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The Stoic Jew

Rabbi Matt Schneeweiss

330 episodes

6 days ago

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 29 minutes 25 seconds Synopsis: AND WE'RE BACK! This episode is brought to you by the letter "I"—for insomnia. In a spontaneous decision to return to my old practice, I turned a sleepless night into a new installment of TSJ. If you're looking to up your gratitude game, this one's for you. We start with a recap of my gratitude journal practice, explore an idea in Modim and the Jewish approach to gratitude, then dive into an ex...

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Religion & Spirituality,

Self-Improvement

All content for The Stoic Jew is the property of Rabbi Matt Schneeweiss and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 29 minutes 25 seconds Synopsis: AND WE'RE BACK! This episode is brought to you by the letter "I"—for insomnia. In a spontaneous decision to return to my old practice, I turned a sleepless night into a new installment of TSJ. If you're looking to up your gratitude game, this one's for you. We start with a recap of my gratitude journal practice, explore an idea in Modim and the Jewish approach to gratitude, then dive into an ex...

Show more...

Religion & Spirituality,

Self-Improvement

Episodes (20/330)

The Stoic Jew

1350 Days of Gratitude, Rabbi Sacks on Pesach Storytelling, and Meditation as Foundation (Seneca - Letter #13)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 29 minutes 25 seconds Synopsis: AND WE'RE BACK! This episode is brought to you by the letter "I"—for insomnia. In a spontaneous decision to return to my old practice, I turned a sleepless night into a new installment of TSJ. If you're looking to up your gratitude game, this one's for you. We start with a recap of my gratitude journal practice, explore an idea in Modim and the Jewish approach to gratitude, then dive into an ex...

4 months ago

29 minutes

The Stoic Jew

My Oura Ring Was Stolen! ... But Only In My Mind (Epictetus - Discourses 2.18-30)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 21 minutes 25 seconds Synopsis: There's nothing like a real-world example to showcase Stoic principles. This incident that happened to me a couple of weeks ago illustrates one of the core ideas in Epictetus's teachings: the use of "impressions." Not only that, but it also exemplifies one of the chief benefits of tefilah. Sources: - Epictetus, Discourses 2:18-30 ----- The Torah content for the first month of the new school ye...

11 months ago

21 minutes

The Stoic Jew

Don't Be Shocked By Evil (Aurelius - Meditations 7:1)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 14 minutes 6 seconds Synopsis: In an effort to jumpstart weekly TSJ episodes, I've decided to start from the beginning of Meditations Book 7 and work my way through. Chapter 1 is very reminiscent of Koheles ... or is it? You can be the judge of that. Sources: - Aurelius, Meditations 7:1 - Koheles 1:9-11 ----- The Torah content for the first month of the new school year has been sponsored by the Brevique BrewLid. The BrewLid ...

11 months ago

14 minutes

The Stoic Jew

The Car Repair Saga of Summer 2024 (Epictetus - Enchiridion 1:1)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 14 minutes 9 seconds Synopsis: On July 19th, while I was in Seattle for the summer, my car - which I had been renting to a talmid - was rear-ended. What followed was a rollercoaster of bureaucratic insurance annoyances accompanied by anxiety from afar. The saga ended on August 23rd, this past Erev Shabbos, when they finally finished repairing my car 15 minutes before the shop closed. I arrived home and immediately recorded th...

11 months ago

14 minutes

The Stoic Jew

The Stoic Jew Shiur #07: Existential Procrastination (Meditations 2:4)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 59 minutes Synopsis: This evening (8/7/24), in our final Stoic Jew Shiur of this summer, we learned the fourth entry in Marcus Aurelius's journal. This, too, is a self-reminder to keep his principles at the forefront of his mind - but this is the first time in the Meditations that Marcus explicitly mentions his own mortality. As we've found in nearly every one of these shiurim, there is tremendous overlap between these Stoic ...

1 year ago

59 minutes

The Stoic Jew

The Stoic Jew Shiur #06: How Stoics and Jews React to the Deaths of the Wicked (Meditations 2.1)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 28 minutes Synopsis: This evening (7/31/24), in our Stoic Jew Shiur, we deviated from our sequential learn-through of Meditations and took up a timely question: What do Stoicism and Judaism have to say about the double-assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr? The specific questions we examined were: (1) What should or shouldn't we feel about the deaths of evildoers in ge...

