Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchR. Shai Held: Teshuvah and Transformation Part 1
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…
1 year, 9 months ago
R. David Kasher on Parashat Ki Teitzei: A Life in Pieces
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 …
1 year, 9 months ago
R. Aviva Richman: The Power and Limits of Radical Hesed
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 a…
1 year, 9 months ago
R. Avi Strausberg on Rosh Chodesh Elul: What Does Torah Offer Us This Year?
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, eac…
1 year, 9 months ago
R. David Kasher on Parashat Eikev: The Hand of God
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…
1 year, 9 months ago
R. Elie Kaunfer: Praying Against Our Enemies in the Aleinu
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 …
1 year, 10 months ago
R. David Kasher on Parashat Va'Etchanan: Seeking Acceptance
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 …
1 year, 10 months ago
R. Avi Strausberg on Tisha B'Av: “Let it Not Totter and Fall”
Beresheit Rabbah (3:7) teaches that God created and destroyed many worlds before finally allowing this world, our world, to stand. This midrash is te…
1 year, 10 months ago
R. David Kasher on Parashat Devarim: Moshe the Deuteronomist
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 …
1 year, 10 months ago
R. Micha'el Rosenberg: On the Day the Messiah Was Born
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 Templ…
1 year, 10 months ago