Welcome to "A Mandatory Listen," a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people.

For this fifth episode in the new series, we speak with author Yossi Klein Halevi.

A deep pre-election political conversation had been planned for this episode. However, in a conversation that could have been called "Mann tracht un Gott lacht" (Man plans and God laughs), Borschel-Dan and Klein Halevi firmly pivot away from the profane -- politics -- and veer toward the sacred.

Spurred by questions on how he maintains equilibrium in the face of the fateful upcoming election, Klein Halevi, a longtime practitioner of meditation and Jewish spirituality, guides Borschel-Dan through his philosophical pillars.

What is faith -- and in what God? What is the purpose of prayer, and who is it for?

We hear some wisdom from Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook's teachings, as well as a mix of Eastern philosophies.

How does the activist aspect of Klein Halevi -- which sounds the shofar and warns the people of Israel of potential evils -- reconcile with the man of faith in the eternal nature of that same people?

A Mandatory Listen podcast episodes are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.