1 year ago

1 hour 28 minutes

The Stoic Jew

The Stoic Jew Shiur #05: Marcus Aurelius, Rambam, and Kuzari on "Gam Zu l'Tovah!" (Meditations 2:3)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 19 minutes Synopsis: This evening (7/24/24), in our Stoic Jew Shiur, we learned the third entry in Meditations Book II, which deals with some weighty topics: God, the universe, hashgachah (providence), and theodicy (the question of evil in the world). We began by underscoring the fundamental differences between the Stoic view of God and the teachings of Judaism, but by the end of the shiur, nearly everything that Marcu...

1 year ago

1 hour 18 minutes

The Stoic Jew

The Stoic Jew Shiur #04: Self-Talk About Your True Self (Meditations 2:2)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 28 minutes Synopsis: This evening (7/17/24), in our Stoic Jew Shiur, we learned and discussed the second chapter in Book II, which had a markedly different tone than the first chapter. Here we see Marcus reminding - or rebuking himself - in order not to lose sight of who he really is. We raised a TON of questions and emerged with a nice, unified understanding of the chapter. ----- מקורות: Aurelius - Meditations 2:2 (tr...

1 year ago

1 hour 27 minutes

The Stoic Jew

Three Years of Gratitude, Even for Insomnia!

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 15 minutes 31 seconds Synopsis: I can't believe it, but this past Friday marked three YEARS of gratitude journaling! In this episode, as I usually do in these "gratitude milestone episodes," I recap my gratitude journal practice and identify the benefit or level-up that currently stands out the most in my mind since my last milestone. And in this case, I go into yet another example of applying Stoicism to insomnia! Related ...

1 year ago

15 minutes

The Stoic Jew

The Stoic Jew Shiur #03: Stoic Values vs. Jewish Values (Meditations 2:1)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 10 minutes Synopsis: This evening (7/10/24), in our Stoic Jew Shiur, we achieved our goal of finishing our analysis of the opening entry of Book II. After reviewing and continuing what we did last time, we raised a question that has bothered me for years: Judaism has a clear statement about what our ultimate value system is, but what is the underlying value system in Stoicism? We then analyzed the final argument in the...

1 year ago

1 hour 10 minutes

The Stoic Jew

The Stoic Jew Shiur #02: Good and Bad, in Stoicism and Judaism (Meditations 2:1)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 32 minutes Synopsis: This evening (7/3/24), in our Stoic Jew Shiur, we attempted to do an orderly review of what we covered last time, but instead, we slipped right into a fresh analysis of some of the most fundamental questions in ethics: What do we mean by good and bad? We debated whether and to what extent Marcus Aurelius's answer to this question overlaps with our understanding of the Torah's stance. We became so i...

1 year ago

1 hour 27 minutes

The Stoic Jew

The Stoic Jew Shiur #01: Marcus's Morning Reminder (Meditations 2:1)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 37 minutes Synopsis: This evening (6/26/24) was our inaugural "Stoic Jew Shiur"! After a brief overview of who Marcus Aurelius was and what his Meditations are, we dove RIGHT into the text of Book 2 Chapter 1. We quickly discovered that this opening paragraph was rich in ideas and fruitful in providing insights into how we - or at least, how I - learn the writings of Stoics and non-Torah other philosophers and thinkers...

1 year ago

1 hour 37 minutes

The Stoic Jew

Announcing: The Stoic Jew Shiur! (Wed, 8-9pm EDT)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! I should have made this announcement more than an hour before the first shiur, but better late than never! 😅 ----- The Torah content for this week has been sponsored by Meir Areman, l'zeicher nishmas Zelda bas Ziesel, his grandmother, whose yahrzeit is on the 21st of Sivan. ----- If you've gained from what you've learned here, please consider contributing to my Patreon at www.patreon.com/rabbischneeweiss. Alternatively, if you would ...

