A Mandatory Listen – Yossi Klein Halevi: Spiritually coping with this Israeli election

Welcome to “A Mandatory Listen,” a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people.

For this fifth episode in the new series, we speak with author Yossi Klein Halevi.

WATCH the full episode here:

A deep pre-election political conversation had been planned for this episode. However, in a conversation that could have been called “Mann tracht un Gott lacht” (Man plans and God laughs), Borschel-Dan and Klein Halevi firmly pivot away from the profane — politics — and veer toward the sacred.

Spurred by questions on how he maintains equilibrium in the face of the fateful upcoming election, Klein Halevi, a longtime practitioner of meditation and Jewish spirituality, guides Borschel-Dan through his philosophical pillars.

What is faith — and in what God? What is the purpose of prayer, and who is it for?

We hear some wisdom from Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook’s teachings, as well as a mix of Eastern philosophies.

How does the activist aspect of Klein Halevi — which sounds the shofar and warns the people of Israel of potential evils — reconcile with the man of faith in the eternal nature of that same people?

A Mandatory Listen podcast episodes are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.

Check out last week’s episode:

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