Rabbi David Wolpe on the Future of Conservative Judaism

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2019

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rabbi David Wolpe is the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple, one of America’s flagship conservative synagogues. The author of eight books and countless essays and articles, he is one of America's leading rabbis.

Rabbi Wolpe recently visited one of the Tikvah Fund’s student programs, where he sat down with our Executive Director, Eric Cohen, to discuss the vulnerabilities and strengths of non-Orthodox—what he calls, “non-literalist”—Judaism in America, religious freedom, Jewish politics, the biblical figure of David, the importance of the Hebrew language, and more.

Have you ever thought about entering the rabbinate and becoming a leader of a Jewish congregation? Rabbi Wolpe reflects on the work of an American rabbi, and what that kind of communal leadership demands. Throughout this conversation, you’ll see how a theologian and communal leader assesses pockets of Jewish vitality, and strategizes about the future of his own denomination.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble as well as “Shining Through the Rain” by Big Score Audio.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Rabbi David Wolpe is the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple, the flagship conservative synagogue,
0:16.8	certainly in Los Angeles and perhaps generally on the West Coast of the United States.
0:21.2	He's the author of eight books, countless essays and articles, and he's among the leading rabbis
0:26.4	in America. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver, and Rabbi Wolpey is this week's guest on the
0:32.2	Tikva podcast. Rabbi Wolpey recently visited one of our student programs at Tikva, where he sat down with
0:38.2	Tikva's executive director, Eric Cohen, to discuss the vulnerabilities and the strengths of
0:44.2	non-Orthodox, what he calls non-literalist Judaism in America, religious freedom, Jewish
0:50.6	politics, the biblical figure of David. Have you ever thought about entering the rabbinit and becoming a leader of a Jewish congregation?
0:58.0	Rabbi Wolpe reflects on the work of an American rabbi and what that kind of communal leadership demands.
1:03.8	If you like the Tikva podcast, you can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify,
1:09.7	and I hope you'll leave us a five-star review. Those reviews
1:12.5	really help us grow this community of ideas. Of course, we'd love to hear your feedback on this
1:17.4	or any of our other podcast episodes, and we welcome your email at podcast at ticfund.org.
1:23.9	If you'd like to learn more about our work at Tikva, you can visit our website, ticfafund.org, and follow
1:29.2	us on Facebook and Twitter. One more thing before we get to this week's podcast, some of our
1:33.7	listeners enjoy reading the Jewish review of books, a sister publication of the podcast and Mosaic.
1:40.3	JRB is holding their fourth annual conference this year on Sunday, May 19th in New York City.
1:46.2	Attendees will be able to meet and hear from Robert Alter, Mika Goodman, Ambassador Donny Danone, the novelist Dara Horn, Jack Wertheimer, and the Great Ruth Weiss.
1:56.2	If you'd like to learn more about attending, you can visit Jewish Review of Books.com. Here now is my colleague
2:02.1	Eric Cohen's conversation with the author of David, the divided heart, and senior rabbi of
2:07.6	Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, David Wolpey. Well, Rabbi Wolpe, thank you. It's really a privilege
2:12.7	to have you here in this conversation. Let me start with an op-ed you wrote a few years ago with the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tikvah, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tikvah and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.