We have grown accustomed to seeing Ethics and Holiness as virtually the same thing. I show that in order to properly understand Heschel's interlocking concepts of Blessing (berakhah), Faith (emunah), Awe (yirah), and Commandedness (Mitzvah), one needs to grasp that Ethics and Holiness are VERY different. This podcast has been edited to remove the Q&A, which sometimes found the material uncomfortable to their sensibilities.

The vast majority of work on Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is academic: summaries, clarification, footnotes and so on. In this series of classes, I'm here to show you how to live Heschel's religious philosophy, not understand it. In this first lecture, I show how one begins this process by first gathering three philosophies: 1) Schleiermacher, 2) Pragmatism, and 3) Phenomenology. With these basics, one is ready to identify what connecting to God looks like, whether you've ever done it yourself, and how it creates and informs Judaism.

There are two New Years on the Jewish calendar (in addition to the new years for trees and for flocks): Rosh Hashanah and First of Nissan (announced on Shabbat HaChodesh). The deep spiritual connection between the two is emphasized by reading the haftarah from Ezekiel, who sees the journey from the 1st of Nissan to Pesach as an equal mirror of the journey from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, and for whom Pesach is the real Yom Kippur. There is a deep and very practical message here: most of our Rosh Hashanah new years' resolutions may fall apart following Sukkot, but the best time to really enact those resolutions in a sustainable way is to use Pesach as the renewal of putting those resolutions into practice. Especially with the change and limitation on diet, the open discussion of what it means to serve God and your own soul during the Seder, THIS is the time to restart doing those resolutions. We're only halfway through the year: you've got six months of leaning into the homestretch, pulled by the gravity of the upcoming holidays. What are your new years' resolutions? How can you implement them during Pesach?