Podcast Ep. #4 – Commentary on Podcasts?

Humanistic Torah Podcast

Episode #4 – October 9, 2025

Hosted by James M. Branum

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE

In this episode:

A commentary of sorts on three recent podcasts from Chutzpod, Judaism Unbound, and the BYU Radio Voice Over podcasts

Important Links/Resources for this epiode:

Machine-generated Transcript (may contain errors):

00:06

This is the humanistic Torah Podcast, episode number four with James M Branum. Thank you everyone for tuning in today, and this has been a very, very busy week on my end, it of course, was the week of Yom Kippur. A lot of good things happened, a lot of challenging things in my own life. And so as well, good and challenging can both happen at the same time, obviously. And so because of that, this will be a shorter episode than usual. I had some grand plans for this episode of doing some kind of Yom Kippur sermon of some kind that would inspire listeners and all that, and this is not the week for that. Instead, what I’m going to be sharing for this episode is some commentary on some of my favorite podcasts. So stay tuned. That will be coming up in our next segment. First though, I’m going to mention that if you like what you’re hearing on this podcast, we encourage you to subscribe with your favorite podcast programs, and, of course, to share share this with your friends and family. Our website is humanistic torah.org and besides our podcast, we also have some articles and other content. Also, speaking of that other content, we are periodically looking for new content that could include essays, short, reflective pieces. Really, it’s a pretty open call for call for submissions. Specifically, though, I’m looking for content that would be of interest to humanistic and unbound Jews and people who are engaged with Unbound, humanistic Jewish thinking. So it’s a pretty broad net. I’m completely fine, by the way, if you’re coming at it from a different perspective, this website is really meant to be a source of dialog and conversation. So even if you’re saying, Oh, I’m a theist, I but I want to talk about something, I’d be of interest to humanistic Jews. Great, be in touch. And I’m good chance I’ll say yes. So if you have content to share, you can do that at Hello at humanistic torah.org Also, I am looking for some people to be interviewing in upcoming episodes. And so I’m especially looking for people that are doing interesting things in the Jewish world. But I’m also wanting to specially interview converts to Judaism, people who have become Jewish to hear your stories and what your experiences have been like coming into Judaism. So again, if you’d like to be interviewed for a future episode of this show, please be in touch. Same email. Hello at humanistic Torah. Dot O, R, G, you.

02:40

Ah, so for this week’s podcast commentary, and I guess I’m not sure I’m gonna call this segment last week, I called it podcast Roundup, and that’s not quite what I’m going for. I’m really one in commentary, which is to give, yes, a little summary of an interesting podcast episode. Hopes you might want to listen to it. But more than that, I want to engage in conversation about that episode, the ideas explored by the speakers. And really, what I’m really trying to do, in some ways, is a little bit of something that’s very, very much a part of the Jewish tradition, which is ongoing conversation, and not just the conversation, but the reporting of the conversation. Now our ancestors, in Talmudic times, argued and argued and argued and finally started writing things down. In our case, we’re recording, but it’s really the same endeavor, and it’s meant to be a reciprocal conversation with lots of voices. And so today, in this podcast commentary, I’m sharing some podcasts that I liked this last week, but I’m really mostly sharing some ideas and some responses to them. So the first of the podcast I want to talk about is Kutz pod. And yes, it’s Kutz pods, just like chutzpah, but you add a pod on it. This week, Rabbi Shira shared her high holiday sermon, and I’m assuming this is probably from her congregation, Colorado. And it was a very interesting sermon, and part of it was she focused her time mostly on a P a liturgical text called the una Tana tokef, sorry, let me say that again. Una tan A totek, and it is a memorable piece because it talks about all of the people who may die in the coming year, and the idea that we don’t know who those people will be. We don’t know what horrible ways they will die. And it’s this recognition of of death and the reality of it now in traditional context, it’s sometimes framed almost that it is this idea that God is calling a shot, so God is up in heaven saying, Oh yeah, I’m going to give that person cancer, and I’m going to give that guy a raise, and, oh, this woman here who wants a baby, I’m going to give her a baby. Oh, and this other person who wants a baby, no, I’m not going to. Let them get pregnant. Don’t think God works that way. I you know, I’m a humanist in my understanding of the Divine is, I don’t believe that there is a God who intervenes in human history. And for myself, my version of humanism is pantheism. So I think there is some kind of uniting presence in the universe, but I don’t think it’s the kind of presence that, again, intervenes and who lives and who dies. I don’t think it works like that. And so I was really curious where Rabbi Shira was going to go with this challenging text. And what I liked was, was that she made a really interesting observation, that the focus of this text, if you look at it is how the people die. It’s almost entirely people dying from human hands or by human indifference. It includes things like fires and floods, natural disasters that, let’s be frank, in ancient times and today, often are caused by human hands. When it comes to war and violence and all of these things. Again, human hands are what caused these things, and that While traditionally, it’s been ascribed to God who’s actually doing the killing here, it’s either Mother Nature or human beings themselves, and I don’t know, hearing this in Rabbi Shira opened my thinking a little bit about how this text could be seen differently, particularly from a humanistic perspective. And so I really liked it. She talked about the idea that this is a I actually wrote this quote quote down that that this holiday season, we need to take ownership of our change. In other words, as human beings, we have power to make ethical choices. We have power to make different choices and and this, this particular prayer for her is about about imagining the possibilities of how we can be different. So anyway, I really liked that a lot. I also will say as I was listening to this, this, this episode, of course, I kept thinking about Leonard Cohen’s song, who by fire, and I might play just a few little a little bit of it right now, something blind.

