JLIC and Plato's Allegory of the Cave

JLIC and Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Plato says the truth is outside the cave. Chazal disagree. That inversion is the starting point for this episode, and it turns out to explain a lot about what JLIC is actually for. The story is Shimon bar Yochai. Twelve years in the cave, nothing but Torah. He emerges and starts burning things down because he can't look at ordinary people going about their ordinary lives. God sends him back. When he finally re-enters the world, he sees a man running on Erev Shabbos with two myrtle branches, one for zachor, one for shamor, and something shifts. Real spiritual aspiration lives inside the world, not just apart from it. You have to learn to see it. This is also the founding logic of JLIC. Orthodox kids are going to secular campuses. The question isn't whether. It's whether we'll meet them there and help them build something worth having. Not just defense. Not damage control. Real growth, real community, real ownership of Jewish life in a place where nobody hands it to you. This is Don and Alex's final episode together. Alex is leaving Yale after eight years and heading to Teaneck. The conversation is part send-off, part Torah, part honest reckoning with what it means to leave your own version of the cave and figure out who you are on the other side.

Ability is Responsibility

Rav Shlomo and Kira Ashkenazi arrived at Washington University in St. Louis on October 9th, 2023. They walked into a house they'd never seen before: no furniture, no light fixtures, nothing. They texted a WhatsApp group of students they barely knew: "We're getting in at 3. Want to do Mincha and a kumzitz at our house at 5?" Forty students showed up. Shlomo cried in front of people he didn't know. A community was born. In three years, that community has more than doubled, from around 50 day school students to over 100, with 50 gap year students arriving next fall. Growth is exciting. Growth is also a real problem. How do you preserve startup culture at scale? How do you keep a diverse, student-run community from turning cliquey as it grows? Shlomo draws on his venture capital background to ask the same question he'd ask about any company: how do you keep the culture alive when the headcount keeps climbing? The animating Torah framework comes from Sifsei Chaim on Rosh Chodesh Nisan. If you have the ability to do something, you have the responsibility to do it. Shlomo points out it's written right into the word: responsibility contains ability. That's what brought the Ashkenazis to St. Louis. That's what they're asking their students to sit with. For campus rabbis, educators, and anyone building something Jewish from scratch.

Is JLIC Too Nerdy?

JLIC is built around serious Torah learning. On a college campus, that's a choice with real consequences. In this episode, we wrestle with an honest question: does being rigorous mean being inaccessible? Are we reaching the students who need us most, or have we quietly built an insiders' club? The conversation digs into a core tension: depth vs. reach. The Rambam has a framework for this. You use honey to get a kid to love Torah. Then you pull back the honey once the love is real. We talk about how that plays out in JLIC's work: what our programming actually looks like, how it compares to other campus Jewish organizations, and whether "counter-cultural" is an excuse or a feature. We close on what success means for JLIC. Not headcount. Not packed events. A distinctive community where serious Judaism is the draw, and students who are ready for depth know where to find it. The question we leave you with: how do you stay unapologetically rigorous and make sure every Jewish student knows the door is open? This episode is for campus rabbis, Jewish educators, and anyone thinking seriously about Orthodox Jewish life on college campuses and how to build communities that last.

Recovering Ron Gvili: A Firsthand Account

Content note: This episode contains graphic descriptions of recovering and identifying human remains in a wartime setting. The conversation is handled with sensitivity and spiritual depth, but may not be suitable for all audiences, particularly younger listeners. Listener discretion is advised. What does it feel like to bring the last hostage home? Rabbi Tzvi Wohlgelernter served in the IDF's Yasar unit, tasked with recovering the bodies of hostages and fallen soldiers to ensure they receive a dignified Jewish burial. In this episode, he walks us through the extraordinary mission to recover Ron Gvili, the final hostage to return home from Gaza, and the profound Torah, emotional, and spiritual dimensions that carried him through it. From navigating mass graves in an open cemetery on the outskirts of Gaza City, to standing alongside an Israeli pop star in the dead of night, to weeping alongside his fellow soldiers when the last piece of the puzzle finally fell into place, Rabbi Tzvi shares a story of sacrifice, faith, and what it means to feel truly part of the Jewish people. He also speaks openly about mental health, rabbinic leadership during wartime, and the Rav Kook that suddenly came alive when he experienced Klal Yisrael in his bones. Key Topics Discussed The Yasar Unit: What They Do and Why It Matters * The unit's mission to recover the bodies of fallen soldiers and hostages for dignified Jewish burial * Why this work is emotionally, physically, and spiritually exhausting * How soldiers sustain themselves through disappointment, failed missions, and the weight of what they witness The Mission to Recover Ron Gvili * The intelligence trail that led investigators to a mass grave on the outskirts of Gaza City * The complexity of searching thousands of bodies for one specific person, layer by layer * The meticulous process: dentists, anthropologists, and explosive ordnance teams all working in parallel * Rabbi Tzvi's wife Tali sending him off with five words: "You have to go. That's it." The Moment of Discovery * The quiet commotion that built around the dentist station at dawn * What it felt like to be standing a few yards away when the confirmation came * Soldiers from every background, every walk of life, weeping together * The Israeli flag draped over Ron's body, and the spontaneous singing of Ani Ma'amin A Tale of Two Dentists: From Auschwitz to Gaza * The haunting contrast between the Nazi "dentist chair" at the crematoria in Poland, used to desecrate Jewish bodies, and the dentists at this mission, working through the night to identify and honor one Jewish man Leading a Community While Living a Secret * The double life Rabbi Tzvi was navigating: communal rabbi by day, classified mission operative by night * His deliberate choice to speak openly with his community rather than distance himself * How sharing his experiences helped congregants and students feel part of the story of Am Yisrael Mental Health in a Time of War * Why Rabbi Tzvi's unit has dedicated mental health professionals present after every mission * His public address to his community about trauma, suffering in silence, and the responsibility to look out for one another * His background in psychotherapy as a pastoral bridge between soldiers and help Rav Kook's Kol Dodi and Feeling Klal Yisrael * How this war gave Rabbi Tzvi a visceral, lived understanding of Rav Kook's poetry about national Jewish soul * The passage from Orot HaKodesh (Kovetz Aleph, Siman 163): "My nation, I speak to you from the depth of my soul, from the soul of my soul... all of you, your souls and your generations — only you are the content of my life" * Why Rabbi Tzvi says he could always recite those words but never truly felt them until this mission * The achdut discovered in foxholes, among strangers from completely different worlds, crying together over a body

Torah in Action: Lessons from Early Stage Startups and Campus Life

Guest: Uri Lorkis, JLIC Director at University of Michigan & Startup Coach Episode Description What does coaching Israeli startup founders have in common with guiding college students through their spiritual journey? Uri Lorkis discovered the answer isn't just similar, it's transformative. Uri shares his unconventional path from IDF paratrooper to JLIC director, and reveals why the biggest challenge facing both his students and his startup clients is exactly the same: how to be effective instead of affected. He introduces his powerful "lifeboat to real boat" framework for spiritual growth and explains why closing the sefer is when the real learning begins. Key Topics The Lifeboat Metaphor * Why the Yeshiva experience is real but not sustainable in college * The danger of "zero to 100" thinking and spiritual burnout * Building a real boat: embedding Torah into character rather than schedule Being Effective vs. Affected * The blitz of college campus life and startup culture * Making top-down decisions instead of being controlled by circumstances * Why Israeli founders struggle with the same issues as post-Yeshiva students When the Sefer Closes, Learning Begins * Rabbi Avner Shahar's transformative insight about making Torah keva * Living a Torah-lived life beyond the safe space of structured learning