The Twelve Minute Shiur

Pesach is coming. Time to get rid of your hametz. And there are four different ways to do it. Oh, the choices! This episode explores the whys and the hows. Get the source sheet at www.freehofinstitute.org/podcast.

The leader of the prayer service - the shaliach tzibur - is traditionally considered our representative or emissary before God. So it's understandable that we want to appoint the very best person, or at least someone who is worthy for that job. Okay... but how do we define "worthy"? The first of a two-part series. Get the source sheet at www.freehofinstitute.org/podcast.

For nearly a thousand years, students of the Mishneh Torah, Rambam's great code of halakhah, have sought to identify the Talmudic sources of his rulings. Sometimes, he appears to ​have no source whatsoever. When this happens, we have to ask: is Rambam just making this up? Is it permissible even for a great posek to derive a rule of halakhah on the basis of common sense or of his personal judgment? In this installment, we look at two outstanding commentators with two very different answers to that question. Download the source sheet at www.freehofinstitute.org/podcast.

Progressive Jews have been writing new texts for the b'rakhot, the blessings or benedictions that form the core of our worship, for just about 200 years. There are lots of reasons for that, but our question here is whether we violate halakhah when we do it. Does Jewish law permit us to alter the text - the nusach - of a liturgical form that tradition says was ordained by the ancient Rabbis and perhaps even by Ezra the scribe? We have a theory that says "yes." Get the source sheet at www.freehofinstitute.org/podcast .

We ask that the congregation please rise... to observe a custom (minhag) that was created for a very specific reason. That reason disappeared over 1000 years ago. So what did the Jews do about that? You guessed it: they maintained the minhag and came up with new reasons for it. That in itself tells us something about the role of minhag in our religious life. And as for those new reasons, do they have anything to teach us? Well, just maybe.

It's one of the most famous cases of suicide in all of Jewish literature. Saul, king of Israel, falls on his sword in order to avoid being taken alive and abused by the Philistines. Does this story serve as a precedent in support of physician-assisted suicide in cases of terminal illness? Some say yes. But (and you saw this coming, didn't you?) it's complicated. Download the source sheet at www.freehofinstitute.org/podcast.

At the Freehof Institute, we understand halakhah in its best sense not as a set of fixed rules but as a discourse, a language of thought and of argument that Jews utilize to study their sacred sources and determine just what they tell us when it comes to matters of sacred action. And we believe that language to be a flexible one, a process that can yield guidance fully coherent with our own liberal and progressive religious outlook. We certainly don’t believe that Rabbi Hayyim David Halevi (d. 1998), the S’fardic chief rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yafo, qualifies as a liberal or a progressive. But when it comes to the “flexibility of the halakhah,” a phrase that he invented, well, we like to think that he and we are working from the same playbook. Source sheet available at www.freehofinstitute.org/podcast.

According to halakhah, can you fulfill the mitzvah of Hanukkah, the lighting of the Hanukkah lamp, by using electric lights? Most Orthodox authorities say "no." We say "yes," and here's why. Source sheet available at www.freehofinstitute.org/podcast.

In shiur #44, we saw that the halakhah prohibits g'neivat da`at, deceptive speech and conduct, behavior that creates a false impression in the mind of another. In this shiur we ask: are there exceptions to this isur, this prohibition? Is there any situation in which we are permitted to deceive? The Talmud clearly says "yes" - there are exceptions. But Rambam just as clearly says "no" - the prohibition is absolute. Now there's a conflict worthy of discussion! Source sheet available at www.freehofinstitute.org/podcasts .

Does Jewish law distinguish between "just" and "unjust" wars? And what duties do we owe to noncombatant populations during wartime? This episode was recorded in October 2023, when these subjects suddenly and sadly became relevant for Israel and the entire Jewish people. Source sheet available at www.freehofinstitute.org/podcasts .

It's no surprise that the halakhah frowns upon deceptive behavior (g'neivat da`at). We are forbidden to act in such a way as to create a false impression in the minds of others, even when our action causes them no material loss, simply because deception in and of itself is a bad thing. But how bad is it? Are we always forbidden to deceive? Without exception? Well, there's a machloket about that. Source sheet available at www.freehofinstitute.org/podcast

Does your community recite Kol Nidrei before or after sundown at the beginning of Yom Kippur? Does it matter? In a word: yes... because either way, you're making a statement. What statement is that? Glad you asked - do we have a shiur for you!

