Barak Malkin, Ethan Lane-Miller, Rabbi David Young
119 episodes listed below
Pokemon, Ted Lasso and Esther in the same conversation.
Each episode of Torah Smash! builds around a single collision between something Jewish and something from nerd culture. Recent pairings have run through Pokemon, the Spider-Man trilogy, Star Wars, Ted Lasso, board games like Catan, and the question of whether Jewish stories contain any real superhero teams.
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Torah Smash! The Podcast for Nerdy Jews has a formula and announces it every time. Each episode is built around a Torah Smash, which the hosts define as a beautiful collision of one thing from the world of Judaism with another from nerd culture. The show has three regular voices, Ethan Lane Miller, Barak Malkin and RDY, and they rotate who opens the episode and introduces the others. Barak Malkin opens 'Ted Blessings' with a topic kept in the back pocket for a while, Ted Lasso, and the talk tracks Nate from quiet towel boy to assistant coach to a confidence that goes too far for want of self-control. Ethan Lane Miller opens 'Pokemon: Blue and White' with FireRed and LeafGreen as the lead-in. RDY, coming off the 100th episode, opens 'TS101 A Lesson in Basics', which spends a stretch on board games and on why Catan draws hate when, as one host puts it, it is a terrific game. The nerd references pile up fast. Star Wars gets a close reading of Luke's boast about bullseyeing swamp rats in his T-16. The Spider-Man trilogy is relitigated in the middle of the Pokemon episode, and a fourth film is floated as the thing that might finally settle the argument. Comics get a turn too, in the form of the Jewish Hero Corps, a one-issue book the hosts call schmaltzy and not very good but worth knowing about. The Jewish material is just as varied. 'The Torah League' hunts for hero teams in Jewish stories and finds them scarce, with Mordechai and Esther as one of the few real pairings and Moses as a figure who never reads as part of a group. Episode 98 brings in three guests, Rabbi Benjamin David, Rabbi Eric Linder and Rabbi Stephen Wise, and the conversation moves to synagogue life: new High Holiday books, a Rosh Hashanah moment that landed as unexpectedly powerful, a cantor whose voice is lifted further when others harmonize beside her. The show can also carry a real subject. Episode 102 opens with a trip home after the unexpected death of a family member before it gets to the collision of the week. What holds all of this together is the temperature of the room. The hosts interrupt, agree to disagree, and admit when they have dragged everyone down a rabbit hole. They joke that listeners yell corrections at them and that they hear it and keep rolling anyway. The Zoom room gets crowded when guests arrive, the show is edited afterward, and the hosts narrate in real time which bits are getting cut. Several episodes end with a pun the hosts sometimes apologize for on the spot, whether it is a Deadpool crossed with the Dead Sea or a Jewish soccer player who tore a ligament. A listener new to the show could start with 'Ted Blessings' or 'The Torah League' and get the whole method in one sitting: a familiar piece of pop culture, a Jewish text or figure set beside it, and three people seeing what sticks.
Made for: Suits a listener who keeps Jewish texts and pop culture in the same head and wants both taken seriously in one conversation, and who is happy to follow a tangent about the Spider-Man trilogy wherever it goes.
What sets it apart: Where most Jewish-learning podcasts start from the text and most fandom podcasts start from the franchise, this one requires one of each in every episode, stated as a definition at the top of the show, and lets three co-hosts argue about the fit.
Where our lives of Jewish learning collide with our love of Nerd Culture. Join us as we explore Jewish texts, history, and values and the apparent and invisible connections to your favorite movies, characters, and hobbies. www.torahsmash.com
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose, thoughtful Torah-and-nerd-culture conversation that uses Spaceballs to open a Star Wars debate.
The episode starts in a quiet register, after an unexpected family loss, then drifts through a home evening, a scroll through streaming options, and a rewatch of Spaceballs that changes the conversation's direction.
A playful Judaism 101 that mixes learning, banter, and board game detours without taking itself too seriously.
Episode 101 keeps Judaism's basics lively instead of treating them like a lesson plan. The Ten Commandments, or Aseret Hadibrot, become a starting point for a looser talk about Jewish learning, and the companionable, self aware tone fits a show built around nerdy Jews, Torah…
Daily halacha, case by case.
Parsha questions carried into serious Torah argument.
Ethan Lane Miller, Barak Malkin, and RDY compare Pokemon Red and Green, Japanese Blue, American Red and Blue, and the 2004 FireRed and LeafGreen remakes with Judaism's continual reinterpretation.
The hosts discuss the biblical story of Gideon from Judges 6-8 and its connections to nerd culture.
Torah Smash!
Star Trek’s “prime directive” and Torah’s “guide” both frame rules as something you can understand before you break them.
Torah Smash!
Torah Smash!
"Open the eyes of the blind" becomes thanks for being able to open your eyes this morning.
Tamar Laddy, a Pretty Little Liars alum, tells hosts Ethan Lane Miller and Barak Malkin that she wrote Round and Round as an 'inside baseball' Hanukkah movie instead of one built around a non-Jewish friend who gets everything explained.
Torah Smash Episode 95, "MagicHeart," pairs Exodus 22:17 ("you shall not tolerate a sorceress") with Marvel's Ironheart, with Ethan Lane Miller, Barak Malkin and RDY as the voices.