07:21

Oh. And I think, you know, the reason I wanted to play a little bit of this is that Leonard always has this ability to express these intense, deep, challenging emotions that are not sunny and perky, but something else. And so to me, this the tone of that song, but particularly imagined through the lens of human nature, through the lens of the human existence, I think is really important. And I was especially, you know, I think about how thinking about in the Leonard Cohen song, you know, who by water, who by fire, who by water, who in the sunshine, who in the night, time, high, ordeal, common trial. And then it goes on, but later he says, and who in her lovely slip, who by barbiturate, who in these realms of love, who by something blunt, and who by who by avalanche, who by powder? He’s speaking with very modern language about the nature of humanity and the circumstances that sometimes we hurt ourselves we hurt others, and so I don’t know, hearing Leonard’s take on it. I again, I listening to it after hearing Rabbi Shara expound upon the text even brought out new elements. And to me, I really have a very different feeling now about the una Tana tofat, una Tana tokaf After her message, because it really is really clear. This is about human suffering and human induced suffering. And so the challenge for the High Holy Days is, what will we do with that? How will we take ownership of the change we want to make? So anyway, I strongly, strongly recommend this episode of Kutz pod. By the way, you can find them online at C, H, U, T, Z, P, O, D, Kutz, pod.com, but I’ll also have a link in the show notes. The second episode I want to talk about is Judaism and bounds, episode number 503, that just came out today, Gann and Lex. They were interviewing Alana Aryan, who is described as a composer, multi instrumentalist and prayer leader, and is one of, again, I’m reading description from the Judaism bound website. It says she is one of the most important voices in contemporary Jewish music. And this was a conversation about the phrase Jewish music means what sacred music does to or for us, and the extent to which there is even a definable bound. Between Jewish music and other music. Now what I’m really excited about is this episode is the first of an ongoing mini series of Judaism and bound episodes about Jewish music, past, present and future. So very excited about this. It’s been long overdue for a while for them to have an episode focusing on music. So I’m really or actually a whole series focusing on music. Several things I really liked about this episode. One, of course, I liked that how Dan and Lex did this, and that they’re coming at it from different places. Dan is describes himself not knowing that much about music. He’s the kind of his fandom for the every person who might be curious. But music isn’t necessarily the focus of, you know, they don’t have this massive background of Jewish music knowledge. And so Dan was great at asking some questions that were, I think, to me, just need to be asked. On the other hand, Lex is coming at this place from a place of music. And one of the things I love about Lex, of course, is he does all kinds of cool stuff. But one thing I really like is just his music. Particularly, I really like the Judy Esmond bound theme song. Welcome back everyone. I’m Dan liebensohn and I’m Lex Rothberg, and my understanding is that’s Lex playing, playing that. And I just I really like that a lot. And so hearing Lex and Dan with their different levels of experience, engagement. Engaging with Alana on this was really good, also, though, I’ll say one of my favorite parts about this episode was especially when Lex and Alana started singing little snippets of some of the traditional melodies that are very traditional, and yet, as they talked about, aren’t that old. And it really, I don’t know, it gave me a lot to think about, especially she was really touched by hearing Alana talk about her mentor, Debbie Friedman. And especially the story behind Debbie Friedman’s writing of her version of the Misha Barak, which I would say is one of the most popular composition Jewish liturgical pieces of any kind right now. And I’ve, I’ve seen it sung and prayed in a wide range of Jewish context, in