Ta Shma

In Parashat Ki Tavo, Moshe and the elders of Israel command the people, on the day they arrive into Land, to set up twelve large stones, and “to write on them all the words of this Torah” (Deuteronomy 27:3).  Moshe then repeats this charge a few verses later, but this time adds extra emphasis with an unusual verb.

To prepare ourselves for the approaching Days of Awe, we'll engage in two sets of reflections. In this first part, we'll explore some key passages on teshuvah from Maimonides', paying special attention to how he creatively reads Talmudic sources to make the spiritual-ethical-educational points he thinks are important for us. Recorded on Hadar's Virtual Beit Midrash, Elul 2024. ...

The rules of inheritance are just another law in Deuteronomy’s massive catalog of laws, but something in the way it’s written sounds like a fragment from some lost legend. It somehow breaks the heart to hear them. A hated wife, in the shadow of a beloved one. A husband’s unfair disregard. And the poor child who was innocently born into disfavor. It reads like a story.

What does it mean to think of hesed as the bedrock of Jewish practice? Rav Aviva explores this question through an essay by Rav Yitzhak Hutner, the author of Pahad Yitzhak, in which he argues that the most foundational attribute of the world is Hesed. Recorded at the Manger Winter Learning Seminar 2024.  Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/MWLS2024RichmanHesed...

Back in Elul of 2023, when I began this year of writing Divrei Torah for the holidays, we didn’t know what devastation lay ahead.  In retrospect, each of the Divrei Torah I’ve written this year can be read in light of the events of October 7th.  Each holiday celebrated, every encounter with Torah is refracted through the lens of the last eleven months.  If there has been a theme that has tied all...

Of all the anthropomorphic images used to describe God in the Torah, one of the most richly developed is “the hand of God.” The image appears for the first time in the Book of Exodus, and then is reworked and nuanced in various ways throughout the rest of that book. Here in the Book of Deuteronomy, in Parashat Eikev, Moshe will draw on several of those earlier images in order to frame a new religi...

In this session, we will look at one of the most controversial - and censored - prayers in our tradition: Aleinu. How are we meant to understand the lines in these prayers? Who are the enemies and how might we relate to those concepts today? Who censored the prayers - and how? This class will explore all these questions through various textual traditions of these prayers. Recorded at the Rabbinic...

The opening of Parashat Va’Ethanan can serve both as a warning to us all, not to seek more power or privilege than is our due—but also as a reminder to honor our life’s accomplishments, and even to acknowledge, every one of us, our own greatness.  

Beresheit Rabbah (3:7) teaches that God created and destroyed many worlds before finally allowing this world, our world, to stand. This midrash is teaching us three things. First, destruction and loss are a part of the fabric of our very existence. There is no avoiding it; there is only wrestling and reconciling and accepting it. Second, the midrash contains in it a promise or a hope that even aft...

As we head into the Book of Deuteronomy, we will quickly notice that something has changed. The style of narration is different than we have seen in the Torah so far. This book will consist mostly of Moshe’s own words. The first five verses set the stage for Moshe’s great final oratory. What follows for the next 33 chapters is Moshe retelling the story of the journey so far, Moshe rebuking the peo...

The Talmud Yerushalmi tells a distressing and perplexing tale about a cowherd who goes off in search of the newborn baby messiah on the day the Temple was destroyed. We will read this story, with its enigmatic ending, and try to understand what its authors are trying to tell us about how we should respond in the face of destruction. Recorded on Tisha B'Av 2022.  *Content warning: Please note...

Moshe has an anger problem.  He is usually able to keep it under control.  By nature, he is a quiet man, a brooder.  He carries out his duties faithfully—as both a mouthpiece of God and a defender of the people.  But the tension between these two roles pulls at him constantly, keeps him agitated.  Sometimes the pressure gets too high… and he explodes.

Since October 7, the word "Amalek" has often been invoked in regard to the Israel-Hames War. Is that an appropriate analogy? By looking at ancient responses to biblical verses about Amalek, including those that express discomfort, we can learn these verses anew, revisit the foundational ideas that underlie the verses, and  shed light on present realities. Recorded at the Rabbinic Yeshiva...

