J.J. and Dr. Sam Lebens prove God?! (Or at least, they demonstrate the history of some historical Jewish arguments for God.) Samuel Lebens is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa. He works in a wide array of philosophical fields including metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of fiction, and most centrally, the philosophy of religion. His recent books include, The Principles of Judaism (Oxford University Press), A Guide for the Jewish Undecided (Maggid Books), Philosophy of Religion: The Basics (Routledge) and (with Tatjana von Solodkoff) Thinking about Stories: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Fiction (Routledge). His website is http://www.samlebens.com

J.J. and Dr. Leora Batnitzky look for hidden truths in Strauss' thought. Dr. Leora Batnitzky is the Ronald O. Perelman Professor of Jewish studies and professor of religion at Princeton University. She is the author of Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation and Idolatry and Representation: The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig Reconsidered (Princeton).

J.J. and Dr. Daniel Matt become wiser and gain understanding while discussing the Kabbalistic ideas of The Zohar . Daniel Matt is a prominent scholar of Kabbalah and the Zohar. He has been featured in Time and Newsweek and on National Public Radio. His books include The Essential Kabbalah (translated into eight languages), Zohar: Annotated and Explained, and God and the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony between Science and Spirituality (revised edition, 2016). In 2022, his biography of Elijah the Prophet (Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation) was published by Yale University Press in their series Jewish Lives. This book was awarded the inaugural Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Book Prize, established by Yeshiva University. Some years ago, Daniel completed an 18-year project of translating and annotating the Zohar. In 2016, Stanford University Press published his ninth volume of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, concluding the Zohar’s main commentary on the Torah. For this work, Daniel has been honored with a National Jewish Book Award and a Koret Jewish Book Award. The Koret award hailed his translation as “a monumental contribution to the history of Jewish thought.” Daniel received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University and for twenty years served as professor at the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He has also taught at Stanford University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Daniel lives in Berkeley with his wife Hana. He currently teaches Zohar online. For information about these ongoing Zohar courses, see his website: danielcmatt.com

J.J. and Dr. Tamar Rudavsky trace the responses to Maimonides among Medieval Jewish Philosophers. T.M. Rudavsky is Professor of Philosophy at The Ohio State University. She specializes in medieval Jewish philosophy and has edited three volumes: http://www.amazon.ca/Divine-Omniscience-Omnipotence-Medieval-Philosophy/dp/9027717508/ref=sr_1_2/187-1053847-8506420?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231636623&sr=1-2(1984), https://www.amazon.com/Gender-Judaism-Transformation-Tamar-Rudavsky/dp/0814774539 (1995); along with Steven Nadler, she is co-editor of the http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521843232. Her volume http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=60082 appeared in 2000, her recent book on http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405148985.html appeared in the “Great Minds” series with Blackwell-Wiley Press in 2010; and her most recent work Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Science, Rationalism, and Religion appeared in July 2018. The author as well of numerous articles and encyclopedia entries, her major research continues to focus on issues connected to philosophical cosmology in medieval Jewish and scholastic thought.

J.J. and Dr. Michah Gottlieb shed light on the origins of the Haskalah in Berlin, and examine Mendelssohn's role in it. Michah Gottlieb is Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at NYU. An expert on the German Haskalah and its reverberations, he has authored several books and dozens of articles. His books include *Faith and: Moses Mendelssohn’s Theological-Political Thought* (Oxford University Press, 2011) and most recently *The Jewish Reformation: Bible Translation and Middle Class German Judaism as Spiritual Enterprise* (Oxford 2021, paperback 2023), which won the Dorothy Rosenberg Prize from the American Historical Association. His current research project focuses on Maskilic Musar literature.

J.J. and Dr. Noah Feldman attempt uncover what Maimonides was really trying to do in his halakhic and philosophical works. Noah Feldman is Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Chairman of the Society of Fellows, and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law, all at Harvard University. He specializes in constitutional studies, with particular emphasis on power and ethics, design of innovative governance solutions, law and religion, and the history of legal ideas. Feldman is the author of 10 books, including his latest forthcoming title, Bad Jew: A Perplexed Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People (Farrar Straus and Giroux, Spring 2024).

J.J. and Dr. Naomi Seidman wonder why Jews want to claim Freud so badly, and if that claim has merit. Dr. Naomi Seidman is the Chancellor Jackman Professor of the Arts in the Department for the Study of Religion and the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Her publications include Faithful Renderings: Jewish—Christian Difference and the Politics of Difference (Chicago, 2006), The Marriage Plot, Or, How Jews Fell in Love with Love, and with Literature (Stanford, 2016), and Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement: A Revolution in the Name of Tradition (Littman, 2019), which won a National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies. She is presently working on a study of Freud in Hebrew and Yiddish translation.

J.J. and Dr. Simon Goldhill try to nail down exactly what Midrash really is and try to place the classical Rabbis in their historical context. Simon Goldhill is a Professor in Greek Literature and Culture and Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at King's College. His latest book is Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity: Art, Opera, Fiction, and the Proclamation of Modernity. Previously, Professor Goldhill was Director of CRASSH from 2011-2018. CRASSH is dedicated to interdisciplinary research, with 16 faculty research groups, Humanitas Visiting Professors, and longer term interdisciplinary research projects.

J.J. and Dr. Ruth Wisse unpack the world or modern Yiddish literature from its beginnings with Rav Nachman of Breslov through Chaim Grade and the contemporary state of Yiddish studies. Ruth R. Wisse is professor emerita of Yiddish literature and Comparative Literature at Harvard University and senior fellow at the Tikvah Fund. Her books on literature include The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey through Literature and Culture (2000); No Joke: Making Jewish Humor (2013); A Little Love in Big Manhattan: Two Yiddish Poets (1988); The Schlemiel as Modern Hero (1971). On politics, Jews and Power (2007, 2020); If I am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews (1992), and a memoir Free as a Jew (2021). She publishes frequently in Mosaic, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and elsewhere.

J.J. and Dr. Yonatan Brafman define philosophy of halakha and discuss the competing halakhic philosophies of Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Eliezer Berkovits. Yonatan Brafman is an assistant professor of Modern Judaism in the Department of Religion and a member of the Program in Judaic Studies. He is a scholar of modern Jewish thought and a philosopher of religion. His research focuses on the intersection of Jewish thought, Jewish law, and contemporary moral, legal, and political philosophy. He also studies the implications of religious ritual for critical social theory and praxis. Previously, he was assistant professor of Jewish thought and ethics and the director of the Handel Center for Ethics and Justice at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He has held fellowships in the Department of Religion and Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University (2014–2015), the Tikvah Center for Law and Jewish Civilization at New York University Law School (2012–2013), and the Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University (2008–2010). He holds a PhD in Philosophy of Religion and Jewish Thought from the Department of Religion at Columbia University, where he also received his BA, MA, and MPhil.