more traditional context, and reform context, and conservative everything in between. A lot of people love this, this text, and so knowing that, knowing a little more about the context that particularly it was written during the AIDS crisis, when Debbie Friedman was seeing so many people suffering from the AIDS epidemics, people dying, into knowing that context and knowing that her yearning was to create a Song of Healing that would bring healing at this time when people needed healing so badly, they needed comfort. And so I was really touched by that. And I don’t think I’ll ever hear the song in the same way, knowing that bit of the history. So anyway, that was from Judaism Unbound, getting find the show, to find the link on our show notes. But or you can go to Judaism unbound.com and listen for, look for episode number 503. Finally, the last episode I want to talk about is from a new podcast. I’ve never listened before, but I really liked it. It was the voiceover podcast from BYU radio, season 2025, Episode 2020, I’m sorry, Episode 22 now, what was interesting about this is, again, it’s from BYU radio. So this is coming from the Latter Day Saints tradition. But their guest for this episode was Lex Rothberg from Judaism Unbound, and they were talking about the Netflix TV show. Nobody wants this. And of course, for anyone who’s at all in the Jewish sphere of cultural conversation online, the TV show nobody wants this has sparked a lot of commentary from people with a lot of different takes on it. Some people have really liked it, and I’m one of the I’m in the camp of someone who mostly likes the show. But there’s also been some really good, thoughtful and maybe some not as thoughtful, but, but a lot of critique of elements of the show too, particularly how women are portrayed in the movie, sorry, in the TV show, but also how some Jewish stereotypes are just allowed to be there without questioning or pushing back at all. And so hearing these two people talk about the episode, and you know, it’s coming from an insider, Lex and then coming from the host, an outsider, someone from the LDS tradition, reflecting upon their different approaches, but yet, how, what, what elements they saw in the show, what made them wonder that was really interesting. And I think the two really did a good job of unpacking this and some of the differences. And like, one little thing was was commented on, was the whole scene. Well, Rabbi Noah was seen smoking cannabis. Lex said, and I agree with him, from my experience dealing with rabbis in various contexts, that the percentage of rabbis who spoke cannabis is probably higher than the general population, just as the percentage of Jews who. Enjoy cannabis is higher than general population. Cannabis is a small, but a but a significant part of Jewish cultural expression. By the way, while I’m talking about that, I will mention we do have an article on our website, humanistic torah.org that talks about through the long relationship of Jews and cannabis, I encourage you check it out. Link to that is in the show notes. Anyway, that little observation, I thought was interesting, and really hearing how that Lex and the host were talking about how that there that you can’t necessarily assume that the rules or the ways of being that say Christian clergy might follow are going to be the same as Jewish clergy. It just functions differently. So I liked that bit of the conversation a lot. There was also a lot of conversation in the episode about stereotypes and how those play out. And also I heard a lot of frustration from Lex like this show could be so much more than it is, but unfortunately, they’re not pushing back enough, and especially this assumption that it’s so wild and crazy that a Jewish rabbi is dating a non Jewish woman. Now, yes, the institutional Jewish world is still warming up to this idea. But to begin with, I would say when it comes to not rabbis, but just ordinary Jewish people, the number of Jewish people who are marrying non Jews is extremely high. I’ve seen statistics of more than a majority of Jewish marriages are between Jews and non Jews. And so this is no longer this weird thing that’s happening that freaks people out. Rather, it is real life for a lot of people.