For my mother’s 75th birthday, we surprised her by taking her to visit her mother’s childhood home.  I knew my grandmother had grown up in Los Angeles, but I didn’t know exactly where, and there were no living relatives whom I could ask.  So I did what anyone seeking information does these days: I Googled my grandmother’s name, hoping something would pop up. That modern technology led me to an anc...

Tomorrow, we arrive at the second of the four annual fasts commemorating the destruction of the Temple.  According to the Mishnah (Ta’anit 4:6), 17 Tammuz marks the end of the offering of the tamid , the daily sacrifice, as well as the breaching of the city walls.  Until this point, despite the siege, the routine of Temple life had continued with the tamid as the daily offering before God.  But fr...

Balak, King of Moab, has been made uneasy by Israel’s recent string of victories over enemy nations, and has begun to worry that he will be the next to fall before them.  He decides to seek the advantage with a preemptive strike, hoping to weaken the Israelite forces before they have a chance to advance against him.  His first plan of attack, however, is not military, but magical: he will hire Bil...

Halakhic works are often a dizzying compendium of multiple perspectives on a given issue, often making it difficult to determine how to behave in a given situation. In this lecture, R. Ethan Tucker argues this is a feature rather than a bug. Critical values that are meant to guide our lives are rarely fully manifest in any given time, place, or situation. It is our job to discern the wisdom of eac...

There is probably no more playful instance of wordplay in all the Torah than the nehash nehoshet , the copper snake described in Parashat Hukkat.  With its string of repeated consonants, it sounds like it could be another of Dr Seuss’ whimsical creations, living in the same strange zoo with “the Cat in the Hat,” “Yertle the Turtle,” and “the Fox in Socks.” Yet the nehash nehoshet appears in the mi...

Rav Dena explores a Hassidic teaching from the Me'or Einayim which discusses a dimension of physicality that we rarely pay attention to: given that taste is not necessary to sustain us, why is food delicious? More perplexingly, why does some food taste good to some, but not to others? What is the relationship between what is physically nutritious and what is spiritually nourishing? Recorded a...

From the very beginning of Parashat Korah, the Torah places unusually strong emphasis on his lineage.  He is introduced not just with the standard patronym, but with three generations of ancestors, tracing him back to the tribal founder, Levi. A  midrash in Bemidbar Rabbah picks up on this extended chain of forebears and suggests that it is there to alert us to the underlying motivation for Korah’...

The genre of midrash has a reputation for taking creative license. In midrash, we come across the wildest stories our Rabbis ever told, and it sometimes feels like they can say anything. Yet the midrashic method was guided by precise rules of interpretation as well as general norms of discourse. But who keeps track of the rules and who monitors the discourse? Can a midrashic interpretation ever be...

The big story in Parashat Shelah is the story of the spies.  The people are nearing the Land of Canaan, and Moshe sends ahead men, one from each tribe, to cross the border, check things out, and then bring back a report.  So they head out for 40 days, return safely—and, at first, all seems well.  They confirm that the land, as promised, “ flows with milk and honey” (Numbers 13:27).  But then the c...

Traditionally, the fabric of Jewish observance is composed of 613 mitzvot and many many more granular instructions. To some of us, these small details are a core piece of what it means for us to serve God, while for others of us these details seem like both an abstraction and a distraction. Does God really care about ounces and inches?! Recorded as the introduction to the Rabbinic Yeshiva Intensiv...

Moshe’s unique status as the greatest prophet of Israel is challenged twice in this week’s parashah —but in neither case does Moshe himself seem to care.

What is Judaism ultimately about? What vision of the good life does it offer us, and why might that vision be especially crucial during these dark times? This discussion of Rabbi Shai Held's new book, Judaism is About Love, was held at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in New York City on March 26, 2024, with Rep. Jamie Raskin, facilitated by Sandee Brawarsky.