This is a more rambling episode, as Tzvi had a migraine during recording, and Meir Simcha carried the load here.

We would love for y'all to comment, critique, and share.

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We discuss the oddly universal celebration of our little nation's holiday commemorating its emancipation, the themes and imagery of the holiday, and we go back to place issues discussed in Episode 12b (freedom and liberty) in the Passover milieu.

Ultimately, this is a fantastic overview of the holiday's ubiquitous insistence on freedom through words. We discover a little bit of what that means, and set the stage for the coming episodes - where we will explore the Haggadah in depth and inside.

We compare belief and ideology, talk about the effects of religious education on faith, and end with a discussion on the shortcomings of modern "classical liberal" ideology in giving a society a "why" to their lives, as well as something that connnects them all. Along the way, we compare orthodox and orthoprax, define what an "ummah" is, and highlight some of the real aims we ought to have in education.

This is a fun episode, featuring some bad InfoWars Alex Jones impressions, ruminations on apophenia and libations, and some personal anecdotes.

Happy Purim!

Join us as we explore a little bit about the holiday, and do a quick overview of the central book about it - the Book of Esther. We tease out the farcical tone it is written in, identify many of its comedic elements, and identify some of its main themes. (Those themes will be more fully explored in episode 12b.)

We humbly suggest you read the book along with us!

This epsiode takes a good look at Tu B'Shvat the holiday, tracing it from the Mishna to modern day. Along the way we discuss the halachot (Jewish Law) of produce, why Man likes tree metaphors so much, what the Tree of Knowledge actually was, means and ends (which justifies which?), Spinoza and Plato, and end off with a nice insight into the deeper meaning of the holiday.

Tzvi's daughters make a guest appearance in the introduction.

Listen in as we question, what is happiness? How do people find it? Is it worth looking for? Where would be a good place to start finding it? Why care about happiness at all? Can you be happy without G-d? Can you be happy with G-d? Is happiness an emotion, a choice, something else?

As always with a special guest, we adopt a conversational style. Come for the rambling, stay for the ambling, and walk away with some thought provoking points to consider.

(This episode was recorded during the protests taking place in Iran in 2018.)

We discuss Iran as a country (taking care to avoid politics as always), its history, and the Jewish People's history with Persia - and that takes us to Exile and Redemption, the World to Come, identity, peoplehood, and the unique conception of exile/redemption that the Jewish people has forged and crafted in its development. Come for the banter, stay for the knockout insights, and enjoy the show! :)

You can connect with us on Twitter: @TzviZucker and @MeirSimchah.]

Join us as we take a look at Jerusalem, moving from sacred cities and divided cities in general to Jerusalem in particular, and ending up with a deep look at what makes Jerusalem so special in the first place.

(This episode comes at the point where the United States announced its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and faced a UNGA resolution objecting to their accepting a fact…)

We also discuss city-specific mental illnesses, welcome our first special guest into the studio, make some oddly rap-fueled sound gags in opportune places, and feature topical musical breaks throughout.

Grab some latkes and/or eggnog and join us for our fourth episode, where we discuss winter light festivals, light and darkness, metaphors, get into some of the differences between Christmas and Hannukah, reminisce on holiday season growing up, and make a key point about Light in our lives.

We also celebrate our one hundredth download, give some shout outs to our listeners, and throw in some holiday gags too!

Join us as we talk about the German migrant issue, teasing apart the political talking points to get into the heart of the matter – identity.

We clocked in at just about an hour here, and hopefully addressed some of the sound issues.

As always, here are links to the articles discussed in the chat:

Economist, Germany article – www.economist.com/news/finance-and…similar-problems

Spectator, Norway article – www.spectator.co.uk/2017/11/norway-…ugh-love-works/

Standpoint, David Goldman article – standpointmag.co.uk/node/7031/full

You can connect with us on Twitter: @TzviZucker and @MeirSimchah.]

Where else can you find an earnest discussion of Richard Dawkins, sin and mistakes, evolution, paradigm shifts, and Torah, that isn’t a sarcastic take down of religion, but a search for self improvement and spiritual growth?

Holy Madness is no longer in production, but you may check out Meir-Simchah's new shows Two Christians And A Jew and the Artifact Podcast with Nachliel Selavan.

You can connect with us on Twitter: @TzviZucker and @MeirSimchah.

Join us as we discuss a news article about the horrors of daily life in Gaza, and tackle some points about Israel-Palestine.

Article discussed in the podcast available here - www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/…stinians/1.821771

We explore the issues while keeping our discussions as agenda-free as humanly possible.

Come for the thought provoking conversation, stay for the oftentimes funny results of two guys still figuring out the medium of podcasting, sound editing, and making coherent points.