Why Return to Israel If Judaism Can Thrive Anywhere? Lessons from the First Exile, with Yael Leibowitz (294)
June 15, 2026
AI Summary
5 min read“Sometimes we imagine that the Niveam their job was to foresee the future or tell what's going to happen in the future. That’s not what they were. The role of the Niveam was to provide a theological overlay for the events that Israel was living through… almost think of it as like immunizations. You take a shot, it doesn't mean that you're not gonna contract the virus. It means that by the time your body contracts the virus, you already have the means by which to deal with it.” That is how Tanakh educator Yael Leibowitz frames the prophetic project in a conversation about the first exile—and it is also the key to her argument about how ancient texts can reframe a modern stalemate.
The Stalemate: Who Is a Better Jew?
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Introduction and Episode Setup** - Scott Kahn introduces the episode, framing it as a historical exploration of Israel-Diaspora dynamics through the lens of the First Exile.
- 2 (05:14) **The Modern Debate: "Who's a Better Jew?"** - Yael diagnoses the current Israel-Diaspora conversation as devolving into a defensive, zero-sum competition over who is a "better Jew."
- 3 (15:02) **The First Exile: An Existential Crisis with No Precedent** - Yael explains that the First Exile created unprecedented existential problems because there was no prior model for Jewish life outside the land.
- 4 (21:13) **The Prophetic "Immunization" Against Despair** - Yael describes the prophets' role as providing a theological framework to inoculate the people against the trauma of destruction and exile.
- 5 (23:13) **Redefining Religious Experience: God is Everywhere** - The exile forced a shift from a Temple-centric, localized worship to an understanding of God as omnipresent and accessible anywhere.
- 6 (26:51) **New Emphases: Peoplehood and Identity in Exile** - The experience of living as a minority among other nations forced new questions about Jewish identity and boundaries.
- 7 (28:23) **The Double-Edged Sword of Prophetic Hope** - The prophets gave eschatological visions of a perfect return, which created both hope and a dangerous expectation that the actual return would be utopian.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
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Last month on the Orthodox Conundrum, I spoke with several guests about the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. We discussed questions of aliyah, Jewish peoplehood, covenant, sovereignty, and the role of Diaspora communities in an era when most Jews may soon live in the State of Israel.
Today, I'd like to revisit that broader conversation from a very different perspective with my guest, Tanakh educator Yael Leibowitz. Rather than beginning with today's headlines or contemporary debates, she takes us back to the destruction of the First Temple, the Babylonian exile, and the return to Israel. Her argument is that many of the questions we are wrestling with today first emerged more than 2,500 years ago.
How could Judaism survive outside the Land of Israel? Why return if Jewish life could flourish elsewhere? What responsibilities do Jews in the Land and Jews outside the Land owe one another? And what does it mean for a people to maintain both a homeland and a Diaspora at the same time?
Drawing on the books of Yirmiyahu, Yehezkel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and others, Yael shows how exile transformed Jewish life and identity, while also explaining why the Land of Israel remained central to the Jewish story. This is not a conversation about contemporary politics. It is an exploration of the origins of one of the most important debates in Jewish life, and why that debate remains so relevant today.
For more of Yael's writing visit: yaelleibowitz.com.
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