16:37

As far as rabbis go, it’s, of course, harder, mostly because the rabbinic associations and the rabbinic colleges have forbade this, many of them, but that is changing the Reform Movement. I know, just recently, their seminary finally changed its policy far longer than it should have happened 20 years ago, but still a good, good, positive move. And so it is becoming less and less of an issue, and so I wish the show had hinted about that a little bit. Maybe it’ll come out and later, you know about to start Season Two of nobody wants this, but I wish that had been explored more. Another thing I did want to comment though on especially was the issue of secular spirituality. And Lex brought this up some of the episode of his him feeling frustrated that it was caught this kind of been framed in the story of the TV show that Rabbi Noah was a deep, spiritual person. Of course, he is. He’s a rabbi. And then Joanne is nothing. She’s not religious. She doesn’t believe in God. She does does this podcast. It’s kind of framed very dismissively, and yet, as you dig a little deeper in her story and her family’s story, I think there’s a lot of spirituality present. I begin with by looking at her parents, and we get to see them some about several points in the episode and the back story. Oh, and I should add, before we go further spoilers ahead, so if you have not seen the TV show, and if you don’t like spoilers, then don’t keep listening. And we’ll talk about some plot elements of the show that you saw in Joanne’s parents and them both having been on quite a journey in various ways, that her dad came out as being gay, that they that the her parents had had separated, was unclear if they divorced or not, but they were at least separated, and that he now had a new romantic interest, a guy, and in this this romantic relationship, he was now blossoming. He was and the whole family was like, we don’t know what to do with this guy, because he’s showing all of this. He’s a different person. He’s happy. He’s expressing love, and we didn’t know him. And of course, I’m immediately thinking to me that, wow, this is what happens when a closet when a closeted person finally gets to live their true self and how much more themselves they are and how much more love they have for their their family, when they have they can be themselves. I was also the touch by the mom, and she’s in a TV show. She’s kind of depicted as kind of hippy dippy. Kind of pull a little bit of this from that. There’s the, you know, they kind of portray her as being Sully. But to me, what I saw in her was someone who was a seeker, someone who’s trying to make sense of the world, and he was engaging in spiritual practices wherever she could find them. And maybe she wasn’t doing it cleanly and neatly and but she was doing it and so. And then finally, there’s the issue of belonging and community rituals. And while, of course, Rabbi Noah was Jewish. He, you know, he introduced Joanne to Havdalah, to Shabbat to all this stuff. And yet, what I found interesting was is that Joanne’s family had rituals too. They watched that Vanderpump reality TV show together. Here’s a big deal for them. Now, I’ll be upfront. I’m not a fan of reality TV, and by the way, Lex, if you’re listening, I’m sorry. I know you like it. It’s not my jam. But nevertheless, for this family, this is a big deal. Watching this, this show, this was a had become a ritual for them. The whole family got together to watch the show. There was even nervousness about inviting someone new to the ritual, because he wouldn’t get it. In this case, Rabbi Noah was the newbie. But nevertheless, I don’t know. I was struck by the fact that this family, despite how they’re being depicted as being nothing, they’re not nothing. They have spirituality. They have their own family, their own identity and whatnot. And no, it’s not as clean and neat and put together as the Judaism that Rabbi Noah has. And yet it is something I’ll also add, though, Rabbi Noah’s Judaism is kind of messy, too. He obviously has some different ways of being Jewish than his family. You see this in his brother, who, again, he’s a funny character, kind of a goofball, but he doesn’t know what Havdallah is. He doesn’t know very basic stuff in the Jewish tradition, and there’s no shame in that, per se, except to say that to me, it’s so weird that

