EPISODE 4: Losing Track of Time

Quarantine time is weird: What day is it? How long have we been inside? How long will this last? This week we discuss how the various cycles of Jewish Time can be anchoring forces for those of us who are feeling adrift.

Moshe Kasher has written for several films, series, and specials including Betty for HBO, Little America for Apple, Wet Hot American Summer for Netflix, Another Period, the Comedy Central Roasts for Comedy Central, and ZOOLANDER 2. Last year, Moshe and his wife Natasha Leggero released a three-part comedy special for Netflix, “The Honeymoon Stand-Up Special” – based off of their wildly successful podcast entitled The Endless Honeymoon. He also co-hosted the popular podcast The Champs and is the host of The Hound Tall Discussion Series on the Nerdist Network.   

Additionally, Moshe can be seen in his 2017 Comedy Central talk show, Problematic with Moshe Kasher. Named one of Variety’s “10 Comics To Watch,” he makes frequent appearances on This Is Not Happening and Drunk History and has also appeared on the series Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, @midnight with Chris Hardwick, and The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail. Kasher has also had roles on Portlandia, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The League, Shameless, Maron, Garfunkel and Oates, and The New Normal.   

Earlier in his career, Moshe wrote the 2012 memoir Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16 and had his first Netflix special debut – Moshe Kasher: Live in Oakland.

David Kasher serves as an Associate Rabbi at IKAR, a non-denominational spiritual community in Los Angeles. He received his BA in Political Science at Wesleyan University, holds a J.S.D. from Berkeley Law, and received his Rabbinic Ordination at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. 

Rabbi Kasher grew up bouncing back and forth between Berkeley and Brooklyn, hippies and hassidim – and has been trying to synthesize these two worlds ever since. After graduating from college, he studied for several years in yeshivot in Israel before heading off to rabbinical school. He was ordained in 2007, and returned to Northern California, where he became the Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel. He was part of the founding team at Kevah, a non-profit specializing in Adult Jewish Education, where he worked from 2012 to 2018. 

He has served on the faculty of Berkeley Law, the Wexner Heritage Program, Reboot, and BINA: The Secular Yeshiva, and also taught at Pardes, SVARA, The Hartman Institute, Dorot, and various Limmuds. Rabbi Kasher is a teacher of nearly all forms of classical Jewish literature, but his greatest passion is Torah commentary, and he spent the last five years producing the weekly ParshaNut blog and podcast (www.parshanut.com), exploring the riches of the genre. A ParshaNut book is coming out this fall.