Pause in the midst of your busy day to renew your body, heart, mind and spirit with a Jewishly-framed mindfulness meditation from the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. In each episode, hosted by Rabbi Marc Margolius, an expert Jewish meditation instructor guides you through a brief teaching and meditation for relaxing your body, reconnecting with your authentic self, and connecting you with deep Jewish wisdom. Opening and closing music: “Baby Bird Niggun,” by Aly Halpert, used with permission.
…
continue reading
Renew Your Mind Institute Podcasts
With equal parts humor and in-depth analysis, Asher, Rob, and Jason safeguard their sanity while probing crazy-making topics like climate change, overshoot, runaway capitalism, and why we’re all deluding ourselves. Each fortnightly episode helps you understand the “Great Unraveling” of our environmental and social systems and describes how we can make the transition to a sustainable and equitable world. If you’re someone who questions the trajectory of society and struggles to understand why ...
…
continue reading
1
Satisfied: Repairing the World Through "Enoughness"
24:26
24:26
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
24:26The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on December 03, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Jenny Solomon, Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
1
Toasting Bread Is WAY Harder Than You Think: The Challenges of a Renewable Energy Future
37:11
37:11
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
37:11What does a livable future look like 100 years from now? If we unlocked unlimited green energy, what would we actually do with it? And are our dreams of a renewable-energy utopia sometimes just as delusional as the old fossil-fueled, drill-baby-drill mentality? Alex Leff of the Human Nature Odyssey podcast hosts this special Crazy Town highlights c…
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on November 24, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius, Rabbi Shefa Gold
…
continue reading
There’s the book club, the Rotary Club, the Mickey Mouse Club, and the club sandwich. Whatever your preference, you might want to think about joining a club. Social clubs, fraternal orders, and the like have had a storied and critical role in public life. That is, until government programs and technology gave us an out from having to deal with each…
…
continue reading
1
Searching for the Golden Toad with Kyle and Trevor Ritland
51:11
51:11
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
51:11Frog and Toad Are Friends, at least according to a venerable children’s book. And so are Jason (Crazy Town’s resident biology nerd) and conservationist brothers, Kyle and Trevor Ritland, authors of The Golden Toad: An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species. The three eco-explorers connect over wondrous habitats and critters in Costa R…
…
continue reading
1
Unsung Heroes: Sustainability Gurus Who Influenced the Crazy Town Worldview
57:05
57:05
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
57:05Some key understandings in Crazy Town: the Earth is finite; the economy cannot grow forever; people can harm ecosystems and cause global warming; physics, chemistry, and biology are real; inequality hurts everyone; healthy humans need community, and it’s more fun to laugh than to cry. But where did principles like these originate? In this episode, …
…
continue reading
1
Sukkat Shalom: The Guest House of the Heart, Two Years Post-October 7
28:12
28:12
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
28:12The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on October 9, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
1
Burned by Billionaires, with Chuck Collins
44:46
44:46
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
44:46Billionaires. They should be objects of scorn rather than envy. While they ride around in their super-yachts and private jets, producing the climate-damaging pollution of entire nations, they’re doing things to extract even more wealth, harm your health, diminish democracy, and rig the whole system in their favor. How did this happen? Why do we tol…
…
continue reading
1
Moving with the Flow: Receiving Wisdom Through Descent and Ascent
25:05
25:05
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
25:05The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on September 29, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabba Mira Neshama Niculescu, Rabbi Marc Margolius, Rabba Dr. Mira Neshama Weil
…
continue reading
1
Crazy Town Classics - Maximum Power and Scarcity, or... the Story of the Birdbrained Backhoe on the Beach
59:28
59:28
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
59:28The “maximum power principle” may sound like the doctrine of an evil supervillain, but it actually applies to all living creatures. The principle states that biological systems organize to increase power whenever constraints allow. Given the way humans adhere to this principle, especially by overexploiting fossil fuels, we often do behave like supe…
…
continue reading
1
Finding Steady Ground: Rootedness Before Rosh Hashanah
24:52
24:52
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
24:52The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on September 19, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius, Rabbi Jenny Solomon
…
continue reading
1
Seeing Ourselves Through the Eyes of Love
25:35
25:35
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
25:35The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on September 15, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius, Rabbi Sam Feinsmith
…
continue reading
1
Belovedness in Elul: Small Shifts, Sacred Returns
24:27
24:27
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
24:27The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on September 11th, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife, Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
1
Et Tu, Bhutan? Cryptocurrency and Late-Stage Capitalism
36:08
36:08
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
36:08Maximize profits, exploit nature, hoard money, and, like Buzz Lightyear, grow the economy to infinity and beyond! That’s the modern economic playbook. But for decades, one renegade country has taken a contrarian stance that actually cares about people’s wellbeing and environmental health: the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. When Bhutan embraced “Gross …
…
continue reading
1
The Pause That Transforms: From Reactivity to Response
24:45
24:45