1 year ago

2 minutes

The Stoic Jew

Be Bees, My Friend (Seneca - Letter #84: On Gathering Ideas)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 25 minutes even Synopsis: You might have heard of Bruce Lee's "Be Water, My Friend" analogy, and if you're a listener of this podcast, you might have also heard of Marcus Aurelius's fire analogy, but have you heard of Seneca's BEE analogy? I know I hadn't! In this episode we review all three analogies, discussing how they integrate with Torah (thanks to Rav Kook) and how they can be applied to life. Sources: - Bruce Lee - Ma...

1 year ago

25 minutes

The Stoic Jew

Epictetus's Baths, Seinfeld's Equilibrium, and How to Say Baruch Dayan ha'Emes with Joy (Epictetus - Enchiridion 4)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 19 minutes even (Steven) Synopsis: This episode was inspired by four occurrences that recently befell me, each of which involved what we'll dub "a minor monetary fluctuation." The rest of the episode is devoted to unpacking the insights from these occurrences, using Epictetus as our guide, Jerry Seinfeld as our role model, and Rambam as the teacher who connects it back to Torah. Sources: - Epictetus, Enchiridion (The Handboo...

1 year ago

19 minutes

The Stoic Jew

Bees, Epictetus, Tehilim 118, Israel's War, and Yom haShoah (Epictetus - Enchiridion 1:5; Discourses 2:18)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 17 minutes 48 seconds Synopsis: Yesterday I walked into a swarm of bees. In this episode, I reflect on that experience and follow my musings to the writings of Epictetus, to the bee reference in Tehilim 118, to musings about Israel's present war, and to yesterday's commemoration of the Holocaust. Sources: - Epictetus, Enchiridion (The Handbook) 1:5; Discourses 2:18 - Malbim on Tehilim 118:10-12 - Bamidbar 10:9 ----- The Sto...

1 year ago

17 minutes

The Stoic Jew

1000 Days of Gratitude (Haggadah)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 21 minutes Synopsis: And The Stoic Jew Podcast is BACK! Or is it? Well, it's back for at least this episode, in which I reflect on 1000 days of gratitude and muse on the relationship between my gratitude accountability practice and the mitzvah of recounting the Exodus from Egypt. Whether this marks the return of regular TSJ episodes is up to my listeners! Related Episodes About Gratitude: - 7/8/21: The Gratitude Accountabili...

1 year ago

21 minutes

The Stoic Jew

Does Insomnia Even Matter? (Aurelius - Meditations 6:1-2; 2:14)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 22 minutes Synopsis: And we're back! By "we" I mean The Stoic Jew Podcast AND my insomnia! :D I've been up since 3:35am this morning, and I decided to make a podcast episode about my latest Stoic Jew take on my situation, based on the words of Marcus Aurelius and Koheles (Ecclesiastes), as explained by Ralbag (Gersonides). Related Episodes about Insomnia: - Blaming My Insomnia on Satan - A Cure for Insomnia … I Hope - Applyi...

1 year ago

22 minutes

The Stoic Jew

Deathbed Moments of U.S. Presidents, Japanese Monks, Chazal, Victims of the October 7th Massacre, and My Rebbi zt"l

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 34 minutes 10 seconds Synopsis: What will you do or say in your last moments, when (God willing) you are on your deathbed? In this episode I reflect on the final words of U.S. presidents, the death poems of Zen monks and Japanese haiku poets, the statements and attitudes of the Sages of the Talmud about the particular circumstances in which we die, the final moments of the Jews massacred on October 7th (may Hashem avenge thei...

1 year ago

34 minutes

The Stoic Jew

God of Time or Dog Eating Its Own Vomit? (a "Rabbi Schneeweiss Substack" Crossover Episode)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 8 minutes 11 seconds Synopsis: This is the audio version of the 2.5-page article I published on rabbischneeweiss.substack.com/ on 11/17/23, entitled: God of Time or Dog Eating Its Own Vomit? I wrote this in lieu of a parashah article because I needed to write it for myself. If I don't write for myself, who will write for me? And if not now, when? (parashah article can be found at the end) ----- The Torah content for the...

1 year ago

8 minutes