Rav Joe's 929 Tanakh Podcast

In the final chapter of the book of our national lament, the acrostic is broken and we begin to move towards a brighter day. In our audio we look at how both our chapter and the midrash on Eicha move the reader from despair to hope. Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Lamentations.5?lang=bii i

Eikha #4 - perhaps the most graphic and disturbing of the Eikha chapters with the most disturbing image of all as mothers cook their children. Despite the content, Rabbi Gamliel Shmalo, marshalls the scholarly work on trauma, to make the arresting claim that our chapter in fact sets forth a process of recovery from trauma essential to the survival of the Jewish people. Text here: https://www.sefar...

Eicha #3 - "I am the man who has seen suffering"- the epicenter of the megilla. Our audio once again focuses on a single verse which is taken by the midrash as the model for what all prophets should aspire to. Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Lamentations.3?lang=bi i

Eikha #2 - the lament continues, with a prominent theme being that God Himself perpetrates this act 'in his devouring anger... Good was like the enemy. In our audio today we connect a single verse in our chapter to a parallel verse in Tehillim 48 to try and unpack how this tragedy occurred. https://www.sefaria.org/Lamentations.2?lang=bi https://929.org.il/lang/en/today

Greetings everybody! It took nearly a year to do the 220 chapters of Tehillim, Mishlei and Iyov but now we're on our third book in as many weeks. Shir HaShirim and Ruth - two books told primarily through female protagonists. Now Eikha - how she, Jerusalem, sits alone bereft of those who loved her, in the aftermath of destruction of the Temple in 586BCE.Aliza Libman Baronofsky starts us off wit...

Ruth chapters 3 and 4: the nighttime meeting between Boaz and Ruth and... it works! Desolation and despair is replaced with birth and gladness. Rabbi Gamliel presents on ch.4 with the beautiful insight that if Shoftim teaches us that individual acts of evil can metastasise into society wide calamities, Ruth teaches that small acts of kindness can become waves of societal regeneration A wonderful b...

Ruth chapters 3 and 4: the nighttime meeting between Boaz and Ruth and... it works! Desolation and despair is replaced with birth and gladness. For ch.3 my fantastic colleague, Margot Botwinick, co-director of JLIC @ IDC Herzliya shares thoughts on Naomi's reversal of Bereishit in her daring suggestion that Ruth seduce Boaz. https://www.sefaria.org/Ruth.3?lang=bi

Rabbi Dr Sam Lebens presented ch.2s audio, focusing on Boaz's role in Ruth's conversion. Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Ruth.2?lang=bi

One megilla down, four to go! Today begins the story of Ruth, the widowed young gentile woman from Mo'av whose kindness and loyalty leads to King David and, according to Jewish tradition, to mashiach. Most of you will have already heard many ideas on Megillat Rut. In my recording today I focus on the deceptively simple question of when the story took place to understand its overall place in Ta...

Shir HaShirim #8 - the final chapter of this beautiful love song, but an unexpected ambiguity of distance and not togetherness concludes the sefer. My fantastic colleague, Shira Kahn, JLIC co-director at Princeton, shares beautiful thoughts based off of the fascinating readings of Ibn Ezra and the Malbim where the Song of Songs is a metaphor for the individual soul encased in the physical body. Te...

Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs.6?lang=bi , https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs.7?lang=bi

Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs.5?lang=bi

Kohelet 7 - see the works of God, for who can fix that which has been perverted. What does our tradition have to say about human-induced damage to our environment? What can it add to the discussion on climate change? I think a midrash on our chapter contains one of the most powerful answers. The full text of the midrash can be found in this article I wrote a number of years ago: https://blogs.time...

Shir HaShirim 4 and 5: songs of love, longing and missed opportunities. Yonatan Rahmani provides commentary, alongside beautiful chanting on chapter 4. Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs.4?lang=bi

Kohelet #6 - the paradox of plenty as Kohelet grapples with too much abundance and success Rabbi Gamliel Shmalo marshalls insights from Rashi to the Dalai Lama to the head of the Bank of Israel to shed light on the challenges facing a hedonist. Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Ecclesiastes.6?lang=bi

Shir HaShirim #2 and #3: springtime in the land of Israel, lovers longing for one another, but rivals and destructive foxes lie around them. Audio from Aliza Libman Baronofsky on daughters of Jerusalem in ch.3. Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs.3?lang=bi

Shir HaShirim #2 and #3: springtime in the land of Israel, lovers longing for one another, but rivals and destructive foxes lie around them. Audio from me in ch2 pulling out some of the key features of Shir HaShirim from verses in our chapter. Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs.2?lang=bi

Text for this chapter can be found here: ⁠https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs.1?lang=bi⁠ Our first audio is from my good friend Hakham Yonatan Rahmani who shares an introduction to the work as well as beautiful chanting and interpretations of the first verses.

Today is a big day. We finish Iyov and begin Shir HaShirim, the first of the megillot. Here's a thought - Iyov, a book so great, heavy and dreadful about a man who suffers - is book ended by two of the ultimate love poems celebrating different aspects of femininity, Eishet Chayil in Mishlei 30, and Shir HaShirim. To conclude the final mighty chapter of Job, we celebrate with two superb recordings...

Today is a big day. We finish Iyov and begin Shir HaShirim, the first of the megillot. Here's a thought - Iyov, a book so great, heavy and dreadful about a man who suffers - is book ended by two of the ultimate love poems celebrating different aspects of femininity, Eishet Chayil in Mishlei 30, and Shir HaShirim. To conclude the final mighty chapter of Job, we celebrate with two superb recordings...

Today is a big day. We finish Iyov and begin Shir HaShirim, the first of the megillot. Here's a thought - Iyov, a book so great, heavy and dreadful about a man who suffers - is book ended by two of the ultimate love poems celebrating different aspects of femininity, Eishet Chayil in Mishlei 30, and Shir HaShirim. To conclude the final mighty chapter of Job, we celebrate with two superb recordings...

Iyov #40 &41 - consider Iyov, says God, the Levitathon and the Behemoth. Audio from a location where I can appreciate God's argument. Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Job.40?lang=bi , https://www.sefaria.org/Job.41?lang=bi

Iyov #39 - God gives Iyov a description of the wild animals that populate our world - a response that could alternatively aim to overwhelm, humble or calm Iyov. Ilana Stein brings all her love of zoology to our chapter including a wonderful story of the ostrich and Lord Rothschild to explain a peculiar detail. Her recording concludes with a deeply moving quote of Anne Frank about the restorative p...

Greetings all from the lost coast of Northern California - an appropriately dramatic place for the climax of our book as God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind - where were you when I founded the earth. And who better than Rafi Addlestone to teach us this chapter. Text here: https://www.sefaria.org/Job.38?lang=bi

929 bonus: Rabbi Gamliel Shmalo completes his series on the Elihu chapters with a bonus recording on the book of *Iyov in the writings of Maimonides* - a hugely important topic. On behalf of the whole group, a huge thank you to Rabbi Shmalo for his great work on the Elihu chapters