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
24:45The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on September 5th, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Alison Cohen, Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
1
Seeking the Face Through Stillness and Breath
24:52
24:52
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
24:52The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on September 2, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Dorothy Richman, Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
1
Artifacts of Collapse: Touring the Crazy Town Museum
1:02:51
1:02:51
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:02:51In this episode we travel in time to the year 2125, to visit the Crazy Town museum, which showcases today’s world of wanton consumption and profligate waste. How will humans in 2125 – if there are any of us left – judge the things everyone sees as normal today? Jason, Rob, and Asher take turns serving as expert curators of this future museum, nomin…
…
continue reading
1
Crazy Town Classics - Net Energy and Sustainability, or… the Story of the Overstuffed Strongman
1:26:55
1:26:55
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:26:55All of humanity’s feats, whether a record-setting deadlift by the world’s strongest man or the construction of a gleaming city by a technologically advanced economy, originate from a single hidden source: positive net energy. Having surplus energy in the form of thirteen pounds of food per day enables a very big man, Hafthor Bjornsson, to lift very…
…
continue reading
1
Just One Word: Microplastics, with Matt Simon
53:17
53:17
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
53:17Put on your best polyester pants, grab a bunch of gleaming mylar balloons, and crack open a case of bottled water. In today's episode, we're entering the plastic world of plastic pollution in all its glorious plasticity. We're on the hunt for microplastics – and we won’t have to go very far, as they're present everywhere – in the soil, in the water…
…
continue reading
1
Crazy Town Classics - Lord of the Swans: The Tragedy of the Enclosure of the Commons
57:02
57:02
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
57:02The “tragedy of the commons” is an idea that has so thoroughly seeped into culture and law that it seems normal for people and corporations to own land, water, and even whole ecosystems. But there’s a BIG problem: the “tragedy” part of it has been debunked – it really should be the triumph of the commons. Learn the origin story of privatization and…
…
continue reading
1
Will Trump's Tariffs Fuel or Foil the Degrowth Movement?
47:53
47:53
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
47:53As Trump’s tariffs kick in, the Republican party is suddenly spouting anti-consumerist rhetoric that would make the Lorax smile. Should we cheer on this accidental experiment in economic shrinkage, or will this ham-fisted set of trade policies cause a backlash against the proponents of degrowth? As political confusion reigns, we offer eco-localism …
…
continue reading
1
Blinded by the Light - Facing Reality with Renewable Energy
56:39
56:39
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
56:39Solar panels and other modern energy technologies can be really useful, but the belief that we can technologize our way to a bigger and better society powered by clean energy is tragically flawed. Asher, Rob, and Jason dig into the up-and-down story of the Ivanpah concentrated solar power plant, review the Harry Potteresque thinking behind complex,…
…
continue reading
1
Who Can Fix the Housing Crisis - NYT Pundits, German Shepherds, or Bilbo Baggins?
51:46
51:46
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
51:46Jason, Rob, and Asher are taking out a huge, unaffordable mortgage on the housing crisis. What’s behind the shortage in housing? Why is it that no one, except canine Tik Tok influencers with billion-dollar bank accounts, can afford to own a home? While mainstream pundits press for an energy-blind buildout of desert sprawl and gleaming towers of gla…
…
continue reading
1
Be Still and Know: Movement in the Stillness
23:37
23:37
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
23:37The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on May 28, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Shir Meira Feit, Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on May 21, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius, Rebecca Schisler
…
continue reading
1
Bunkers, Bazookas, and Bespoke Moats: How to Be Safe in an Unsafe World
42:13
42:13
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
42:13The world has gone bunking mad. The bespoke security industry is burying bunkers stocked with arsenals of automatic rifles and surrounded by flaming moats. Is there a better way to prepare for the polycrisis, the zombie apocalypse, or whatever hard times are on the horizon? Jason, Rob, and Asher have some fun at the expense of the bunker builders b…
…
continue reading
1
The Gentle Covering: Atonement as Healing Practice
23:55
23:55
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
23:55The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on May 07, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius, Rabbi Jenny Solomon
…
continue reading
1
It Was Never Your Democracy Anyway: Thomas Linzey on Rethinking the Constitution
51:19
51:19
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
51:19Democracy and environmental protection have two things in common: (1) they’re both supposed to be enshrined in the laws of the United States and (2) they’re both under severe attack right now. Asher speaks with Thomas Linzey of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights to uncover how the source code of the U.S. Constitution and the body of…
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on April 08, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius, Yael Shy
…
continue reading
1
Going #2: The Dueling Rules of Nature That Every Good Earthling Needs to Know
50:32
50:32
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
50:32Happy Earth Day! There are two concepts that every person should understand to be a better Earthling: entropy and self-organization. It seems like a paradox, but systems on Earth are simultaneously breaking down into disorder and arranging themselves into complex superorganisms. Everything on Earth (well, really in the whole universe) is subject to…
…
continue reading
1
A Passover Meditation for Holding Bitter and Sweet, Tears and Hope
25:51
25:51
