Ta Shma

In this first lecture in a series of 3 taught in Spring 2023 (Who Does Torah Belong To?), Rav Tali Adler explores the character of R. Elazar ben Arakh and why his colleagues couldn't understand what he taught. What can we do if we feel like the world is not ready for what we have to teach? Download the source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/Adler2023TorahBel...

Asarah b’Tevet (the 10th of the month of Tevet), marks the beginning of the end of the First Temple.  It marks the beginning of a 30-month period in which the Jews in Jerusalem found themselves pressed on all sides, overcome by the army of the Babylonian empire, with little hope in sight. What was it like for them to be at the beginning of this period of great uncertainty? Did they hold on to hope...

My mother tongue was no tongue at all, but a pair of hands.  My parents were both deaf, so my first language was American Sign Language.  I didn’t think much about it at the time; when you’re a kid, your parents are just your parents and your life is just your life.  It is only in retrospect that I have come to appreciate how profoundly the experience of growing up in a Deaf family, and spending m...

R. Avi Killip and R. Avital Hochstein introduce Dr. Tsivia Frank Wygoda, a new member of Hadar's team in Israel who supports independent minyanim in Be'er Sheva and southern Israel. They reflect on how war pushes us to think in terms of black and white binaries, and yet, the reality - politically, morally, and emotionally - is such more  more complex. Are there limits on what we are allo...

In Parashat Mikeitz, a time of great crisis brings people together from across the world, desperate for help. Their savior will be a young Hebrew prisoner with the rare ability to speak “לכל עם ועם כלשונו - to every nation in its own language.” Although the narrative of the Torah is written in Hebrew, its characters are not always speaking Hebrew themselves. What does this tell us about Joseph&apo...

We are all plagued by fears and anxieties, both rational and irrational, founded and unfounded.  Often, when we are afraid, we keep our fears to ourselves, letting our inner voices run wild as we play our worst fear on loops.  What if I am sick?  What if I am not good enough?  What if we can’t make it work?  Maybe we don’t want to share our fears because fear can be mixed with other complicated em...

R. Avi and R. Avital talk about the tumultuous week of the ceasefire and returned captives. What are the values that animate the conversation about who should be the priority to bring home? How can we even put relative values on people? And how can we live out our values and imagine a better world in tough times?

Certain unique landscapes in the Torah carry a strong association with a particular kind of experience.  A garden reminds us of innocence (Genesis 2:25).  A mountain is a place of revelation (Genesis 22:14, Exodus 19:20).  At a well, one might find love (Genesis 24:11-13, 29:9-11, Exodus 2:15-21). A far more common landscape in the Torah is the field.  The field is not usually where the main actio...

R. Avital Hochstein and R. Elazar Symon take the opportunity - belatedly - of Thanksgiving to talk about what they're thankful for and the difficult but necessary role of thankfulness in tefillah

The Torah often employs a “bookending” technique, using similar words or phrases in both the first and last verses of the parashah, in order to create a thematic frame for the action in the middle.  Parashat Vayishlah’s bookends are especially pronounced, in that its first and last verses each end with the same word: “אדום - Edom.” What is the significance of this bookend and what can it teach us...

What, if anything, can we say in the wake of the Shoah? In this series, we'll explore the main currents of post-Holocaust Jewish theology through thinkers like Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Yitz Greenberg, Emil Fackenheim, and Melissa Raphael; and we'll investigate how philosophers of religion grapple with the problem of evil. But rather than just analyze their thought, we'...

It can be hard to say thank you. I know, for myself, sometimes after abandoning the kitchen at night to a sinkful of dishes and a couch covered in clothes waiting to be folded, I wake up in the morning to a clean sink and folded clothes, and I find myself so grateful to my wife’s midnight work. Obviously, I should say thank you and I owe her more than just a thank you. Yet it’s hard for me. There...

