The Great Sources with Rabbi Shnayor Burton

The significance of The Resurrection is a matter of dispute: according to Rambam, it merely serves as the greatest miracle – the dead will come back to life, live and die again, while perfect, eternal reward is purely spiritual; according to the Mekubalim, resurrection is the ultimate and everlasting reward. This dispute is rooted in a fundamental debate about physicality: Rambam maintains that on...

Why do bad things happen to good people? This ancient question about how to make sense of all the senselessness is dealt with cryptically by Chazal, who put it at the heart of the human condition. Our lived experience is comprised alternatively of understanding Hashem and not understanding Him; these are two paths of life, two types of relationship with the Master of the Universe who is sometimes...

Two problems trouble people regarding prayer: first, how does it work (can our opinions influence God?), and second – but it doesn't! Of course, if you can't answer the first problem, you can't begin to solve the second; understanding how prayer works is the key to making it work. Explore what the great Torah thinkers taught about this central practice called the "worship of the mind." Prayer, the...

What is the essence of lashon hakodesh ? Why is it inextricably linked with prophecy and prayer? Chazal hint that perfect knowledge depends on words. With the correct words for things, we have proper mental representation and accurate knowledge: we know what the world really is like from Hashem's perspective, and we can affect it through word, through prayer. That is the holy tongue of the pr...

At the same point in history, both prophecy and the impulse for idolatry ceased, changing the face of Judaism and its struggles. Can these two things – one of the greatest godliness, the other of the greatest wickedness – somehow be related? Yes, says Reb Tzadok, prophecy and idolatry have the same root: God's immanence and visibility. In the era that God made Himself known through prophetic image...

The trajectory of Judaism seems to be a downward one: the era of prophecy and revelation in the Holy Land is past, while the current era is one of divine concealment. Indeed, according to Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi – whose opinion accords with Resh Lakish – we should be focused now on recovery , on regaining our lost glory. But there is an alternative, diametrically opposite approach to this matter. Acc...

Judaism as we know it is incomparable to the one that was, when Hashem communicated through prophets and dwelt among Yisrael. How are we to relate to this absence? Can we consider our religion complete in its current, diminished state? No, we cannot, says Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, and this incompleteness must always inform our religious feeling. In his monumental work, The Kuzari, HaLevi gives a magica...

Man was created "in the image of God." What does this mean? How could the form of man be identified with the formless and shapeless God? Shaarei Orah teaches that the human being is the symbolic representation of the divine. God is formless, shapeless – and utterly unknowable. We can know Him only indirectly, through an image that represents Him: the human being. According to this teaching, man's...

The Torah commands us to walk in the ways of Hashem: to be as He is and do as He does. But what does it mean for a mortal being to go in the ways of Hashem – can we truly define Hashem's character traits and emulate them? No, says the Rambam, we cannot. Hashem and His ways are in fact utterly unknowable. The terms and images that the prophets use to describe Him and His ways are actually a facade,...

What are shedim? Are these monstrous beings real ?   Explore the conflicting perspectives of two Torah giants about these issues, and learn how they provide a window into two divergent systems of religious thought. The dispute is based on fundamental questions about the focus of avodas Hashem. According to the Rambam, avodas Hashem is rooted in the world of the intellect; according to th...

Could a perfect God who lacks for nothing have a motive for creating the world? If He has no needs, what impetus is there for Him to create?  Ramchal teaches that creation does indeed have a clear and specific purpose: goodness. God is good and therefore does good. Not out of need but out of pure beneficence, God created a world of goodness, which is identical with godliness. This profound id...

Can we speak of creation's purpose? Can we fathom a perfect God needing something from this world? Indeed we can understand the objective of creation, says the Avodas HaKodesh. Our worship serves Heaven's needs, actualizing the unity of God. This astonishing and wondrous idea – known not through logic but through tradition – lies at the heart of a complete system of religious theory and can give m...

Whyever did God create the world? Can we even give a reason for a perfect God to be motivated to act? This most fundamental question about our existence has occupied many of the greatest Torah thinkers.  This lecture explores the Rambam's unique and profound opinion about the purpose of everything. The Rambam asserts that creation has no purpose in the usual sense of a motivating reason to do...