21:08

I don’t know it just to me, it was, I thought it was weird how that is being picked. It’s, it’s the TV show seemed to kind of indicate that, oh, Rabbi Noah, he’s spiritual. His family spiritual. Joanne’s family isn’t, and I don’t think it’s quite that clean and neat. I think both of them are. They’re full, complete people, complicated people who have spirituality in their lives and have a whole lot of other things in their lives. I also think that you can’t also forget how important the podcast is, in this episode, or in this whole series, this podcast that Joanne and her sister do, where they talk about relationships, they talk about sex, but they also talk about life. And it was interesting that when Joanne and her sister were talking to the big rigs, some podcast monolith out there about the podcast being purchased. Joanne was expressing concern, like you guys just think it’s a funny sex show, and it’s really about something bigger than that. And I really appreciated hearing her defend the concept of the podcast is about being something more than that. And it really when I heard that, it really struck me that Joanne is engaged in spiritual work, because she’s helping her listeners to make sense of the world he’s she’s helping her listeners to find meaning that that in his heart is a spiritual endeavor. So one other thing I want to mention about that is mentioned the podcast a little bit, but especially as part of the TV show was was one of the characters when and the story line goes that Rabbi Noah and Joanne were going to spend a weekend at this Jewish retreat that Rabbi Noah had to go to for work, but he thought that there wouldn’t be anyone he knew there, that he had an obligation to present a Torah study there. So he thought he had his little weekend getaway and a chance for them to go somewhere, but without prying eyes who might be judging them when he gets there, though, he runs into people he does know, including his rabbinic colleague, Rabbi Shira. And it’s funny, actually, I was talking about a different Rabbi Shira, but the fictional Rabbi Shira of nobody wants this was a very interesting character, and in many ways, I found her to be the most admirable Rabbi depiction of the show. You know, the senior rabbi that Rabbi Noah worked for, he’s, in my opinion, a dreadful human being. I had a hard time finding much like about him at all. He was so checked out. There was also just said some really crass, ugly things about Joanne and about I don’t know I was, I was kind of horrified, frankly, to hear a rabbi, even a more conservative rabbi, say this kind of thing about about another human being, referring to her as a blonde crab cake, for instance, I don’t know. I just I didn’t like that Rabbi Shira. I did like However, there’s one problem I had with Rabbi Shira, and that is in the show when Rabbi Noah and Joanne first run into her and there’s introductions. Immediately, Rabbi Shira assumes that Joanne is not Jewish. Now here’s the problem, Joanne did not say anything that would have immediately tipped her off that she was not Jewish. She wasn’t wearing a big cross necklace. She wasn’t doing anything that might say, Oh, she’s of another tradition. No, she made this a judgment based upon her physical appearance. And that, to me, is the part that really doesn’t make sense. I admit, in my Jewish community, it’s a little different. In Oklahoma, it’s a big tent place, but quite a few Jewish people have blonde hair. Quite a few people do not look Ashkenazi. Why? Because many of us are converts. Some of some some folks are children of converts. Some people come from other traditions of Judaism, including Sephardic and Mizrahi. People come from a variety of different backgrounds. And so when people talk about someone looking Jewish, i. Or making assumptions about someone’s Jewish heritage, identity based on their appearance. I don’t know. I just It isn’t to me. It’s just rude making that assumption today, because that is not the reality of most people in their in Jewish context today. And again, maybe it’s my bubble here in Oklahoma, but I get out, I’m involved in online Jewish communities. I travel when I do, I often visit Jewish communities. And you know what? Every place I go, I see people in Jewish communities who do not look like Ashkenazi Jews. And so I really disappointed in the fictional Rabbi Shira here, and that she made this mistake. She should know better. So anyway, that’s my criticism that said, I will still say I liked the show works and all I liked it a lot. I love the energy of Rabbi Noah and Joanne. I have to agree with it. With Joanne. It was a sizzling hot kiss. It was super sexy. I Yeah, it was, it was beautiful. And seeing them together, seeing them engage with these questions, especially seeing Joanne approach Judaism and this relationship with this open heartedness, and also them both having their own baggage and issues. I don’t know i There’s a lot of things I liked about the show, so I’m really eager to see what they’ll do in season two. But I’m also stealing myself for it being maybe not as you know, I don’t know how it’s going to play out. So anyway, I will also say one last thing, Lex mentioned in this podcast episode, that he was frustrated that the it looks like it’s going to move towards Joanne’s going to convert. And we know this just because it’s based upon a real life story of a non Jewish woman who married it a very much more traditional Jewish man. And there was various drama involved. And they just changed for the move, for this, right? Not movie, for the TV show. They changed it him being a rabbi to make to add more drama. But I come with, with Lex, it would have been way cooler if we she had not converted, and you saw that play itself out. I think that’d be a great, better show, be more interesting. But nevertheless, there are people that that converts a part of marriage. And I also don’t think that’s a bad thing, per se. I just wish she didn’t there wasn’t the pressure. I think it’s sad that that she’s feeling this pressure, and that the and that Rabbi Noah is being led to believe that he won’t be able to advance in his profession unless he marries someone who is Jewish. So anyway, lots to talk about. Well, that is it for this episode of the humanistic Torah podcast. Thank you all for attending, and especially thank you for being tolerant of this podcast commentary on another podcast. It’s, I kind of like, it kind of a, I don’t know, a NEO Talmudic kind of thing of having this commentary. So we’ll be doing this more in the future. By there’s a podcast out there I should be listening to, and I don’t know about shoot me an email Hello at humanistic torah.org That’s it for this week. See you next week. Bye now and shalom. You.

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Podcast Ep. #4 – Commentary on Podcasts?

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