An exploration of the Talmud through the “traditionally radical” lens pioneered by Benay Lappe. Whether you are a beginner to Talmud study or a long-time learner, by listening in on Benay Lappe’s study partnership with Dan Libenson as they explore foundational stories and material from the Talmud, you will discover the how-to manual that the ancient Rabbis left behind for future generations to help us re-imagine a new version of Judaism after the previous version “crashes.”
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Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
33%
Guest openness
Selective
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Signup to Generate a PitchAn exploration of the Talmud through the “traditionally radical” lens pioneered by Benay Lappe.
Recent episodes include "Episode 72: When Comedy Becomes Tragedy" (26 October 2026, 67 minutes), "Episode 71: Hard Cases Make Bad Law" (19 October 2026, 63 minutes), and "Episode 70: Cultivated Common Sense" (12 October 2026, 63 minutes).
The Oral Talmud publishes roughly weekly, with episodes averaging 62 minutes.
Booking probability for The Oral Talmud is 33%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. The Oral Talmud requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. The Oral Talmud's contact route on record: verified email.
The strongest fits for The Oral Talmud are Religion & Faith. The Oral Talmud has a judaism audience.
The Oral Talmud is a judaism podcast.
Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.
Episode #72
“It’s intentionally a joke. And the tragedy is to imagine how this sugya might be studied and nobody's laughing. If you miss the joke, you're actually missing what's being taught, which is that this is not how we...
Episode #71
“Hard cases make bad law. You don't take the existence of theoretical hard cases that may rarely occur but do occur and make law based on those hard cases. You say, ‘Yeah, sometimes there are hard cases that the law...
Episode #70
“Don't think for a minute that the Torah actually meant money at the beginning. It actually did mean an eye and we changed it because that's what we do. That's what our project is. Our project is upgrading Judaism to...
Episode #69
“The Talmud has one message, one and only one message, and it gives it in 14,000 different cases, and that one message is, reader, you are tasked with making the tradition as good as you possibly can, and you are not...
Episode #68
“The entire Talmud is a response to the bind that we got ourselves into before the rabbis ever existed by claiming that our God writes books. That was the mistake of history. That caused us a lot of problems. To think...
Episode #67
“ Imagine you're reading some magician textbook, how to do magic… the magician is saying since he transferred the coin from his right hand to his left hand the coin disappeared. But he doesn't actually believe that it...
Episode #66
“This is a really great text to be learning because it shows that something as clear as day in the Torah doesn't mean what the words purport to mean. That doesn't stop the rabbis from legislating it out of existence and...
Episode #65
“The process that made the eye for an eye a dead letter is exactly the same process that could be used to make the Leviticus against homosexuality a dead letter, and that's what we're called to do because that's the...
“ I'm always asked, 'You're obviously an anti-traditionalist, so why are you going back to the Talmud all the time?' An anti-traditionalist doesn't need an authoritative history. The answer is that the only way to begin...
Episode #63
“ When people say, ‘What makes something Jewish?’ A lot of times you're looking for some substantive answer to that, emphasizing the value of tikkun olam or whatever it might be. But no, what makes it Jewish is that it...
Episode #61
“ Even if you accept that we are nothing compared to Moses, nevertheless, we're sitting on the shoulders of Moses and everyone who sat on his shoulders. So we're actually having a higher perspective, even though we're...
Episode #60
“ I'm really starting to land somewhere for me with this text. I think this is an instruction manual for how to apply that very radical and broad directive of prioritizing human dignity over the precise following of the...
Episode #59
“ It is preferable to break, violate a prohibition in the Torah, anything the Torah says don't do, you can actually go ahead and do it if by not doing it you would cause someone significant indignity or disrespect. ”...
“ That's what Rabbi Yitzchak is saying, once the temple is destroyed, we are all in a state of unhealthy living, and our desires can only be satisfied in forbidden ways. ” - Benay Lappe Welcome to The Oral Talmud, our...
Episode #57
“ The issue here isn't sex. The issue here is objectification. So that can take place in a sexual context, but it can also take place in other contexts. So this potentially gives us the opening to say in a case where...
Episode #56
“ There's no question in my mind that retelling, reshaping the contours of the Jewish story is what you do. That's the most Jewish thing of all Jewish things.” - Benay Lappe Welcome to The Oral Talmud, our weekly deep...
Episode #55
“ The rabbis ultimately see us being the Rabbi Akiva character, that everyone is an innovator, an upgrader, a potentially radical rewriter. That's the story that they're telling over and over and over and over in the...
Episode #54
“ People who learn the tradition own that tradition and therefore can do with it what an owner can do with what an owner owns. If you own your house, you can knock down walls, you can build an extra story, completely...
Episode #53
“ You’re really wasting your time, you’re doing the wrong thing if you think that your job is to receive the tradition, protect it, preserve it, and hand it off exactly as you got it.” - Benay Lappe Welcome to The Oral...
Episode #52
“ God only gave you raw materials. God always wanted you to mess with this. The story of the wise servant who turns the flour into bread, you could equally imagine him turning it into pita or challah or donuts or...
Recent guests on The Oral Talmud. Study who booked and why before you pitch.
Theodore J. St. Antoine Collegiate Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian, Jewish Theological Seminary
University of California at Berkeley
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