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
25:51The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on April 09, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Dorothy Richman, Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
1
Even AI Chatbots Hate Us: The Rise of the New Luddites, with Brian Merchant
1:09:46
1:09:46
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:09:46Who knew that the breakthrough moment of AI sentience would come from interacting with an annoying neo-Luddite? After failing to raise a single dollar for PCI’s newest initiative — the $350 billion Transdisciplinary Institute for Phalse Prophet Studies and Education (TIPPSE) — Jason, Rob, and Asher devise the only profitable pitch for raising capit…
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on March 17, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein, Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
1
A Temporary Techno Stunt: Tom Murphy on Falling out of Love with Modernity
54:22
54:22
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
54:22Recovering technology booster Tom Murphy visits Crazy Town to discuss his journey from shooting lasers at the moon, to trying to "solve" the energy predicament, to falling out of love with modernity itself. Asher, Jason, Rob, and Tom discuss the roots and short-lived nature of modernity, which has not only shaped the world we inhabit but conquered …
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on March 12, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
1
Eating the Future: The NY Times Goes Full Ecomodernist on Food and Farming
47:01
47:01
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
47:01How will we feed people living in the megacities of the 21st century, especially while confronting climate chaos and the depletion of fossil fuels and fossil water? According to the mainstream media: ecomodernism! Massive deployment of technology on factory farms and an extreme ramp-up of industrialization will save the day – right? RIGHT?!? If you…
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on February 27, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius, Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife
…
continue reading
1
Bargaining With Collapse: A Superabundance of Lab Grown Meat and Dryer Balls
37:32
37:32
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
37:32Do you contemplate topics like climate change, biodiversity loss, and the risk of civilizational collapse? If so, then you probably understand something about bargaining – a psychological defense mechanism that’s one of the five stages of grief. With just a wee bit of embarrassment, Asher, Jason, and Rob reveal damning episodes of bargaining from t…
…
continue reading
1
Making Space for the Sacred in Turbulent Times
25:53
25:53
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
25:53The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on February 5, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius, Rabbi Dorothy Richman
…
continue reading
1
The House Is Quite Literally on Fire: Peter Kalmus on the Climate Emergency Hitting Home
53:49
53:49
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
53:49Peter Kalmus, climate scientist and returning friend of Crazy Town, used to live in Altadena, California, where one of the disastrous Los Angeles wildfires struck on January 7th. Having learned that his former house had burned, Peter penned an emotional article for the New York Times about his family's decision to leave LA two years prior, out of s…
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on January 15, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius, Alison Cohen
…
continue reading
1
The Frequent Flyer Tree: Losing the Last Bit of Sense in the Climate Emergency
30:29
30:29
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
30:29In the world of college sports, money talks and the volleyball team walks, er, flies 33,000 miles to play games. The NCAA, like almost everyone else, is playing games with Mother Nature. What do we expect student-athletes to gain from ignoring the climate emergency (not to mention putting their health at risk)? Who cares, as long as we can wring a …
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on January 03, 2025. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Shefa Gold, Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
1
Unlocking the Light: Meeting the Darkness with Mindfulness
24:05
24:05
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
24:05The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on December 23, 2024. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Zac Newman, Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
1
Shotgunning Hedwig: The Dilemma of Invasives and the Bizarre Decision to Slaughter Barred Owls
33:37
33:37
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
33:37The US Fish and Wildlife Service decided to "manage" barred owls by shooting half a million of them over the next three decades. Jason, Rob, and Asher (along with the postal workers at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry) are upset about this plan for addressing the predicament of invasive species. Surely there's a finer tool than a doub…
…
continue reading
1
Breaking News: Crazy Town Joins the Newly Formed Department of Entropy
45:08
45:08
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
45:08Rob, Jason, and Asher talk about joining the new Trump Administration, at least until Elon Musk eradicates it. They explore the implications of Trump 2.0 through three reality-bending lenses – shifting baselines, entropy, and the upside of down – and three ways of responding: resistance, resilience, and regeneration. They decided they couldn’t stom…
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during a free IJS Meditation Sit on November 13th, 2024. To join these FREE meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius, Rabbi Jenny Solomon
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during a free IJS Meditation Sit on November 6th, 2024. To join these FREE meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on October 14, 2024. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Chloe Zelkha, Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading
The meditation featured in this episode originally took place during the IJS Daily Online Meditation Sit on October 7, 2024. To join these FREE daily meditations live, sign up here. Visit jewishspirituality.org to learn more about the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.By Rabbi Marc Margolius
…
continue reading