Ta Shma

Something just short of miraculous happens in this week’s parashah.  Rivkah asks God a question, and God actually answers her.

Every significant work of Jewish law needs to ask itself: Why does the Jewish world need another work of halakhah? What is my unique contribution to this conversation? In answering this question, each author offers a glimpse into the thought behind halakhic decision-making. This first class in the series brings Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, turning our focus to the introduction as a point of reflection and insight into the legal mind at work. Recorded in Fall 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/AnisfeldPosekWorkshopRambam2026.pdf

There is a cemetery in Woodbridge, NJ in which my dad is buried.  Though I live states away and rarely visit, I think about it often.  It takes shape before me.  I imagine the place where my dad is buried and it pulls on me.

Parashat Hayyei Sarah tells the story of not only Sarah’s burial but Avraham’s as well.  When Sarah dies, Avraham negotiates to purchase a plot of land in Hebron upon which to bury Sarah.  Avraham buys the land that we call Me’arat ha-Makhpelah from the Hittites and buries Sarah there.  The Torah is...

What does it mean to be free? Is freedom simply the ability to do what we want, or is there something deeper at stake? The Maharal of Prague offers a profound understanding of slavery and redemption that challenges our assumptions and invites us to consider some essential questions: What defines us? What holds us back? And what does it mean to live freely? Through his teachings, we’ll explore what freedom might mean thousands of years after God took the Israelites out of Egypt. Recorded at Hadar's July Learning Seminar 2026.

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.co...

Prayer in Jewish tradition is most commonly expressed in spoken words.  But in Parashat VaYera, Avraham, Hagar, and Yishmael each have a moment of being heard and seen in the presence of the Divine in which their thoughts are unspoken—but which our tradition understands as an archetype of prayer.

Join Hadar's rashei yeshiva, R. Aviva Richman and R. Ethan Tucker, for a unique debate as they spar with the text — and with one another. Was the binding of Isaac the peak moment of Abraham's faith journey — or did he fail his calling in the most spectacular way possible? Is the akeidah a model for what faith demands of us, or a nightmare we're meant to learn from?  This memorial  Rabbi Jonathan D. Levine keynote was given in September 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/HHDLecture2026RichmanTuckerAkeidahOnTrial.pdf

A core thread running through Jewish tradition is a continuous yearning toward a promised future.  In our holy texts, the Prophets preach to a people in exile of a day in which they will be gathered together again in their land with God.  In our davening, we pray for the future rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple.  Each week when we observe Shabbat, we imagine it as a taste of the more perfect world-to-come.  We live in the reality of now—and we are always waiting and striving for a promised future.

In this episode of the Shofar, So Good! podcast, host Kate Mishkin delves into havruta learning, the Jewish tradition of studying Torah in pairs. The goal of this paired endeavor: arguing "for the sake of heaven." Kate speaks with Hadar's Rabbi Avi Killip as well as Pedagogy of Partnership's Dr. Orit Kent to explore what exactly that means, teaches us about Jewish history's most famous study partners, and learns how AI is changing havruta learning. Then, Kate and her dad become havrutas.

You can check out the Shofar, So Good! podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us...

Where there is order, there is the potential for disorder.  Where forces are held back, there is the potential for them to break free.

Last week, in Parashat Bereishit, God ordered the world, separating light from darkness, the upper waters from the lower waters, dry land from water, and the powerful tehom, the watery depths at the foundation of God’s world, was held at bay.  A fragile kind of existence was created which allowed for the creation of life in these new conditions.  But in Parashat Noah, we see what happens when the tehom breaks free.  The qu...

This class explores the competing claims to religious authority in the Talmudic era between the Land of Israel and Babylonia. Through close reading of selected stories and debates in the Talmud, one can trace a broader struggle over where Torah resides and who has the authority to shape it. These texts help consider how categories and tensions continue to inform contemporary conversations about the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. Recorded at Hadar's July Learning Seminar, 2026.

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/JLS2026RogoffCooperationCompetition.pdf

In the beginning, God lifted the world out of chaos.

The Torah paints a dramatic scene.  A wasteland.  A darkness covering the surface of the tehom, the great depths.  God sweeping over the face of the water.  Out of this expanse of nothingness, God creates something.  God creates order.

We long for a better world. Judaism teaches us to yearn and pray and work to bring the messiah, reach redemption, and earn our place in the world to come. But what does that mean? What are these different conceptions of redeemer and redemption, and what does each require of us? This class explores these terms and the tremendous, exhilarating, terrifying potential each holds. Recorded at Hadar's July Learning Seminar, 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/JLS2026KillipLongRoadGeulah.pdf

In Israel, Shemini Atzeret-Simhat Torah feels like the busiest day of the year.  So many prayers; so many different atmospheres.  Year after year, juggling back and forth from the joy of celebrating the completion of the annual Torah cycle with singing, dancing, and endless Torah readings, to the more somber parts of the holiday—Yizkor; the prayer for rain—leaves me exhausted and a little dizzy, almost wishing for the peace and quiet of “aharei ha-hagim - after the holidays.”

R. Simlai taught: Torah—its beginning is kindness and its end is kindness.

Its beginning is kindness—as it is written, “God made leather garments for Adam and his wife and dressed them” (Genesis 3:21) And its end is kindness—as it is written, “[God] buried [Moshe] in the valley” (Deuteronomy 34:6), (from Tractate Sotah 14a).