Avinu Malkeinu - it's one of the most dramatic and powerful moments in the High Holiday liturgy. "Traditional" congregations omit this dramatic and powerful prayer on Shabbat, while Reform congregations recite it. Who's right? Well, you'll never believe this, but... it's a machloket! The Jews disagree among themselves - imagine that! In this installment, we'll explore the arguments of those who think that Avinu Malkeinu is inappropriate on Shabbat, and we'll consider why other communities are not persuaded by those arguments. Our source sheet, along with a longer and more detailed essay on the topic, are available at www.freehofinstitute.org/learning.

It's almost 5784! This year, Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, and Reform congregations will sound the shofar on that day. They do so because they observe only one day of the yom tov rather than the traditional two. They do so also because the halakhah supports their practice. Wait - what?? Doesn't the halakhah *prohibit* sounding the shofar on Shabbat? Well, there's actually a machloket over that, and in this installment we'll consider why the Reform practice conforms to the better side of the dispute. Source sheet available at www.freehofinstitute.org/learning.

In our previous installment, we saw how the Rabbis utilized the power of property confiscation (hefker beit din) as a way to repair inequities they perceived in the law of the Torah. In this shiur, we'll look at how that power enabled them to correct some glaring economic imbalances in the institution of marriage as the Torah defines it. In the process, they restructured that institution in a pretty fundamental way. Source sheet available at www.freehofinstitute.org/learning

In our last installment, we looked at one way in which the Rabbis respond when they perceive that a mitzvah of the Torah or a rule of halakhah conflicts with accepted standards of ethics and justice: the way of story. The Rabbis, that is, create new narratives to offer context and explanation to the rule, showing that in fact it does not violate our sense of right and wrong. In this installment, the Rabbis take a more direct approach: they adopt legislation of their own to correct that faults they find in the Torah law. And we'll consider just how they have the temerity to imagine they have the power to do that! Source sheet available at www.freehofinstitute.org/learning.

How do we respond when we discover that a mitzvah of the Torah or a rule of halakhah conflicts with our sense of ethics and justice? For some, of course, that's not a problem at all: since the Torah is always right, our sense of ethics and justice must be wrong or distorted. We liberal and progressive Jews, of course, see things differently. And as a matter of fact, so do the Rabbis of the halakhic tradition. When they confront such a conflict, they don't pretend that it doesn't exist, nor do they simply reject ethics to exalt Torah. Instead, they seek to understand the halakhah in light of the standards of ethics and justice that they regard as normative, right, and proper. This installment is the first in a series exploring some ways in which the Rabbis reach that understanding, some ways in which they respond when halakhah and ethics collide. Source sheet available at www.freehofinstitute.org/learning .

In theory, Jewish law judges must be ordained for that role. They must possess s'mikhah from a judge who is already ordained (samukh), forming a link in the teacher-to-student chain that stretches all the way back to Moses and Joshua. But s'mikhah, which could take place only in Eretz Yisrael, was discontinued some 1000 years ago (today's rabbinical ordination, purely symbolic, is not the same thing). So how can Jewish law function in a world quite different from the one envisioned in our ancient texts? The answer: the scholars of the Diaspora simply seized judicial power for themselves. That qualifies as a revolution, but like the good halakhic scholars they were, they made sure to disguise the revolutionary nature of their action. Get the source sheet at www.freehofinstitute.org/learning.

The official, codified halakhah says that we are obligated to eat matzah only one day, the first night of Pesach at the seder. But there's another tradition that understands the mitzvah of matzah to last for all seven days of the festival. This is no ordinary machloket among the Rabbis but a full-blown critique of the codified halakhah by scholars who find that official version to be spiritually insufficient and contradictory of the purpose of the mitzvah. We have here, in other words, a pretty good example of progressive halakhic thinking... by poskim who we don't normally think of as "progressive!" Source sheet available at www.freehofinstitute.org/learning, scroll down to the Twelve Minute Shiur.

We conclude out two-part series on birkat hashanim with a look at how one leading medieval sage makes a powerful argument in favor of allowing the Jews of all lands to pray for rain when they need it, during the rainy season in their countries. True, his argument was not accepted by the majority, but it sure makes sense to us. Download the source sheet at www.freehofinstitute.org/learning, scroll down to the Twelve Minute Shiur.