canonical writing is concerned not only with big ideas, but with practice and ritual, especially sacrifices or korbanot.
JJ Kimri and the guest turn to al-Dahiri as a writer whose travels have often been read too literally.
The episode turns to the Second Temple period as a formative age of Jewish textual creativity.
The podcast opens by situating Hasidism in the mid-18th century and treating its emergence as one of the most striking developments in modern Judaism.
The Podcast of Jewish Ideas, a Torah in Motion production, starts from a simple premise.
JJ Kimri opens with a rabbinic joke about whether God listens to the prayers of Gentiles, then turns to Rambam's answer.
JJ Kimchi opens by asking what the Haskalah looks like once it stops being confined to Europe.
An interview with Dr.
An interview with Gila Fine about her book exploring the portrayal of women in Talmudic and Midrashic texts.
This episode concludes a series on Sabbateanism by examining Gershom Scholem's theories on the movement, featuring an interview with scholar Noam Zadoff.
An academic discussion of the Sabbatean movement and its offshoot Frankism, focusing on the life and ideas of Jacob Frank.
A scholarly discussion of the 18th-century Emden-Ibershitz controversy, exploring whether a senior rabbi was a secret Sabbatean.
An interview with historian Jacob Dweck about Rabbi Jacob Sasportas, a vocal opponent of the 17th-century Sabbatean messianic movement.
This episode introduces a series on the Sabbatean movement, discussing its historical context and key ideas with guest Dr.
An interview with Dr.
An interview with Professor Tamar Rudavsky exploring the legacy of Maimonides and the development of Jewish philosophy after his death.
An interview with Professor Len Goodman about Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed and its impact on Jewish philosophy.