Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: Jewish Ideas to Change the World
Episode: Why Bad Stuff Happens: Two Dissident Theodicies
Description: ABOUT THE EVENT:The second chapter of Tractate Shabbat presents multiple explanations of why bad things happen. The majority opinion that we get what we deserve. This passage offers 1) An “iffy” explanation intended for women and 2) An explanation intended for scholarly men, offering complex variables, including randomness. (Shabbat 31b-32a) ABOUT THE SPEAKER:Rabbi Rachel Adler, the David Ellenson Professor of Modern Jewish Thought Emerita at Hebrew Union College–Los Angeles, was one of the first to integrate feminist perspectives into interpreting Jewish texts and law. Her book Engendering Judaism (1998) is the firs...