Machshavah Lab

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This week's Torah content is sponsored by the Reznik family in dedication to the loving memory of Silvia Tanzer (Sora Hesha bas Chaim Moshe) and Irving Tanzer (Yisroel ben Yechezkel). Synopsis: This is the audio version of the one-page article I wrote entitled, The Induction of Metaphysical Trauma , which examines an idea from the Rav...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: This is a recording of the shiur I gave over Zoom on Tishah b'Av 5780 (8/14/20). The shiur focuses on a methodology for learning kinos as applied to Kinah #31, the theme of which is a comparison of the Exodus from Mitzrayim to the "Exodus" from Yerushalayim.   Three other things to note: (1) the actual shiur ends a...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: This is the audio version of the one-page article I wrote entitled, Haftarah of Mattos / Masei: Divine Love as the Foundation of Rebuke , in which I attempt to explain Yirmiyahu's first prophecy in light of the Rambam's categorization of Torah doctrines, combined with an insight from an expert in childhood trauma. -----...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: This is the audio version of the one-page article I wrote entitled, Sameach b'Chelko as Unconditional Happiness , in which I compare an insight into happiness from Anthony de Mello to Ben Zoma's definition of wealth in Pirkei Avos, as explained by the classical commentaries. ---------- If you have questions, comments, o...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: This is the audio version of the one-page article I wrote entitled, Feynman: On Definitional Neurosis , in which I analyze a methodological insight conveyed by Richard Feynman in one of his quips. ---------- If you have questions, comments, or feedback, I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to contact me at rabbischneew...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: This is the audio version of the one-page article I wrote entitled, Bruce Lee's Oak and the Success of Evil , which is about an insight I had into Mishlei and Tehilim based on a nuance in one of my favorite Bruce Lee quotations. ---------- If you have questions, comments, or feedback, I would love to hear from you! Please fe...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Synopsis: This is the audio version of the one-page article I wrote entitled: The One-Page Article: A Summer 2021 Experiment , in which I state and explain my writing plans for the summer.  ---------- If you have questions, comments, or feedback, I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to contact me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail. --...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight's Chumash shiur (given at YBT on 6/16/21) wasn't a shiur, but an exploration of the short but perplexing incident of the fiery serpents, as explained by the Sforno. We only had time to set up the area, and didn't really arrive at any definitive conclusions, but I think the steps we took are good, and can be further d...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This is an "audiobook version" of a dvar Torah I wrote in July 2016 entitled: Parashas Chukas: Overlooking Sacrilegious Speech. Click here for a link to the written version, which is also available as a PDF .  ---------- If you have questions, comments, or feedback, I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to contact me at...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! I was talking with a former high school student of mine about the philosophically inclined education she received in Midreshet Shalhevet (a"h). Like any good student, she continued to learn and develop after high school, and to eventually begin to question and critique what she had been taught in an effort to forge her own path. She s...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This is an "audiobook version" of a dvar Torah I wrote in June 2017 entitled: Parashas Korach: What Happened to Korach? Click here for a link to the written version, which is also available as a PDF. And if you're a fan of these "audiobook versions" of my divrei Torah and blog posts, please let me know, since this...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This is an "audiobook version" of a dvar Torah I wrote in June 2018 entitled: Parashas Shelach: The Torah's View of Temptation. Click here for a link to the written version, which is also available as a PDF. And if you're a fan of these "audiobook versions" of my divrei Torah and blog posts, please let me know...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (6/2/21 at YBT) we took up the question: What does the Torah mean by "toeivah" (abomination)? The impetus for taking up this topic was Mishlei 20:10, which referred to unjust weights and measures as a "toeivah," and which we spent a couple of days working on. I mentioned that I came up with a theory for the Tora...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (5/26/21 at YBT), in lieu of our Chumash Methodology Shiur, we took a leaf from the playbook of Saadia Gaon by tackling a fundamental question in epistemology: "What are ideas?" This question, with its right and wrong answers, had surfaced numerous times in various discussions over the course of the year, and I kept on te...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (5/25/20 at YBT), in lieu of our Tehilim shiur, we took up a topic inspired by our Rambam Bekius shiur last week, which focused on the virtue of silence. One of the statements cited by Chazal on silence was from Avos 3:13: "a fence for wisdom is silence." I found Rabbeinu Yonah's commentary on this statement to be il...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In tonight's Chumash Methodology shiur (given at YBT on 5/19/21) we continued learning through the section of his book "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do" (1975) entitled "Organized Despair." If you haven't seen Part 1, I suggest you do so before watching Part 2, since that's where I explain who Bruce Lee is to me,...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In this week's Lomdeha Friday Seminar (5/7/21) I gave over a presentation that I've given every year in my hashkafah class in Shalhevet (a"h). The foundation of this presentation was a series of shiurim given by Rabbi Fox at Northwest Yeshiva High School a number of years ago in which he identified three schools of thought (...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In tonight's Chumash Methodology shiur (given at YBT on 5/5/21) I undertook the daunting task of attempting to convey to my talmidim the impact that Bruce Lee has had on my personal derech. Although I've quoted Bruce Lee's teachings here and there over the course of the year, I've never really devoted time to explaining...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In last week's Lomdeha Friday Seminar (4/30/21) we learned three answers to the question, "What is the theme of the Chag ha'Shavuos?" - that of the Ralbag, the Abravanel, and Rav Hirsch. In every machlokess there will be strengths and weaknesses to each side, and we attempted to identify the strengths and weaknesses in...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In tonight's Chumash Methodology shiur (given at YBT on 4/28/21) emerged from a machlokess Rishonim on how we should divide our learning time. Let's call it Rambam vs. Rabbeinu Tam, for simplicity's sake. Like it or not, most (if not all) of us have been raised in an educational model predominantly influenced by Rabbeinu Tam...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In last week's Lomdeha Friday Seminar (4/23/21) we attempted to do something that, traditionally, we haven't been very good at: learning bekius (i.e. to cover ground). Since Parashas Kedoshim contains SO many fundamental mitzvos, I wanted to attempt to cover as many as possible, and in so doing, to demonstrate a paradigm for fami...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In last night's Chumash Methodology shiur (given at YBT on 4/21/21) we took up a the controversial but important topic identified by the title. Since I have neither the qualifications nor the desire to tackle such a weighty issue on my own, I decided to read and discuss Rabbi Marc Shapiro's essay יש חיוב להאמין שהזוהר נכתב על ידי...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This morning's Sunday shiur (4/18/21 at YBT) was inspired by a Richard Feynman anecdote in which he recounts crisis which caused him to abandon Judaism as a kid. I believe that many Jewish educators are setting their students up for a similar crisis - a crisis I refer to as "Midrashic Betrayal." In this shiur I provide an ov...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Today's Lomdeha Friday Seminar (4/16/21) was about the role of humor in Torah study, as reflected in a statement by Chazal. This shiur is not intended to be a comprehensive overview of the topic, or even a full analysis of this Gemara. Rather, as the name of this series - "Machshavah Lab" - implies, this was just an explorat...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight's Chumash Methodology shiur (given at YBT on 4/14/21) is a follow-up to our shiur on Shadal's Opposition to Philosophical Judaism (given at YBT on 4/9/21). At the end of that shiur I was asked, "What is Shadal's approach to Chumash?" I was disappointed that he didn't write a methodological introduction...