Online Torah Classes with Rabbi Mendy Goldberg

TAVO Seeing the Miracles Everyday The Land of Israel is the home and palace in which the Holy One, blessed be He, dwells. And a home is a place that is renewed at every moment. It does not endure by inertia or by memory, but rather comes into being anew together with the person who himself is renewed each morning. A person changes every day, and life is different each hour, and true love bursts fo...

TEITZEI With Faith We Will Prevail We explore the themes of faith, resilience, and the significance of Psalm 27 during the month of Elul. The ongoing struggles faced by individuals and nations, drawing parallels between personal challenges and larger conflicts. Through the story of Sapir Cohen, who found strength in Psalm 27 during her captivity, the discussion emphasizes the power of faith in God...

SHOFTIM You Be the Judge No, really, you are the judge The month of Elul begins and we are all filled with desire for change, but we are also tired of past “Eluls” that led nowhere. We are exhausted from attempts to improve that did not succeed and from problems that have grown old with us. To succeed in truly effecting change, we must examine the ways in which we act and ask whether we are using...

RE'EH Seeing Life's Choices As Moshe gives his last will and testament to the Jews before entering the dessert. He tells them SEE the choices you have, blessings and curses. How can the blessings and curses run along to one another , while they are two opposing ideas and ways of life? What was Moshe giving the Jewish people?

EIKEV Secret of the Number Forty We will explore the secret and power of the number forty, and we will do this by examining one of the great idea in the Torah: Moses's ascent to heaven three times, where each time he ascends for forty days and lives there as a hybrid creature - half human and half angel. The obvious question is: why did it take so long? Why did the G-d, perform such an enormou...

VAESCHANAN Having Your Prayers Answered The 15th of Av is a unique holiday, that the Mishna refers to it as one the greatest holidays for the Jews. What is so special about this day? Why was is this day that Moshe pleads with G-d 515 times to enter the land of Israel? Were Moshe's prayers unanswered? What can we learn form all of this.

DEVARIM - NINE DAYS Making It Happen What else could possibly happen for us to see Moshiach’s arrival? We are standing at the end of a year of wonders, in which, alongside the deep pain, we touched the heavens day after day. In the last twelve months alone, many of our greatest arch-enemies have been eliminated or neutralized, many in an astonishingly wondrous fashion. The feeling was that G-d was...

DEVARIM - NINE DAYS Making It Happen What else could possibly happen for us to see Moshiach’s arrival? We are standing at the end of a year of wonders, in which, alongside the deep pain, we touched the heavens day after day. In the last twelve months alone, many of our greatest arch-enemies have been eliminated or neutralized, many in an astonishingly wondrous fashion. The feeling was that G-d was...

This upcoming Shabbos presents a unique event: a meeting between the weekly Torah Parsha and the date of the day itself; we will read in the Torah about the very day on which the Parsha is being read. This Shabbos will be Rosh Chodesh Av, and in the Parsha we will read about the death of Aharon, which occurred “in the fifth month, on the first of the month”—on Rosh Chodesh Av. This rare alignment...

PINCHUS The saying goes “Life is what happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.” Reality presents us with challenging situations that tear us between the life we want and the life we receive. We find ourselves in a dispute with Divine Providence over what could have been different. However, life becomes joyful when we manage to ride the wave and accept what is happening— when we let go of...

BALAK Chasing that Prophecy It’s not crazy to say that perhaps we are approaching the ‘end of times’. The loose ends of history are tying together, and the entire picture is becoming clear. It is no coincidence that the recent military operation from Israel was named borrowing language from Bilaam’s prophecy: “like a lion rises,” thereby demonstrating the depth of that man’s vision. Bilaam is the...

CHUKAS Why So Harsh? In the Torah Reading of Chukat, Moshe and Aron are punished that they will not enter the land Israel. Their sin, hitting the rock to give water to the Jewish people. Why so harsh, everyone else can do Teshuvah, repentance, why were Moshe and Aharon not afforded the same opportunity? Why was G-d insistent that Moshe not enter the land of Israel?

