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Podcast: Jewish Ideas to Change the World
Episode: Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller – The Biblical Plagues and OUR Plague: An Anthropocentric “Theology” and a Lesson for Our Times
Description: Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller speaks at Valley Beit Midrash. ABOUT THE EPISODE:The onset of the coronavirus brought with it a slew of perverse efforts to identify the ‘sinful’ behaviors for which the plague was God’s punishment. Through an analysis of “Vehaya im Shamoa” (Deut.11:13-21) I offer an alternative understanding of punishment as a disciplinary act attributed to God but, actually, the direct consequence of human conduct. Proceeding to outline the Pharoanic behavioral antecedents of the Egyptian plagues I move on to focus on the causal chain of human missteps that have led to the curr...