Rabbi Dan Levin serves as the senior rabbi of Temple Beth El, located in Boca Raton, FL, the congregation where he began his career in 1996. As the congregation’s leader, Rabbi Levin works to create a community where each member is inspired to lead a life of spiritual richness, meaning, purpose, and service. He seeks to build a congregation whose mission is to synthesize the innate questions and moral challenges of the world in which we live with the wisdom and power of centuries of Jewish tradition. It is this synthesis of tradition and the modern world that guides his teaching, worship, and pastoral care. Rabbi Levin believes that God is found in the intimacy of relationship, and seeks to build in the congregation a web of care, love, and oneness with each other, the community in which we live, and with the Jewish people here, in Israel, and throughout the world.
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Episodes
Each episode of Essential Questions with Rabbi Dan Levin will pose an essential question and invite a conversation with remarkable people in the Jewish world and in our community to consider what those questions and answers mean.
Episodes
Feb 7, 2024
Feb 7, 2024
51 min
In this episode of Essential Questions, Rabbi Dan Levin speaks with Rabbi Dalia Marx about how to sanctify time. They talk about rituals and their role in enriching spiritual encounters, how to remove barriers to spirituality, what Shabbat and other holy days look like during a time of war in Israel, and more.
Read Rabbi Dalia Marx's book: From Time to Time: Journeys in the Jewish Calendar - https://www.ccarpress.org/shopping_product_detail.asp?pid=50602
Jan 31, 2024
Jan 31, 2024
52 min
In today’s episode, Rabbi Dan Levin speaks with Dr. Andrea Corn and Randy Nathan about youth sports. They discuss the different physical, social, and leadership benefits they see for children involved in youth sports, how to handle winning and losing, the balance between youth sports and other obligations, and more.
Jan 24, 2024
Jan 24, 2024
51 min
In this episode of Essential Questions, Cantorial Soloist Michelle Auslander Cohen interviews four current members of the IDF Reserves. Join us as we bear witness to the experiences of the brave Israeli soldiers currently stationed in the North. Hear their incredible stories and find out what we can do to support them.
Our guests include:
- Major Noam Goldberg, Company Commander, Headquarters and Service company. Noam is the commander of the HQ company and is in charge of the the battalion staff officers and their respective platoons.
- Major Ori Sobovitz, Education and Resilience Officer. Ori heads the educational program in the battalion and has taken charge of coordinating the battalion's soldiers' welfare since the beginning of the war.
- Lieutenant Lia Behiri, Command Center (war room) Officer. Lia runs the battalion's war room and coordinates all ongoing activity in the battalion.
- Captain Eitan Brown, Battalion Operations Officer. Eitan is responsible for the planning, coordination and execution of the battalion's military operations.
Learn more: https://www.jgive.com/new/en/usd
Donate: https://www.jgive.com/new/en/usd/donation-targets/115033
Jan 10, 2024
Jan 10, 2024
57 min
In this episode of Essential Questions, Rabbi Dan Levin speaks with Rabbi Elana Rabishaw about their recent trips to Israel amid the ongoing war with Hamas, as well as their past experiences with Israel that are meaningful to them.
Jan 3, 2024
Jan 3, 2024
51 min
In this episode of Essential Questions, Rabbi Dan Levin speaks with Rabbi Richard Address, the founder and director of JewishSacredAging.com. They define the concept of Sacred Aging and discuss what makes something sacred, how you can live life so it has meaning, and the importance of a legacy.
Dec 20, 2023
Dec 20, 2023
53 min
In this episode of Essential Questions, Rabbi Dan Levin talks about the experience and importance of telling stories with some of the creative team behind Israeli podcast Rays of Light: Dana Dvorin, Liat Fishman Lenny and Ira Fuchs. Their podcast captures the stories of women who survived the attacks of October 7, and shares them through the voices of Israeli actors and through the magnificent sand art of Ilana Yahav. They discuss the inspiration behind this project, and why their work is so important.
Watch some videos from the Rays of Light series here:
- Atar Maor’s story (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/share/v/J4e7WJ3tKbTePx3M/?mibextid=WiMSqg
- Carmel Efron’s story (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/share/v/ioNy5JQ9cwRZ86VR/?mibextid=WiMSqg
- Miri Gad Messika’s story (Vimeo): https://vimeo.com/881590746/feedd545ad
Dec 13, 2023
Dec 13, 2023
42 min
On Thursday, December 7, the Jewish world lost one of the great leaders and scholars of our generation, Rabbi Dr. David Ellenson, past president and chancellor of the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion; and teacher, rabbi, mentor, and role model of Rabbi Dan Levin.
Today, in his memory, we are re-releasing an episode of Essential Questions, where Rabbi Dan Levin and Rabbi Dr. David Ellenson spoke about different ways to think about God within Judaism, and if a belief in God is necessary.
Dec 6, 2023
Dec 6, 2023
45 min
In this episode of Essential Questions, Rabbi Dan Levin speaks with Jessica Keith, author of Saying Inshallah with Chutzpah, about her experience working at the Kuwaiti Consulate in Los Angeles. They discuss different cultural contexts for "normal," how learning isn't always comfortable, and about different experiences of intolerance.
Rabbi Dan Levin
Rabbi Levin is a past president of SEACCAR, the southeast region of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and serves on the Budget and Finance committee of the CCAR. He is proud to be a member of the President’s Rabbinical Council of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, and serves on the Alumni Leadership Council. Previously, he served as a member of the Reform Movement’s Think Tank, a group seeking to create a visioning process for the future of Reform Judaism, and as a partner in the Kalsman Institute for Judaism and Health. He has mentored younger colleagues through the CCAR, The Wexner Foundation, and the CLI Fellows program of CLAL – the Center for Learning and Leadership.
Locally, he has served on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, as a board member of Ruth and Norman Rales Jewish Family Services, the American Jewish Committee, and the Mathew Forbes Romer Foundation. He was a featured writer for the Union for Reform Judaism’s Ten Minutes of Torah, and blogs.
Rabbi Levin is a Senior Rabbinic Fellow with the Shalom Hartman Institute. A recipient of the prestigious Wexner Graduate Fellowship, Rabbi Levin studied at the Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and New York campuses of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, and was ordained in May, 1996. He graduated from Colgate University with a degree in Philosophy and Religion in 1991, and also studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He and his wife Aimee are the parents of three children, Ari, Meredith, and Eliana.