Episodes

Welcome to the 70th episode of the Rabbi’s Husband podcast, a significant milestone, particularly as 70 is the Jewish number of completion. And, although the podcast is far from complete, such a special occasion does deserve an equally special guest, so today Mark is delighted to welcome his favorite guest of all time, the Rabbi herself, Mark’s wife Rabbi Erica Gerson. The passage that Erica has chosen to discuss today is one that she absolutely loves, Genesis 32. Erica begins by sharing her re...

Mark is delighted to welcome Pastor Samuel Rodriguez, President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), to the podcast today. In addition to his work in leading the world’s largest Hispanic Christian organization, Pastor Rodriguez is also a producer, best-selling author, civil rights activist, and television personality, who is widely regarded as one of America’s most influential voices. He has chosen a passage that Mark had not seen before, Psalms 89:15, to discuss tod...

Rabbi Levi Welton is Mark’s very special guest on the podcast today. As a modern exemplar of the ancient Rabbis who held occupations, Levi not only works as the spiritual leader of Lincoln Park Jewish Center, but also as a healer for low-income patients in NYC, and as a chaplain in the United States Air Force. The passage he has chosen to discuss is Exodus 5:22. Levi begins the discussion with his summary of the passage, why it is his favorite, and the lesson that God wants us to take away from...

Mark is delighted to welcome Phyllis Costanza, Head of UBS in Society and CEO of the UBS Optimus Foundation, to the podcast today. In her role, Phyllis applies an investment-based approach which makes it simpler for clients and their families to manage their philanthropy in order to tackle some of the world's most pressing social and environmental issues. Mark’s African Mission Healthcare is one of the only 5% of charities that applied to work with Phyllis’ organization to have been approved, an...

Bret Stephens, one of the United States’ great public intellectuals over the past two decades, joins Mark for the podcast today. Among his many achievements, Bret has been the editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post, editor at Commentary magazine, editorialist at The Wall Street Journal, and currently has a column in The New York Times. He has chosen a passage which is often overlooked in biblical commentary, Genesis 14, to discuss with Mark today. Their conversation begins with Bret sharing the ...

Mark’s friend, Senator Marco Rubio, joins him on the podcast today. The son of Cuban immigrants, Marco grew up in Miami and Las Vegas, entered public service as a City Commissioner, and was elected to the United States Senate in 2010. In his current role, he has become a leader on a variety of issues from United States support of Israel to immigration to Latin America, earning himself the title of a ‘virtual Secretary of State for Latin America’ from The New York Times. Having known him for ten ...

Jim Copland, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and director of Legal Policy, joins Mark for today’s episode. During his storied career, Jim has testified before Congress as well as state and municipal legislatures, and his writing has appeared in a variety of publications such as the Harvard Business Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. He is also the author of The Unelected: How an Unaccountable Elite is Governing America, his latest book, wh...

Today’s edition of the podcast is the first to not involve a discussion of a biblical verse, but is instead a special discussion with returning guest, Ambassador Michael Oren, regarding his new book The Night Archer: and Other Stories. In addition to having served as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael counts serving as a Member of Knesset and as Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, among his many achievements. This book marks his first collection of short stories, and t...

Mark is delighted to welcome Jewish public intellectual, attorney and author, Jonathan Neumann, to the podcast today. A graduate of Cambridge University and the London School of Economics, Jonathan has been a fellow at Commentary magazine and has served as assistant editor at Jewish Ideas Daily. He is also the author of To Heal the World? How the Jewish Left Corrupts Judaism and Endangers Israel, and he discusses this book along with his selected passage of Numbers 14:22 with Mark here today. J...

Award-winning American presidential historian and leading Zionist activist, Gil Troy, joins Mark on the podcast today. Gil’s many books include The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland – Then, Now, Tomorrow, as well as The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s, and Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight against Zionism as Racism, and he is also a Distinguished Scholar in North American History at McGill University. The passage he has chosen to discuss with Mark today is Genesis 12:1-3. The...

Mark is delighted and honored to welcome his friend, Rick Pino, to the podcast today. Rick is the founder of the Heart of David Movement, a community passionate about seeing Jesus glorified through day and night worship manifested through internships, schools, conferences and summits. He is a world famous Christian musician who performs concerts all over the world, and, in fact, he and Mark met through Eagles’ Wings in Jerusalem about a year ago when Rick performed in a concert that Mark describ...

Mark is delighted to welcome Zachary Karabell to the podcast today. Zachary is an author, columnist, podcast host, founder of the Progress Network at New America, and president of River Twice Research and River Twice Capital. He is also the most thoughtful commentator in the United States about macroeconomics, broadly defined, and his books and columns consistently articulate his distinctive philosophy of American economic optimism. The passage he has chosen to discuss today is Genesis 41:46-53....

