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Bringing you recent lectures, classes, and programs from the Hadar Institute, Ta Shma is where you get to listen in on the beit midrash. Come and listen on the go, at home, or wherever you are. Hosted by Rabbi Avi Killip of the Hadar Institute.
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Are our primary responsibilities always to our own community? Or do Jews in the diaspora also have a religious obligation to contribute to the general social welfare - perhaps even to get involved in local politics? When Jews have political, social, or financial capital - how should we spend it? Rabbinic tradition offers no easy answers to these questions, but instead presents us with complex and nuanced attempts to balance universal ideals with practical communal concerns. Together we will r...
Throughout Parashat VaYeitzei, almost from their very first encounter, Lavan and Ya’akov are locked in conflict. But there is a rare moment of encounter—though a fraught one—where the verses describe a desire to bridge: “Come, then, let us make a covenant, you and I” (Genesis 31:44). What emerges is a covenant of separation—a covenant in which much of the content is devoted to how the two will live apart, not together.
Participating in and belonging to a Jewish community is rightly considered to be central to living a full and meaningful Jewish life. However, sometimes being enmeshed in community can present a challenge to exploring and pursuing our own personal goals and interests, both religious and non-religious. In this class, we'll explore a passage of the Ma'or vaShemesh, from the great Hassidic master R' Kalonymos Kalman Epstein, wherein he explores and defines the limitations of being in community a...
Our parashah offers an opportunity to encounter a typical human phenomenon—plurality —and contemplate its implications. Specifically it brings us to ask: how do Ya’akov, Esav, and their offspring live with each other, as “two” from the womb?
Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, also known as the Alei Shur, offers a powerful and inspiring — but often demanding — vision for what it takes to become a better human being. Before we can do any act of repentance, of teshuvah — we must first learn how to change and how to grow. Recorded in Summer 2025. Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RobkinApprenticeMind2025.pdf
Rivkah receives a blessing from her family members before she sets out on her journey to marry Yitzhak: “O sister! May you grow into thousands of myriads; may your descendants inherit the gates of their foes” (Genesis 24:60).
Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, also known as the Alei Shur, offers a powerful and inspiring — but often demanding — vision for what it takes to become a better human being. Before we can do any act of repentance, of teshuvah — we must first learn how to change and how to grow. Recorded in Summer 2025. Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RobkinApprenticeMind2025.pdf
In this week’s parashah, Avraham argues with God over the divine decision to destroy Sodom completely. Avraham and God agree that Sodom is wicked and that terrible things happen there. So what, then, is the basis for Avraham’s plea? Why does he resist God’s plan to punish and overturn Sodom? What are Avraham’s arguments as he tries to stop the city’s total destruction?
The Talmud has often been subject to misrepresentation—viewed as esoteric or overly complex—yet it holds profound power as a centerpiece of Jewish tradition. How can Talmud and Talmud study anchor an approach to Judaism that speaks to the challenges and dangers of our moment? How can its embrace of complexity, argument, and multivocality offer a model for living a thoughtful and principled Jewish life in our uncertain times? Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws...
Abraham is “our father” in many senses. He is seen as the father of the Jewish people, the spiritual father of Judaism and of monotheistic faiths more broadly, and the father of the covenant with the one God. Yet in our parashah, Abraham is introduced first and foremost as a son, a descendant who must decide whether to be traditional or innovative—whether to follow the path of his forebears or to become a revolutionary.
Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, also known as the Alei Shur, offers a powerful and inspiring — but often demanding — vision for what it takes to become a better human being. Before we can do any act of repentance, of teshuvah — we must first learn how to change and how to grow. Recorded in Summer 2025. Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RobkinApprenticeMind2025.pdf
Parashat Noah invites us to reflect on the relationship between society and the individual. The introduction of its main character raises a central question: What is our role when we live within a corrupt society? How should we conduct ourselves when leaders are not guided by the values we hold dear, and when many individuals disagree with us about what is good, just, and right?
Two children are fighting in the playground. Called into the principal’s office, each insists: “It all started when he hit me back.” This familiar joke captures something deeply human: our tendency to avoid responsibility by blaming others.
The draw of theatre in the age of movies is that each experience is unique. While the script's words and stage directions remain the same night after night, the unique alchemy of the actors and audience gathered in that particular configuration at that particular moment in time, does not. When we linger in our seats after the final encore, delaying our exit into the glaring reality of the world, it is because something in us senses that this particular magic will never happen again. If ...
Homeless in life, Moshe is fated to remain without a home even in death. That, perhaps, is the most difficult part of God’s decree: not that Moshe must die, a fate that all human beings share. Not that he must die outside of the land: Ya’akov and Yosef also died far from Israel. What is most difficult about Moshe’s death is that, even in death, he cannot go home.
The generation that will enter the Land of Israel never heard God’s voice at Sinai. They never experienced the earth shattering voice, the terror, the awe. In place of memory, all they have is a story.
When Moshe gathers the generation of the desert together to enter them into the covenant once again, he knows that it is his last chance to teach the people how to live according to the Torah—and, crucially, how to live without him.
Are some things unforgivable? Is Teshuvah always an option? What would it mean if the road to repentance were blocked? In this class we will explore questions of whether we ever lose the opportunity to do Teshuvah and what it might look like to repent from a place where we are unsure of the possibility of forgiveness. Recorded in Elul 2023. Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/AdlerTeshuvahImpossiblePart12023.pdf
We’ve made it. That seems to be the promise of bikkurim, the first fruits gift to God.
The liturgy of the High Holiday season is replete with promises about God's forgiveness but is less specific about how God forgives. In her lecture, R. Dena Weiss explores how forgiveness works, and asks if there are any strategies that we can adopt to make us more forgivable and forgiving. This lecture was delivered in memory of Rabbi Jonathan D. Levine z"l in 2024. Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/HHDLecture2024WeissHowForgivenessWorks.pdf
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I am sorry for listening to this particular podcast on listening while I am also browsing the internet at the same time ...
Magnificent and deeply moving, contributed greatly to this Rosh Hashanah. Thank you so much.
I love this site. A constant source of inspiration and learning. One request--during live events it's difficult to hear audience comments, if they could be miked this would be perfect.