The Holiness of OMGWTFBIBLE

I don’t know if you’ve realized, but by making fun of religion, OMGWTFBIBLE is actually serving a greater sort of holiness. In The American Scholar, Brian Doyle writes about the benefit of weaving humor into religion:

For all that religion has been a bloody enterprise through history, and for all that religious people seem often the most almighty easy people to offend, and for all that there are many people in my faith tradition who think I am an idiot to grin over the most colorful of our traditions, I think we should grin over the more colorful parts of our faith traditions. For one thing, they are often funny—imagine the wine steward’s mixed feelings at Cana after the miracle, for example—and for another, it seems to me that real honest genuine spirituality is marked most clearly by humility and humor. The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Meher Baba, Flannery O’Connor, Sister Helen Prejean, Pope Francis—all liable to laughter, and not one of them huffy about his or her status and importance. Whereas all the famous slimy murderers of history—Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, bin Laden—what a humorless bunch, prim and grim and obsessed with being feared. Can you imagine any one of them laughing, except over some new form of murder? Think about it—could laughter be the truest sign of holiness?

Who knew?

<h/t: The Daily Dish>

Meet the Guest: Leah Vincent

Every month, OMGWTFBIBLE snags some pretty great guests. But there’s never enough time in the podcast to discuss everything our guests our up to. Our Meet The Guest series puts the spotlight on each month’s guest.

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Episode 20: Leah Vincent

All it took was a sweater. 16 years old, Leah Vincent was living in a seminary in Israel, clinging to the hope that she could prove herself observant enough to find a place in her ultra-Orthodox Jewish family’s community. When word reached her mother in Pittsburgh that, on a whim, she’d bought a sweater too tight for her family’s incredibly modest dress code, her dream unraveled. Furious that, on top of committing the sin of writing letters to boys back in the states, Leah had publicly flaunted the strict Yeshivish codes of modesty, her mother cut her off. Continue reading

Hear Me at Sermon Slam Tonight!

SermonSlam is a unique Jewish event, a religious-themed open mic, where anyone can take the stage and deliver a 5-minute sermon, speech, or whatever. Tonight, I’ll be talking about “What We Talk About When We Talk About God” at the freedom-themed SermonSlam in Washington Heights. I’d be delighted if some podcast listeners came to see me! Details are here and below.

SermonSlam Washington Heights
YM & YWHA of Washington Heights & Inwood
54 Nagle Avenue
8:00 PM

Listen to Episode 19 on Jewcy

This is totally what Pharoah looked like back in the day.

Episode 19 is now available on Jewcy!

This month, Rabbi Joshua Yuter joined me as we read chapters 42-44. When we started, Joseph was stuck in jail. By the end of the episode, through some very unlikely dream analysis, Joseph ends up running the show in Egypt. Along the way, Rabbi Yuter and I discussed an Orthodox approach to Biblical criticism, what Pharaoh’s birthday parties must have been like, and alternate analyses of Pharaoh’s dreams.

Here’s my attempt to modernize the interpretation of those dreams:

At that point, people saw dreams as either telling about a thing that had happened, reflecting a thing that’s going on right now, or as predicting the future. And people immediately say “OK what does this dream predict?” Which is not something that we do. Now we tend to think of dreams as reflecting a vulnerability, reflecting our unconscious. So I thought about that and tried to figure out what, if we were to use that kind of analysis, what Pharaoh’s unconscious might be saying.

What was Rabbi Yuter’s analysis? Listen to find out. But not here! Head on over to Jewcy.com to listen there, the ONLY place on the Internet you can get new episodes of OMGWTFBIBLE. Until tomorrow.

Episode 19 Live!

omg032014_high-resOMGWTFBIBLE is live on March 20!

This month, Rabbi Joshua Yuter will join me as we read about Yoseph’s time as a wannabe therapist in Egypt.

OMGWTFBIBLE Episode 19 Live
Stanton Street Shul
180 Stanton Street
March 20, 8PM
$FREE$

OMGWTFBIBLE Episode 18

Behold! Episode 18 of OMGWTFBIBLE with Ari Mandel is now available!!

This episode was recorded at A Gathering of the Tribes.

There are so many ways to listen to Episode 18!

You can listen using the embed above or here. OMGWTFBIBLE is now on SoundCloud! Explore our SoundCloud here.

You can also: subscribe in iTunes, subscribe via RSS, or listen via Stitcher!

What did you think of this month’s episode? What are your thoughts on Onanism? Did you have a weird experience with Rabbis and masturbation (hopefully not at the same time!)? Have anything you’d like to add on the whole Potiphar story? Let me know in the comments!

Tom Delays Hates Creativity

Hey, you! You know, that novel you’ve been working on for years? That beautiful work of art you threw your blood, sweat, and tears into? That business you built with your BARE HANDS? Continue reading

Episode 18 Live!

omgfeb20-1OMGWTFBIBLE is live on February 20!

This month, Ari Mandel (aka Rachmuna Litzlon) will join me as we read about Yehudah’s sexual misadventures in Timna and Yoseph’s sexual misadventures in Egypt.

OMGWTFBIBLE Episode 18 Live
A Gathering of the Tribes
285 E. 3rd Street, 2nd Floor
February 20, 8PM
$PAY if you want to