Prosecutor, professor, and proven criminal justice reformer, Tali Farhadian Weinstein, is Mark’s guest on the podcast today. Tali came to America as a refugee in 1979, having fled the violence and ant-Semitism of revolutionary Iran, and went on to earn degrees from Yale College, Oxford University where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and Yale Law School. She has served as a Law Clerk for Judge Merrick B. Garland at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice S...

Dr. Rick Hodes, Medical Director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is Mark’s very special guest today. Rick has dedicated his life to helping the people of Ethiopia through his work with both Mother Teresa’s Mission and the JDC, has adopted five Ethiopian children and raised countless others over the years. He is also the subject of the HBO documentary, ‘Making the Crooked Straight’, and the book, This is a Soul: The Mission of Rick Hodes, by Mar...

Mark is delighted to be joined by Dr. Amy-Jill (AJ) Levine and Dr. Marc Brettler, the editors of the Jewish Annotated New Testament, on today’s episode. AJ is a Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University, and Marc is a Professor in Judaic Studies at Duke University. Both prolific authors, Marc has taught at Yale University, Brown University, Wellesley College and Middlebury College, and AJ has taught at Swarthmore College, Cambridge University, and in 2019 was the fir...

Mark is so delighted to welcome his very good friend and partner in United Hatzalah, Eli Beer, to the podcast today. As a young man, Eli identified the importance of receiving medical care within the first few minutes of an incident, and he has dedicated his life to addressing this fact, leading him to become the Founder and President of United Hatzalah. This organization now has several thousand medics throughout Israel who treat 1,900 emergency calls a day, saving easily 200 lives every day in...

Mark is delighted to welcome his good friend and humanitarian hero, Dr. Lance Plyler to today’s episode. As the Director of World Medical Missions for Samaritan’s Purse, Lance treats victims of war, typhoons, infectious diseases, almost anything, really, in places as diverse as, but definitely not limited to Haiti, Nepal, Liberia, and New York City. In Mark’s opinion, Lance is the star of Facing Darkness, a genuinely great documentary regarding Lance’s work in Liberia in 2014 that brilliantly de...

Mark is absolutely delighted to welcome his great friend, Rabbi David Wolpe, to the podcast today. Perhaps the greatest Torah commentator in the world, David is the Max Webb Senior Rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, and he has been named the ‘Most Influential Rabbi in America’ by Newsweek, and one of the ’50 Most Influential Jews in the World’ by The Jerusalem Post. Over ten years of his sermons can be found on the Sinai Temple website, and together they form an anthology of how the deepest T...

Mark is thoroughly delighted to welcome Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, to the podcast today. Through his work with this Center, he engaged clergy, professional, and volunteer leaders in interfaith efforts in pursuit of social justice. Rabbi Pesner has also sat on the Boards of the NAACP, JOIN for Justice, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, and other such organizations, and has been a congregational rabbi at Temple Israel in...

Mark’s guest on the podcast today is Pastor George Searight II, the founding Pastor of Lifetime Community Church in Orlando, Florida, and Revival City Church in New Jersey. He and Mark met about a year ago through Eagles’ Wings in Jerusalem, and Mark has enjoyed the distinct honor of speaking at Revival City Church, an experience he cherishes dearly to this day. Pastor Searight has chosen to discuss Numbers 13 with Mark today. He begins their conversation by sharing his summary of the chapter, ...

Mark’s good friend, Logan Beirne, joins him for today’s episode. In addition to being Mark’s partner in, and CEO of, Matterhorn Transactions, a company that provides data analytics to law firms across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, Logan is also a professor at Yale Law School and the author the critically acclaimed book, Blood of Tyrants: George Washington and the Forging of the Presidency. The passage he has chosen to discuss today is Micah 4:4. Logan begins by sharing his ...

Attorney, investor, and one of the great Jewish leaders in the United States, Richard Sandler, is Mark’s guest on the podcast today. Richard has been the Chair of the Board of Trustees of The Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, and has served on the board of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the Milken Institute, as well as a number of companies. The passage he has chosen to discuss today is Deuteronomy 30:12-13, a passage which holds special meaning for M...

Mark is delighted to welcome his friend, Pastor Teo Hayashi, to the podcast today. Teo is the founder of the Dunamis Movement, a Christian student movement in universities throughout Brazil, and he also has one of the world’s greatest followings. He has been a missionary and Pastor around the world from Asia to North Carolina and now back home in Brazil, and he and Mark first met and became fast friends while in Jerusalem with Eagles’ Wings. The passage he has selected to discuss today is Esther...

Mark’s friend, Representative Josh Gottheimer, joins him on the podcast today. Josh represents New Jersey's Fifth Congressional District, making him the first Democrat to represent that district since 1933, and he has been cited as one of the most centrist members of Congress, and also the most bipartisan House freshman. He is the Co-Founder and C0-Chair of the bipartisan ‘Problem Solvers Caucus’, where he works to bring a group of Democrats and Republicans together across party lines to find ar...