What happens in a beit midrash during a time of war, violence, and uncertainty? We checked in with R. Avital Hochstein and R. Elazar Symon, both members of Hadar's team in Jerusalem, to discuss what learning Torah means in this difficult time and what this war reveals about Israeli society.

By the time we arrive at Parashat Toldot and come upon two brothers vying for the mantle of family leadership, we can already predict with some confidence that it is the younger brother who will prevail.  If we have been reading Genesis carefully so far, we know: in this book, when brothers are in competition, the firstborn never wins.  

What, if anything, can we say in the wake of the Shoah? In this series, we'll explore the main currents of post-Holocaust Jewish theology through thinkers like Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Yitz Greenberg, Emil Fackenheim, and Melissa Raphael; and we'll investigate how philosophers of religion grapple with the problem of evil. But rather than just analyze their thought, we'...

Animals often play a symbolic role in literature, sometimes as personified characters themselves, and sometimes through their frequent association with a human character. In Parashat Hayyei Sarah, wherever Rebecca goes, camels seem to follow her—and we begin to understand they have something to do with her.  They will function as the vehicle for finding her and then bringing her back to the land o...

In the second part of this special series, we check in with Rabbi Avital Hochstein, President of Hadar in Israel, to hear about life in Israel, Tefillah, and Torah this week. 

What, if anything, can we say in the wake of the Shoah? In this series, we'll explore the main currents of post-Holocaust Jewish theology through thinkers like Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Yitz Greenberg, Emil Fackenheim, and Melissa Raphael; and we'll investigate how philosophers of religion grapple with the problem of evil. But rather than just analyze their thought, we'...

In our society, everything - from commercials products to political ideas - is constantly being scrutinized. What is gained and what is lost in such a critical world? To answer this question, he Ma'or VaShemesh goes all the way back to the beginning - to the Garden of Eden. "Ki Anu Amecha" and "Nigun Hisva'adus" from RAZA Kapelya (2023) by Chana Raskin. Produced by Jo...

The Talmud (in Yevamot 49b) tells us that Moses’ prophetic powers were exceptional because he saw “באספקלריא המאירה - through a clear looking glass.”  How, then, do we account for ambiguity in the Torah?  When we encounter a passage whose meaning is obscure, do we presume some failure in our own understanding?  Or is it possible that the Torah of Moses is sometimes deliberately ambiguous?

Avital Hochstein is a rabbi, a Jerusalemite, a mother of two soldiers currently serving in the IDF, and President of Hadar in Israel. In this episode of Ta Shma, we hear directly from R. Avital and Hadar's beit midrash in Jerusalem. What parts of Torah can we reach for? How can we pray and what can we pray for? What does ritual and communal life look like in the shadow of this tragedy?  

Moral licensing is our tendency to excuse our own bad behavior based on prior good behavior. While the Ma’or VaShemesh did not use the language of modern behavioral psychology, he did suggest a paradoxical way to avoid this kind of self-justification: doing  teshuvah both before and after learning Torah and performing mitzvot. "Ki Anu Amecha," "Ah Shtarker Bistu," and "Nig...

Our practice of cycling through the Torah over and over again, year after year, creates a unique  reading experience.  After we have been through enough times, we begin to hear echoes not only from what has come before, but from what will come after.  Here in this first chapter of Abraham’s story those echoes are particularly loud.  We hear them not only in recurring images and themes, but also in...

Taking a vow is a serious halakhic undertaking, and Rabbinic law warns us against taking them hastily. But even if a voew is ultimately annulled, it's possible that for the vow - the words we saw when we feel the most desperate - to be part of a broader process of growth and change. The Ma'or Va'Shemesh explains. "Ki Anu Amecha," "Ah Shtarker Bistu," and "Ni...

God wants us to serve Him with excitement and joy, which is reflected in the lighting of the the Menorah. The Ma’or VaShemesh reads the lighting of this lamp on the part of Kohen Gadol as analogous to the igniting of religious fervor that can often happen when people are in the presence of great religious teachers and inspirational spiritual leaders. Like the flame which achieves independence from...