New Books Network

What does it really mean to go "beyond the letter of the law"? In
this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with scholar Deborah Barer to
discuss her book Going Off Script: Improvisational Judgment in the Talmud, which offers a surprising new interpretation of one of the Talmud's most enduring ethical concepts: lifnim mi-shurat ha-din.

For generations, lifnim mi-shurat ha-din has been understood
to mean acting "beyond the letter of the law"—choosing generosity or
compassion over strict legal obligation. Barer challenges that
assumption. Through a close reading of classical rabbinic texts, she
argues that the Talmud originally used the phrase not to describe a
particular kind of moral act, but a particular way of making decisions.
Rather than rigidly following established rules, rabbis sometimes
improvised, departing from expected patterns in pursuit of the right
outcome for a unique case.

By tracing how this idea developed from in the Talmud, Barer uncovers
how one phrase evolved into a cornerstone of Jewish ethical thought.
Her work invites readers to rethink the relationship between law and
morality, showing that creativity and flexibility have always been part
of the rabbinic legal tradition.

Together, Barer and Katz explore why improvisation matters in Jewish
law, how the Talmud balances consistency with compassion, and what this
ancient model of decision-making can teach us about navigating difficult
moral questions today.

Deborah Barer is Senior Faculty with the Shalom Hartman Institute of
North America. She holds a PhD in Religious Studies from the University
of Virginia, with an emphasis on rabbinic literature and Jewish ethics.
Previously, she was Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Towson
University, and she has also taught at Oberlin College and for the
Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies (North America). She served as the
editor of the Journal of Textual Reasoning.

Rabbi Marc Katz is the senior Rabbi at Temple Ner
Tamid in Bloomfield, NJ. He is the author of Yochanan's Gamble:
Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life (JPS)
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Hindu nationalism is transforming India as an increasingly dominant
ideology and political force. But it is also a global phenomenon, with
sections of India’s vast and influential diaspora drawn to, or actively
supporting, right-wing Hindu nationalism. Indians overseas can be seen
as an important, even inextricable, aspect of the movement. This is not a
new dynamic—diasporic Hindutva has grown over many decades.

Hindu Nationalism in the Indian Diaspora: Transnational Politics and British Multiculturalism
(Oxford University Press, 2024) explores how and why the movement
became popular among India’s diaspora from the second half of the
twentieth century. It shows that Hindutva ideology and its plethora of
organizations have a distinctive resonance and way of operating
overseas; the movement and its ideas perform significant, particular
functions for diaspora communities.Edward T.G. Anderson argues that
transnational Hindutva cannot simply be viewed as an export: this
phenomenon has evolved and been shaped into an important aspect of
diasporic identity, a way for people to connect with their homeland. He
also sheds light on the impact of conservative Indian politics on
British multiculturalism, migrant politics and relations between various
minority communities.

Sachin Nikarge has
extensively worked in consultative capacity with prominent
foreign/diplomatic missions across both ‘hard’ as well as ‘soft’ power
domains.
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M. G. Sheftall has lived in Japan since 1987. He has a PhD in international relations and modern Japanese history from Waseda University in Tokyo. Since 2001, he has been a professor of modern Japanese cultural history and communication at the Faculty of Informatics of Shizuoka University. He lives in Hamamatsu, Japan.

Amy Chavez talks about Sheftall's books on the Asia Pacific War, in particular Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses and Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses both oral histories featuring interviews with survivors of the atomic bombs.

Has Japan's 80 years of peace education been all for naught? The book serves as a prescient warning given the current political climate and Japan's complex relationships with the US, Taiwan, China, and the broader world. Recent developments—including Nihon Hidankyo's 2024 Nobel Peace Prize and the ongoing protests against revising Article 9—bring this subject into sharp focus. Against this backdrop, the author offers his own perspective on Japan's nuclear future.

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island, and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

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Homosexuality in Central Asia: Stories of Hardship and Hope
(Barnes and Noble Press, 2026) is Ryan Michael Schweitzer's collection
of first-hand narratives from LGBTQ individuals across Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Drawing on years
of fieldwork in the region, Schweitzer gathers stories of violence,
blackmail, forced marriage, surveillance, and exile alongside quieter
accounts of love, friendship, and endurance. Rather than presenting a
single Central Asian LGBTQ experience, the book traces how legal status,
state security apparatuses, family structure, and religious revival
intersect differently in each country to shape what visibility and
safety look like for queer people in the region.

About the host

Cholpon Ramizova is a London-based creator and researcher. She holds a
Master's in Migration, Mobility and Development from SOAS, University
of London. Her thematic interests are in migration, displacement,
identity, gender and nationalism—and in the ways these intersect within
the Central Asia context.
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In this episode, Alisa interviews Dr. Yana Skorobogatov about her book, Fate in My Hands: The Death Penalty in the Soviet Union
(University of Chicago Press, 2026). From 1954 to 1991 in the Soviet
Union, nearly 40,000 citizens were executed after the death penalty was
reinstated as a punishment for homicide. Fate in My Hands
introduces readers to the many citizens in this period—women and men of
all ages and backgrounds—who found themselves on death row and tried to
escape it in the only way available to them: asking for forgiveness.
Examining the letters and objects the dead left behind, Skorobogatov
recovers their voices and allows them to speak anew. The book is a
striking portrait of life in the Soviet Union and the citizens who
dreamed of new possibilities even as they faced their tragic end. Using a
corpus of never-before-accessed criminal court records, Fate in My Hands
brings readers not just into the police interrogation rooms,
courthouses, and cells where the condemned awaited their fates, but into
the homes, workplaces, and psychiatric hospitals where families and
friends alike came together to pursue an elusive, bitter justice in the
wake of violent tragedy.
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