KORACH From Cyrus To Trump New days have arrived; in ways unlike ever before, the most powerful nation in the world aligns itself with the Jewish nation, even taking up arms for her sake. Sure, the US and Israel have always enjoyed a very strong bond and close alliance, but something unprecedented just took place. When the reactor in Iraq was bombed, America firmly opposed it and imposed sanctions...

SHLACH The Mystery of Challah Why are Challah Bakes all the rage? Somehow from all the many mitzvos, this simple mitzvah seems to have captured the imagination of women (and beyond) in every community. Challah bakes in honor of someone, in memory of another, for the war, the hostages, before Rosh Hashana, and on… but what is Hafrashas Challah and why is it so special? Challah is a declaration of f...

BAHALOTECHA Developing a Positivity Bias How can people stand before the most uplifting events in history and cry over trivialities? How is it possible to cross the sea and receive bread from heaven, to receive the Torah at Mount Sinai and witness the Divine Presence resting upon the Tabernacle—and complain that there’s no garlic and onions to spice the fish? Because the mind plays tricks on us. T...

Unsung Heroines A businesswoman saves thousands from the Inquisition and rebuilds Jewish life across the Mediterranean, and a female Torah scholar shapes Halachic discourse while raising a family, feeding students, and caring for the sick—see the secret ways women shaped Jewish history.

Heroes and Hostages Four rabbis are captured by 10th-century pirates, Germany’s foremost Jewish leader is held for ransom, and thousands of East European Jews languish in Ottoman slave markets—how did Jewish communities respond?

SHAVUOS Are we "really" the chosen ones? How can we declare that Hashem "chose us from among all nations and gave us the Torah," when in fact He offered the Torah to other nations first, and only gave it to us after theyrefused? Even more puzzling — how could He offer it to others after already telling us in Egypt, "I will take you to Me as a people"?

Influential Jews Spain’s top Torah scholar leads a Muslim Army, an Amsterdam rabbi with a printshop talks England into readmitting Jews, and a rabbi teaches a Catholic scholar and saves Central Europe’s Jewish books— how did they integrate Judaism into their influence?

BECHUKOTAI Don’t Just Learn – Sweat! Health requires hard work. A healthy person is one who puts in effort, breaks a sweat at the gym, and exerts his body, beyond what is comfortable. In contrast, a person who lives the couch-potato easy life, is more prone to injury, and just general debilitation. In much the same manner, spiritual health also depends on toiling in Torah Parshat Bechukotai promis...

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is a singular phenomenon throughout the generations. There is no other gravesite or yahrzeit of an individual that draws the masses as Rashbi, Meron, and Lag BaOmer do. Compare this to Rashbi’s teachers and colleagues: few visit the grave of the great sage of the generation during the time of the Beis Hamikash’s destruction, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. Not everyone visits t...

A Roman prince outwits his uncle to study Torah, an Italian priest studies his way to a new life, and a Polish noble meets an old Jew studying Talmud on a Paris park bench—see their journey to Judaism and what came next.

ACHAREI - KEDOSHIM How to agree with those that disagree with you. It is no secret that we are living in a highly polarized era. Everything is treated as a zero- sum game. It's either you think like me, or you are unworthy of existence. Surveys show that people boycott businesses and products because of opposing views. Another survey shows that hostility within the Jewish people today is great...

TAZRIA-METZORA Why Gossip Sells What makes gossip, or lashon hara so irresistible, to the point that, as the sages say, “it is impossible to be saved from it”? What’s the pleasure in Gossip? Why do we feel compelled to vent and share every flaw we discover in others? We must dive deeper and understand a revolutionary fact: lashon hara fulfills a psychological need. It is an essential tool for copi...

SEFIRAT HAOMER Your Journey to Personal Refinement Can a person in our generation attain the feeling to holiness described in so many stories of old? Is it possible to learn to love and reach a level where we rejoice in the merit of spending money on matzah for Passover, tefillin for a child, or a coin for the poor, just as we do when buying a new piece of furniture? The question also arises in th...