Ta Shma

I have always found it difficult to find an observance of Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha’Atzma’ut that feels meaningful and authentic as a Jew living in the Diaspora. In Israel, the observance of these holidays is effortless and all-encompassing: you simply have to be present and you are in it, flowing from the intensity of Yom HaZikaron to the joy of Yom Ha’Atzma’ut. It’s the music on the radio, it’s the tzfirah (siren) in the streets that brings everything to a halt in a moment of sil...

The style and content of Parashat Kedoshim remind us immediately of an earlier reading: Parashat Mishpatim—back in the Book of Exodus, just after the revelation. Both parashiyyot are composed almost entirely of dense legal code: one law after another, for chapter after chapter. And both open with a framing statement naming a value category that characterizes the laws that follow.With this structural similarity, the Torah places the two primary values named by the two codes—justice...

For many of us, the past six months have been an education in powerlessness. From where I sit in America, I felt powerless hearing about the brutality and depravity of October 7. I felt powerless sitting comfortably in my home while day after day people were held hostage in underground darkness, uncared for and unseen. I felt powerless as the death toll of Palestinians civilians rose and Gaza’s population fell into immense suffering. I could do my one minute a day to c...

With the mishkan operational and the priesthood now in place, Parashat Aharei Mot begins with a description of the service that will be the pinnacle of that system: the Yom Kippur Avodah.

We Jews, who have been perennial outcasts, ought to read the Torah’s account of the leper with particular care.“Leper,” we should note from the outset, is not really an accurate rendering of the Hebrew, מצורע (metzora). The biblical affliction of tza’arat is clearly different from what we today call “leprosy,” most obviously so because it can only be fully cured by spiritual means. Yet the King James translation is helpful in its way, not only because it reminds us of similar symp...

Ever wondered why we have to drink four cups of wine at our Seders? This class explores the history and the symbolism of this idea and how it transforms from something more functional to the framing around the entirety of Seder night. Fittingly, there are at least four different ways to think about these cups! Recorded on 4/10/24. Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/Tabick4Cups2024.pdf

From the very beginning, the Torah imbues certain numbers with great significance. The first chapter of Genesis carefully divides Creation into seven days. Seven then becomes the most significant number in nearly all Jewish time rituals—not just Shabbat, but Pesah, Shavuot, Sukkot, as well as the seventh month, the seventh year, the seven cycles of seven years—all of which are then imprinted with the themes of that first seven: creation, rest, and rejuvenation.An awareness of the ...

There's a catchy song that tells us what we're supposed to do during the Seder and when (Kaddeish Urhatz). But when you dig a little deeper, the song is a little simplistic for the actual Seder structure. How can the giant Maggid section be covered by a single word? And why is Hallel actually split into two? Rav Elie discusses the overall structure of the Seder. Recorded in March 2022 and available as part of a video series on the Haggadah (https://hadar.org/torah-tefillah/resources/sede...

Throughout our history, one of the central institutions of a Jewish community has been the mikveh. Immersion in this ritual bath was required in Temple times in order to purify oneself after coming into contact with various types of tumah (ritual impurity). Since then, the practical need for a mikveh has been relegated primarily to the laws of sex and conversion. Yet the mikveh has taken on a greater significance in Jewish life than its specific halakhic applications would s...

In this panel discussion given at the February Learning Seminar 2024, Hadar’s rashei yeshiva, R. Ethan Tucker and R. Aviva Richman, reflect on their approach to Jewish law and how our quest for God can be lived through the details of our halakhic lives.

For the most part, Parashat Tzav repeats much of what we learned last week in Parashat Vayikra. Again, the Torah details the choreography of the sacrificial system—only this time from the perspective of the priest. All of the offerings from last week show up again. But there is at least one thing that is unique to Tzav: a shalshelet.

To what extent is Jewish law “fake” or “real”? Is halakhah a game where you can say whatever you want, or does a ruling, once issued, create a new reality? What are the underlying principles of kashrut and Jewish food laws? Recorded live at Hadar's Manger Winter Learning Seminar in January 2024. Source sheet available here: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RosenbergInsensibleFoodLaws2024.pdf

The laws of Leviticus appear to be entirely separate from the narrative and themes of the Torah so far. Exodus, by contrast, picks up directly from the narrative of Genesis, and—as we have seen—even the case laws in Exodus sometimes make subtle references to earlier stories. But when we enter Leviticus, we feel ourselves to be in another kind of book entirely. There is no narrative at all in here the first parashah. Instead, the book opens by listing the various types ...

As someone who longs to feel God’s presence in my life in a clear and direct manner, I have always been struck by the fact that God is noticeably absent from Megillat Esther. In a story that is about the near demise and heroic salvation of the Jewish people, it is not God’s hand that is featured in this story as the saving force, but rather the human hands of Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai. What is Megillat Esther teaching us about living in a world in which, as in our own, ...

There is something hidden in the mishkan. A story of creation.Nehama Leibowitz, the great 20th century compiler of Torah commentary, calls our attention to a group of modern scholars who sensitized us to the use of repetition as a rhetorical device in the description of the building of the mishkan. She cites a list of the greats: Buber, Rosenzweig, Benno Jacob, Cassuto, Meir Weiss, and others, who all highlight the way key phrases in our text echo an earlier story in the Torah—the earli...