This is an encore presentation of our very first podcast episode, about Chapter 1 of The Good Place after an introduction to our whole project! We’re republishing it primarily for anyone who is just discovering Tov! in time for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year holy day, which is a time for exploring all the themes in The Good Place as they apply to our lives. As you’ll hear in the episode, even though we’re two rabbis talking we are not pushing Judaism here, just kicking it around together. Maybe you’re someone who’s using The Good Place as how you start the new year, with or without our podcast as a guide! If so we’d love to hear about your experience and bet others would too. If you are looking for a community to gather with for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur and don’t know how to connect to one, drop us a note at tov@tovgoodplace.com and we'll find someone who will welcome you. Click here for show notes.

This episode is Jon Spira-Savett’s attempt to collect my thoughts about how The Good Place illustrates, riffs on, critiques and expands on the Jewish concept of teshuvah (personal change as “returning”), especially as taught in the writings of Rabbi Moses Maimonides. What have I learned so far, and has it affected me in my life? This episode is an exposition in one voice and not a conversation, and for those who prefer just to read it the “script” is linked in the show notes.

Yet another “insider” conversation with someone from the Good Place team! Pamela Hieronymi is a philosophy professor at UCLA with whom Michael Schur spoke early on in the show’s development. Pamela talks with Dan Ross and Jon Spira-Savett about some of the moral emotions, like envy, resentment, and blame; whether one can in fact try to be good and whether some people have limits on how good they can become; reframing the matter to center another’s experience of being disrespected rather than the calculation of one’s own rightness or blame; what effect death or immortality have on our moral lives. We of course discuss contractualism and why Pamela thinks it is both the best theory and an inspiring one, despite its sometimes dense presentation in the works of modern philosophers. We get her take on Maimonides and teshuvah (repair as “return), the Torah covenant as compared to modern contractualism -- and the moral superiority of horses!

Click here for show notes and links to Professor Hieronymi's website and some selected articles and videos.

Click here to listen to our first podcast on a specific Good Place episode, Chapter 1.