80 — Behar-Bechukotai: Bleep Around & Find Out

This week, we were joined by Jill Levinson, Jaz's good friend whose bat mitzvah happened on this Torah portion. We touch on a variety of topics, including the nature of man, being a thirsty little desert flower, and cuckoo-lding.

Full transcript here.

Jill's erstwhile band is The Ruach. Also, Jill mentions in passing the School Colors podcast and the season of StartUp about Success Academy. Both of those are good podcasts about New York public schools.

To see the part of the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night intro that Lulav was referencing, check out this video. For an explanation of Jaz's slightly misquoted but very apropos chicken reference, see the Wikipedia article on Diogenes.

If you missed Isabel Fall’s gorgeous and confounding “Helicopter Story” before she removed it from publication to avoid further harassment, you can catch an archived copy here. “All for the Best” is from the musical Godspell, and you can experience the glories of a production by teenagers in this video. If you heard Lulav singing and it’s gonna bug you until you figure out what the original song was, be buggèd no longer: it’s “Candle on the Water” from the 1977 film Pete’s Dragon.

Finally, the word “erstwhile” doesn’t mean “long-time but idk how regular”, as Lulav would assume from every context she’s seen it in including Jaz’s use up above — it’s just a fancy way of saying “former”.

This week's reading is Jeremiah 16:19–17:14. Next week's reading is Hosea 2:1-22.

Our music is by the band Brivele. This week, our audio was edited by Ezra Faust, and our transcript was written by Freya Doughty, a fellow at the Jewish community house Next Dor St Louis. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.