This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you, or email [email protected] with comments or questions. Naomi Alderman is an English novelist, game writer, and television executive producer. She is best known for her speculative science fiction novel The Power, which won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2017 and has been adapted into a television series for Amazon Studios. Her first novel, Disobedience, explores faith, identity, and forbidden love within a strict Orthodox Jewish community. It was published in ten languages and has recently been adapted into a feature-length film. Naomi and I enjoy discussing our relationships with a God Who we can argue with, as well as the pitfalls of arguing with people as a way of taking them seriously. We talk about the possibility of being religious without actually thinking about God very much, as well as the God-like aspect of being the 'Creator' of novels and the insight this can give authors into the love God has for us, in spite of having to put us through hard things. It was a fascinating, fun conversation which I hope you'll enjoy.

Rabbi Zarum sits down with leading human rights barrister Adam Wagner KC to explore the foundations of morality, law, and Jewish identity. Adam has dedicated his career to defending human rights and is an active and dedicated member of the Jewish community, yet personally wrestles with belief, skepticism, and the role of God in his life. They discuss his Orthodox upbringing in Manchester, his journey back into Jewish learning as an adult, and why community, tradition, and responsibility still matter profoundly to him—even without certainty of faith. We also explore the fascinating relationship between Jewish law and modern human rights: are universal rights grounded in God, human reason, or something else entirely? This conversation raises one of the biggest questions of all: do we need God to be good—or is our shared humanity enough? As always, Rabbi Zarum's aim is not to persuade, but to understand how thoughtful people make sense of belief, doubt, and what it means to live a meaningful Jewish life today. This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you, or email [email protected] with comments or questions.

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. In this special episode Big Questions of Jewish Belief, I collaborated with Rabbi Scott Kahn of the Orthodox Conundrum Podcast to produce a conversation that’s great for both of our podcasts at this time. Scott quizzes me on whether we can, and should, be angry with God. Can we argue with Him, and is there any point, if He’s ‘all knowing’? Recorded in the leadup to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and at a very difficult time for the State of Israel and the Jewish people, we crack open the issue of how to relate to a God with whom we may feel many reasons to be upset, annoyed or angry. You can listen to the Orthodox Conundrum Podcast here or read the Orthodox Conundrum Substack here.

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you, or email [email protected] with comments or questions. Anthony Julius is a highly-regarded litigation lawyer. Best-known for being Diana, Princess of Wales' divorce lawyer and for his successful defence of Penguin Books and historian Deborah Lipstadt in the libel case brought by David Irving, Anthony continues to be a consultant and senior solicitor-advocate at the London law firm Mishcon de Reya. He is chairman of the London Consortium, and vice-president of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, and has published a number of books including the recent Abraham: The First Jew. We discuss atypical relationships - those we have with people no longer alive, or those we never met, and compare them to the relationships we can have with God. We speak about prayer as intergenerational conversation, as a communal shared activity, and as a spiritual, personal experience, and we consider the balance of time spent praying and studying in a relationship with God. You can order Abraham: The First Jew here.

This is Big Questions of Jewish Belief, the podcast where we face up to the challenges of religious faith. We all have questions about our faith. Questions about the truth of the Torah, the morality of its laws and what it teaches about having a relationship with God, So each week I’ll be inviting rigorous thinkers to challenge me with their questions on Belief. My name is Raphael Zarum - I’m the Dean of LSJS - the London School of Jewish Studies, where I hold the Rabbi Sacks Chair in Modern Jewish Thought, established by the Zandan family. I’m a rabbi and I have degrees in Physics, Mathematics and Education, and I’m fascinated by the relationship between general and Jewish thought and ideas.  I explore these ideas further in a book called ‘Questioning Belief’ which is available on Amazon worldwide (Click here for the UK link). I don’t believe in quick responses that don’t stand up to scrutiny. I think we should take questions seriously as they reflect a real desire to understand our practices and beliefs in a deeper way. So you won’t get clever quips and cheap certainties from this podcast, what you’ll get is an honest and open discussion about challenging questions based on traditional sources and modern interpretations.  

This week on Big Questions of Jewish Belief, Rabbi Raphael Zarum is joined by Stephen Frosh, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck and author of How to Be Real, for a searching conversation about prayer, psychoanalysis, and the limits of certainty. Stephen explores what it means for the intellectual chatter to fall silent — and whether that silence opens a space for faith. Is religion an illusion? A creative act? A dangerous certainty? Or a humble recognition of our limits? A rich, nuanced discussion about faith, doubt, memory, and the fragile space between imagination and transcendence. How to Be Real can be purchased from Amazon UK or from Amazon in the US.

What can I do to hold a fractured people together in a time of grief, disagreement, and uncertainty? Joanne Greenaway speaks with Jerusalem-based writer and educator Rachel Sharansky Danziger, exploring through her works how prayer, storytelling and leadership can create space for understanding and collaboration even amid deep disagreement. Rachel's upbringing as the daughter of former Soviet refusenik and Israeli activist leader Natan Sharansky and Avital Sharansky shaped her belief that individual voices can make a difference. Rachel reflects on the emotional complexity of Israeli society since October 7 and discusses prayer as a language of hope that allows people with opposing views to stand together in yearning. She reflects on what's unique in women's leadership and how that is needed today. Rachel's central conviction shines throughout the conversation: even in moments of profound uncertainty, one person can effect change. This LSJS podcast is powered by The Walder Foundation and a generous anonymous donor. Visit us at lsjs.ac.uk/learning if you're looking to explore and strengthen your Jewish identity.

In this episode we meet Rabbanit Shayna Goldberg, mashgicha ruchanit and teacher to Israeli and American post-high school girls in Migdal Oz, an affiliate of Yeshivat Har Etzion. Shayna is also a yoetzet halacha, a contributing editor for Deracheha: Womenandmitzvot.org, co-host of the podcast "Women Talking Mitzvot" and the author of the book: What Do You Really Want? Trust and Fear in Decision Making at Life's Crossroads and in Everyday Living, and we found a great deal of common ground. We discuss her role in helping girls to grow while staying connected to their home and roots, how she empowers them to take responsibility for their own decisions, how she helps girls hear themselves in this process, and her conscious aim for lasting rather than drastic change. We cover the changes she's seen in her career, a move towards questioning authority in girls' search for meaning, and the growing hunger to know how halachic decisions are made, as well as what motivates her to write and the surprising way in which that began. We also touch on the growing world of female leadership, contrasts between the secular and Jewish worlds in these areas, and our hopes for the future. Shayna's book, 'What do you really want?' can be purchased from Koren Publishers. This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/learning to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.

Visit lsjs.ac.uk to continue learning with Rabbi Zarum and other LSJS educators. Does God actually change reality in response to prayer - and if so, why does prayer so frequently seem to fail? What does it mean for God to answer our prayers? In what ways does prayer help us? Why is it meaningful to pray for others? These are questions which people of faith have confronted for millenia, and continue to struggle with today. Join Rafi and his good friend Adrian Weller as they dive deeply into this essential and powerful issue. For further study, Rafi’s book Questioning Belief is now available on Amazon.