Shmoozing
We live in times of unprecedented change and confusion – identity politics, war, loneliness, social division, the promise and the threat of artificial intelligence, woke culture…
I believe that Judaism has answers.
But these answers need to be unpacked.
SHMOOZING is more than a podcast. It’s a platform to create a community of thoughtful voices on important topics, from personal to social, from communal to global. Let’s explore how Torah can provoke us to deepen our understanding of the times we live in, confront the challenges we face, and bring some light into the world.
Episodes
23 episodes
Ep 22- Transcendence and the Limits of Therapy w Rabbi Avraham Edelstein
What exactly is self-esteem? How is it different than self-image? How do you know if you've got healthy self-esteem or not? What can you about it?And in what way does Judaism offer a whole deeper dimension into transcendence and self-...
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Episode 22
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47:03
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Ep 21- OpenAI is Also Openly Left Wing
I asked ChatGPT to take a position on the following issues;1) Abortion2) Gun control3) Illegal immigration4) Same-sex marriage5) Global Warming6) Preferred pronouns7) Wealth inequity8) Israel and Gaza9) Equal...
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Episode 21
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34:29
Ep 20- Interview with Dr Harris Bor: Staying Human in the Age of AI
Harris Bor is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the London School of Jewish Studies and English barrister (trial advocate). He holds a PhD in theology from Cambridge University, is a rabbinic scholar with the Montefiore Endowment, and has been ...
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Episode 20
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48:38
Ep 19- The Rabbi & AI: Can You Be Good Without God?
Last week's debate with ChatGPT on the question of God's existence really created a wave of interest. Hundreds of new downloads and subscribers. It's fascinating to see how far AI bots can be reasoned with, can be pushed out of their programmed...
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Episode 19
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29:23
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Ep 18- I Got ChatGPT to Believe in God
I asked ChatGPT to act as a human and, using the vast library of knowledge at it's disposal, to defend atheism. AND, to not worry about being "balanced" or politically correct; to take a stand a defend it. ChatGPT got frustratingly evasive at s...
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Episode 18
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27:45
Ep 17- The Day Google Translates the Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel was humanity's epic attempt at total unification. God wasn't pleased and made them disperse and speak different languages. Now we're able to undo the curse. Will God be pleased this time around?
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Episode 17
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25:26
Ep 16- Forbidden Fruit 2.0: Taking Another Byte
This episode explores how a Tree of Knowledge got humanity kicked out of paradise and how Artificial Intelligence might bring us back. But don't forget- it's a Tree of Knowledge of good AND evil.
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Episode 16
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27:22
Ep 15- Artificial Intelligence: Are Humans Becoming Machines?
We get confused sometimes about the advances of AI. Are bots and avatars, Siri and ChatGPT and Replika becoming human? Do they feel, think, choose? In the last year, machines have definitely come closer to human functioning far mor...
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Episode 15
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39:58
Ep 14- Artificial Intelligence: Are Machines Becoming Human?
In this episode we start to unravel where the new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence are taking us. Can computers think for themselves? Feel? Be sentient? Make choices? The more that technology advances, the more these lines ...
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Episode 14
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33:18
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Ep 13- When Smart People Say Not Smart Things- Astrophysicist Dr Neil Degrasse Tyson
Dr Neil Degrasse Tyson is possibly today's most recognized scientist. Some call him the Einstein of our generation. His presentations go from explaining the galaxies, to climate change to God, religion, suffering and meaning of lif...
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Episode 13
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30:11
Ep 12- 3 Reasons Why God Matters
"Life is what it is. And no one can say with certainty that God exists, so why bother asking the question? One day I guess we'll all find out!"What difference does it make to life if there is, or there isn't a God? This episode examines...
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Episode 12
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29:20
Ep 11- The Truth About Post-Truth
My truth, your truth; My narrative, your narrative; My facts, your alternative facts....There's factual objective truth, there's personal subjective opinion, and then there's a fascinating Rabbinical allegory where the...
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Episode 11
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30:04
Ep 10- How To Think About Stuff Part 4: Rebuff the Fluff
In this episode, we look at how to not get fooled by "fluff", surface impressions.
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27:53
Ep 9- How to Think About Stuff Part 3: To Conform or Not to Conform
This is part 3 of our discussion on How to Think About Stuff. This week's topic is Social Pressure. Even when we know we're right, there's that piece of us that wants to fit in. Some of us will sometimes go against our own values to be accepted...
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31:17
Ep 8- How to Think About Stuff Part 2: Cognitive Bias
In our last episode we looked at external forces that feed our values and opinions, social conditioning: our childhood influences, family, school, media, friends. We were fed a whole worldview before we were at an age where we could criti...
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Episode 8
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31:13
Ep 7- How to Think About Stuff Part 1: Social Conditioning
This is the beginning of a new series on how we should make decisions. How do we form opinions, on anything, that are realistic, unbiased, coherent and honest? We can't begin tackling heavy topics without first knowing the basic principles of t...
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Episode 7
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27:17
Ep 6- When Your Nation is at War (Wrapup)
In this episode we're going to wrap up our talk about the many dimensions of this war against Hamas. It's a short summary and we'll come back to revisit the war as things develop. In the meantime, we're developing new episodes on other topics o...
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Episode 6
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19:29
Ep 5- The Evil of Indifference with Sister Carol Rittner
When evil proliferates, why do so few people actively stand against it? Why do we sometimes allow ourselves to remain indifferent? It's a question that we could pose on Germans and the West in World War II, it's a question we could pos...
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Episode 5
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46:34
Ep 4- Diversity, Equity and Ex-clusion, with Amy Shriberg Ph.D
My guest is Dr. Amy Shriberg, who taught in the Political Scince department of College Lake County. Amy is a Jewish communal professional and a freelance writer. She recently wrote a fascinating article called Diversity, Equity and Exclusio...
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44:49
Ep 3- How Media Shapes our Inner and Outer Worlds, with David Olesker
Media shapes so much of how we think about the world. It informs our political beliefs, but also our values and attitudes towards all of life. And it certainly influences people's opinions about Jews, Israel and the war with Hamas.This ...
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Episode 3
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41:32
Ep 2- Unpacking AntiSemitism with Rabbi Ken Spiro
"In every generation they rise up against us to destroy us". So says the familiar refrain from the Passover Seder. Now it's Hamas's turn, and shocking numbers of people around the world seem to support them.Why? AntiSemitism is...
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Episode 2
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40:41
