Ask Haviv Anything

Passover is just around the corner. So we sat down with the ever-wise Rabbi David Stav to dig into the inexplicable contradictions at the heart of the holiday's traditional Seder meal -- and of Jewish life writ large.

In the Seder's text, the Hagaddah, we are commanded to declare that “now we are slaves, but next year we shall be free” -- even if we live in freedom and prosperity. And we are commanded to thank God for "taking us out from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to a festival" -- even in generations past when we were crushed beneath the yoke of oppressors and tyrants, and even in our own day when we must run to a bomb shelter to be safe.

So which is it? Are we free? Are we still slaves?

Rav Stav takes us through stories of Natan Sharansky, Hasidic rebbes in the ghetto, and Rav Kook’s wisdom to reveal Passover's deepest teaching -- that true freedom is an inner consciousness and moral choice, not mere political circumstance, and that the experience and remembrance of slavery teaches us how to value, safeguard and properly use our liberty.

And that is why on the evening of April 1, in this time of war and sirens, violence and fear, Jews all over the world will once again affirm, as they have done for three millennia, that “next year we shall be free.”

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This episode is sponsored by an anonymous listener who asked to share this note.

"Many thanks to Haviv, for all his insights. This episode is dedicated to Barbara S. from New Mexico on the occasion of her second Bat Mitzvah, with love from her kids and grandkids. Am Yisrael Chai."

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If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.

Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Trump says a deal may be coming to end the Iran war. Netanyahu says it could protect Israel’s interests. Iran’s regime says little that can be trusted. So what is really happening? Prof. Dan Schueftan returns to the podcast to help us step back from the daily headlines to ask the much bigger question: If this war ends now, who actually wins? And what’s at stake? From the Strait of Hormuz to the ideology of martyrdom, we ask whether free societies still have the nerve to confront movements built on destruction.

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This episode is sponsored by a friend of the show who has dedicated the program to the Jews who first came to Trenton, New Jersey, and built a lasting community there.

Our sponsor was born in Trenton, and he wants to thank his four families who at the turn of the twentieth century abandoned their homes in Europe and bravely crossed an ocean toward a new life. They came to Trenton with nothing but their religious faith and an unshakable belief that a better life was something worth building. They raised synagogues, built businesses, married and had children. And those children had children, including our sponsor today. This podcast is his way, after October 7, of honoring that legacy — and affirming that the Jewish story, our story, is one worth telling, worth celebrating, and worth protecting.

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If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.

Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

In 1944, as the gears of the Holocaust turned toward Hungary, 32 young Jewish volunteers did the unthinkable: they parachuted into the genocide. They were a motley bunch, including a celebrated poet and a nearsighted 40-year-old pacifist. They were sent by the British to rescue downed pilots and by the Zionist leadership to save Jews. They stood almost no chance of success, and by every military metric, they failed. They organized no uprisings; they liberated no camps. Yet, as Matti Friedman reveals in his riveting new book Out of the Sky, their mission was never really about military tactics. It was about story-telling. They set out to show that even in the 20th century's deepest, darkest valley of death, a Jew must still strike a match. To prove that the Jewish people were no longer mere victims of history, but authors of it.

Their fame in today's Israel suggests that in that, at least, they were successful.

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This episode was sponsored by Patreon member Eric, and dedicated to the Southern California Hillel chapters at UC Riverside, Claremont Colleges, CalPoly San Luis Obispo, CalPoly Pomona, and University of Redlands. Thank you for helping young Jewish adults thrive in their identity and togetherness!

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If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.

Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

The rules of engagement just shattered. From the death of Ali Khamenei to the elimination of wartime mastermind Ali Larijani, Iran’s leadership hasn't just been eroded—it’s been erased. As the regime retreats into a fractured "mosaic" of local commanders and a collapsing barter economy, the US-Israeli coalition is pivoting to a final, surgical strike on the regime’s last lifeline: its internal energy grid. Can a regime built on the theology of "resistance" survive when it can no longer keep the lights on? We break down the apparent strategic shift from a war of missiles to a war of endurance.

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This episode's sponsor asked to remain anonymous and dedicated the episode to honoring the memory of all those we have lost in the massacres of October 7 and in the wars and terror attacks that followed and continue to this day, including the brave American servicemen and women who have given their lives in the current war with Iran. May we remember them and may their memory be a blessing.

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If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.

Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Terrorism scholar Dr. Bruce Hoffman joins the podcast to guide us through one of the most morally explosive chapters in Zionist and Israeli history: the Irgun, Lehi, the British Mandate, and the violent campaign that helped force Britain out of Palestine. Moving from Allenby’s conquest of Jerusalem to the King David Hotel bombing, the Lord Moyne assassination, the hanging of the British sergeants, and the bitter intra-Jewish “Saison,” the conversation refuses easy answers and asks the hardest questions head-on: When is political violence terrorism, when is it insurgency, and why does terrorism so often work? The conversation is surprisingly urgent and immediate, as we connect Menachem Begin’s mastery of narrative and information warfare to Hamas, October 7, and Israel’s catastrophic failures in the information war. The parallels and lessons are haunting. Join us for this journey into history, ethics, propaganda, the necessity of statehood, and the frightening power of violence to change the course of history.

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This episode is sponsored by Carmela and Uzi Levin of San Francisco who asked to dedicate it to the memory of Niv Raviv and Nirel Zini, a young couple who were brutally murdered by Hamas near their home in Kfar Aza on October 7 2023. Sadly, the Levins never met Niv or Nirel. They heard of their tragic story from Tami Raviv, Niv’s mom.

Niv and Nirel met during their army service and moved to Kfar Aza in early 2023. On October 10, 2015, while serving in the IDF, Nirel was severely wounded during an operation. From then on, every 10th of October became a special day of celebration marking Nirel’s survival and rehabilitation. On October 10th, 2023, Nirel was planning to celebrate by proposing to Niv. But he never got the chance.

Niv was pursuing a master’s degree in psychology and hoped to become a therapist.

In their memory, Niv’s mother Tami founded the Niv Nirel Center in Beit Yannai, in collaboration with Dr. Kfir Feffer. The center is a tranquil sanctuary, overlooking the Mediterranean sea north of the city of Netanya. It offers world-class post-trauma treatment to combatants and survivors who so desperately need it. The Niv Nirel Center is the only place in Israel that operates an intensive day-care program, as well as a research unit that hopes to create a protocol that will allow the center’s successes in post-trauma rehabilitation to be replicated.

It is truly moving and inspiring to see how Tami has been able to channel this bottomless sadness into a project of care, hope and love. A ray of light for a nation in search of healing.

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If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.

Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.