Half a century ago, Rabbi Michael Strassfeld — a leader of the countercultural Havurah movement — co-edited “The First Jewish Catalog.” The book, which sold an astounding 300,000 copies, presented tangible practices for do-it-yourself Judaism. His new book, “Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century” argues that, some 2,000 years after the birth of rabbinic Judaism, it’s time to fashion Judaism into something new. In fact — newsflash — he suggests it might be time to do away with Shabbat services, at least in current form. A few weeks before Passover, he talks about how his ideas might apply to the Passover seder, and presents four new, alternate questions.

Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

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This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

Special Guest: Rabbi Michael Strassfeld.

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Links:

• Read the Evolve essay, "Why is This Passover Seder Different from All Other Passover seders?"
• Sign up for Evolve's emails
• From Hadassah Magazine, "The Essence of Judaism? Disrupting It" by Rabbi Michael Strassfeld
• Buy the book, "Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century"
• The First Jewish Catalogue
• Rabbi Michael Strassfeld's recent appearance on the Judaism Unbound podcast
• Havurat Shalom and Jewish Counter Culture
• Support the work of Evolve and Reconstructing Judaism