In the first episode of Thoughts & Prayers, host Jessica Fisher explores one of the oldest and most unsettling questions in Jewish life: Does prayer work?

Through deeply personal reflection and conversation with Sara Labaton, Josh Warshawsky, and Akiva Mattenson, the episode traces how ancient mystics, modern rationalists, and everyday seekers wrestle with the meaning and purpose of prayer — whether it changes the world, transforms us, or simply helps us keep knocking on a locked gate. Thoughtful, searching, and grounded in lived experience, this opening chapter invites listeners to reconsider what it really means to pray.

Sources referenced in this episode include:

Shabbat Kedusha
Nahmanides’ interpretation of Exodus 29:46
Emet atah hu rishon
Babylonian Talmud Yoma 69b:14
Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 32b
John Ashbery – “At North Farm”

Thoughts & Prayers is a new limited podcast series from the Shalom Hartman Institute that explores the tensions, questions, and contradictions at the heart of Jewish prayer today. Hosted by Jessica Fisher, each episode weaves together personal stories, classical texts, and conversations with leading rabbis, scholars, and educators to ask what prayer can still mean — and why it matters.