What Does it Take to Write a Novel? with Andrew Furman

What Does it Mean to Be Human? with Rabbi Rachel Mikva

Rabbi Dr. Rachel Mikva joins Rabbi Dan Levin and Rabbi Laila Haas for a conversation about what it means to be human through Jewish thought and lived experience. Together, they explore human awareness, self-reflection, and the responsibility we carry toward one another and the world. The conversation moves through big questions: what it means to be created in the image of God, and the tensions between justice and mercy, freedom and responsibility, and peace and conflict. Rabbi Mikva reflects on how these ideas shape both individuals and communities. Drawing on her experience in multifaith education, she speaks about navigating difference with humility, listening across belief systems, and speaking from personal perspective rather than absolute certainty. At the center is the idea that how we treat one another reflects something larger, and the work of becoming human is never finished.

What Does it Mean to Love the Stranger? with Rabbi Peter Berg

Rabbi Peter Berg joins hosts Rabbi Dan Levin and Rabbi Greg Weisman to explore how Jewish values call us to engage with the world beyond our own community. As Senior Rabbi of The Temple in Atlanta, he reflects on a legacy shaped by courage and social justice—from the congregation’s role in the Civil Rights Movement to its ongoing partnerships across the city. Rabbi Berg shares how relationships with leaders of other faiths, including historic ties to Ebenezer Baptist Church, have shaped his approach to building coalitions around issues like gun safety and mass incarceration. These efforts often bring together people with deeply different perspectives, where conversation itself becomes a sacred act. From difficult dialogues around Israel to moments of unexpected connection, this episode looks at what it means to listen across difference, to stand firm in one’s values, and to find holiness in the work of showing up for others.

What Does it Take to Renew a Jewish Community? with Rabbi Michael Paley

Rabbi Michael Paley joins Rabbi Dan Levin and Rabbi Laila Haas to explore how renewal in Jewish life takes shape through both inner spiritual work and lived experience. Reflecting on his early studies of Islam and physics, he shares how encountering other traditions deepened his own Judaism and expanded his sense of spiritual curiosity. Rabbi Paley was drawn to Budapest, where the legacy of the Holocaust left a community marked by silence, survival, and hidden identity. There, he met individuals only discovering their Jewishness later in life and communities slowly finding their way back to tradition. Through stories, study, and reflection, this conversation looks at what it means to build Jewish life as creators rather than consumers—and what renewal can look like in places where so much was nearly lost.

What's it Like to be a Persian Jew? with Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh

Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh joins Rabbi Dan Levin to share her experience growing up between cultures—as the child of Iranian immigrants raised in Los Angeles, and now a rabbi and educator. She talks about the experience of being raised in a Persian Jewish home while also moving through broader American Jewish spaces that didn’t always reflect her background. The conversation explores what it’s like to navigate different cultural and political perspectives within the Jewish community, and the ways Persian Jews often feel both deeply connected and sometimes misunderstood. Rabbi Rabizadeh speaks about carrying Iran with her in a very real way, even from afar, and how that perspective influences the way she teaches, leads, and connects with others. From the warmth and energy of Shabbat in a Persian home to the challenges of code-switching between communities, this episode looks at the complexity of Jewish identity across cultures—and what can open up when people take the time to listen and understand one another.

What Does it Take to Write a Novel? with Andrew Furman

What inspires someone to write a novel, and how do those stories take shape before the writer even knows where they’re going? Rabbi Dan Levin is joined by novelist and FAU professor Andrew Furman for a thoughtful conversation about creativity, uncertainty, and finding a voice. Furman reflects on being drawn to Jewish literature as a reader while taking a different path as a writer, often working on the margins of what was being published and expected. Together, they explore enduring questions about writing: how much comes from personal experience, whether a writer needs an extraordinary life to tell meaningful stories, and what it means to write with genuine curiosity. Furman shares how passion for the subject and attention to the inner lives of characters can draw readers into experiences that feel deeply familiar, even when they are not their own. The episode also looks at the writing process itself: planning versus discovery, resisting self-censorship, and allowing larger themes to emerge over time. Along the way, Rabbi Dan connects fiction to the layered way we read Jewish texts, and to the power of stories to create empathy across distance and difference. At its heart, this conversation asks why novels matter, and what they awaken in us when we read and write them.