1,200 years ago, one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world asked a question. It was a question that would reverberate through history, and still impact us today.

What does this simple act teach us about the role of questions and answers in Judaism, and how Jewish practice works and evolves across space and time?

In this episode, we learn about...

• How Jews have asked questions throughout history, and how the answers have helped form unique cultures, rituals, and communities.
• How the once-great centre of Jewish life, in what is today’s Iraq, inspired communities around the world to this day.
• One of the oldest and longest running institutions of learning in human history.
• Are answers actually more important than questions?
• How Jewish prayer evolved into what it is today.
• Why this podcast exists Learn more in the show notes on our website.

Lots more details and extras can be found in the show notes on our website, including translations of the Hebrew terms we used in this episode.

Download a transcript of this episode.

Credits

The translation of Rav Amram’s letter is from Abe Silver at The Open Siddur Project, an open-source, community contributed archive for those sharing prayers and crafting their own prayerbooks. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license.

The recording of the Jews of Kochi, India is courtesy of the Johanna L. Spector Papers and Audio-Visual Materials, The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, (N.Y., ARC. 2008.03). The recording, along with others, is available in its entirety here.

Guest vocal talent by dear friends: in Aramaic/Hebrew by Rabbi Jason Fenster and in English by Aron Katz.