Dear Friends, with the end of the year, we also complete another cycle of reading through the Five Books of the Torah. This offers a pause to look back on the philosophical, moral, and human journey we walked together. 

Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/WeissLanguageLensPart52026.pdf

“I will hide My face from them” (Deuteronomy 32:20)—so declares the Holy Blessed One in Parashat Ha’azinu.  This is one of the most painful and jarring statements in the Bible.  It describes a deep rift in the relationship between God and Israel: a dynamic of hiding, withdrawal, and a sealed face.  This is called in Jewish theology and tradition hester panim, the hiding of God’s face.

Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/WeissLanguageLensPart42026.pdf

At this time of year, as the High Holidays approach, we are used to thinking about our own personal responsibility.  In the Yom Kippur Vidui, we worry not only about our sins that we are aware of, but even those that “are not revealed to us,” rather known to God alone.  But the verse that introduces the concept of revealed or hidden sins is about not personal, but national responsibility.  Since the evil of others can be even more hidden to us than our own, this introduces difficult questions.  What is our responsibility for the other members of our society...

Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/WeissLanguageLensPart32026.pdf

Our parashah describes a ceremony known as vidui ma’aser.  The word vidui here from the root י.ד.ה. probably means something like “declaration of thanks” (like the prayer Modim), but can be also literally translated as “confession,” like the vidui familiar to us from our High Holiday liturgy.  What at first seems like an idyllic description of a perfect covenant in our land turns, through a reading of a Medieval commentator, into a pathway to move forward after sin and covenantal rupture.

Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/WeissLanguageLensPart22026.pdf

One of the most emotionally charged and provocative legal passages is found in our parashah: the case of the rebellious son.

Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/WeissLanguageLensPart12026.pdf

The preoccupation with the question of who goes to war is not new. It is a question that meets us, Israeli society, in our day-to-day lives. There is an acute sense here of exhaustion of military forces, alongside awareness of the high price that those who serve and their families pay, accompanied by political tension surrounding the issue of military service, all of which grow day by day—and even fuel one another.  

The month of Elul marks the beginning of a process that leads us toward the Yamim Noraim, the days of awe. Yet in another sense, even at the beginning of Elul, we are already mid-process. Going back to at least medieval France, the sequence of haftarot we read in the synagogue on Shabbat from the 17th of Tammuz until Yom Kippur were understood as representing a long process split into three periods.

In Parashat Re’eih, the Torah warns against a uniquely insidious threat: the mesit or inciter.  In Hebrew, this act of enticing or manipulating another person toward harm is known as hasatah, “incitement.”  The discourse of incitement is one of the most central and sensitive topics in social and political interaction in Israel.  The term hasatah is used by the Israeli public both as a formal legal definition (a prohibited call for violence, racism, or terrorism) and as a popular political tool designed to invalidate the other side's position and label it as dangerous.  The Torah approaches hasatah as well, indi...

This class explores the powerful stories of the prophet Elijah, asking what they reveal about prophecy, leadership, and religious zeal. As Elijah performs miracles and confronts the people of Israel, the narrative raises difficult questions about certainty and compassion. Recorded at Hadar's Tanakh Intensive, Winter 2026.

Two intertwined themes are explored in Parashat Eikev: memory and human agency.  What is the connection between these ideas?  And how do they work together in our brit, our partnership with God?

How might we maintain hope during a time when it seems to many of us that all hope is gone? One biblical idea is that, although God is frequently disappointed, God also refuses to give up. (What) can we learn from that? This class turns to Tanakh, to midrash, and to medieval Jewish thought to help think more deeply about hope and hopelessness—and about what we can hold onto in dark times. Recorded at Hadar's Rabbinic Yeshiva Intensive, 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RYI2026HeldHopeAfterHope.pdf

Our parashah describes a deeply charged moment—a moment where the Israelites are at risk of forgetting the Holy Blessed One.  Surprisingly, this danger does not stem from lack or deprivation, but rather from a reality of abundance and tranquility that awaits them after conquering the Land.

At least in the plain sense of Lamentations 4, the destruction of Jerusalem is not presented as the execution of a carefully designed plan.  It is a moment of unleashed fury. 

Parashat Devarim is always read on the Shabbat preceding Tisha B’Av, the week in which we read Megillat Eikhah (the Book of Lamentations).  This creates a triple echo of a single word within our tradition: eikhah (which can mean both “alas” and “how”).  The first is the one read on Tisha B’Av, the very eikhah that opens the scroll and gives it its name: “Alas (eikhah)!  Lonely sits the city once great with people!  She that was great among nations is become like a widow; the princess among states is become a thrall” (Lamentations 1:1).  A second eikhah is found in the Hafta...

In the darkest days of the Holocaust, Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira,  the Piaseczner Rebbe, offered weekly teachings to his community in the Warsaw Ghetto. These sermons, later collected as Esh Kodesh (“Sacred Fire”), are among the most profound works of spiritual courage ever written. In this six-part series, we’ll explore how the Rebbe turned to Torah to confront unthinkable suffering, searching for God in moments of devastation, and uncovering sparks of hope, resilience, and inner strength. His words speak not only to the horrors of his time, but to anyone seeking meaning, faith, and comfort in the face of life...

The Book of Numbers concludes by revisiting a narrative we first encountered last week: the story of Tzlofhad’s inheritance.  This episode appears first in chapter 27 and again in chapter 36, with the two accounts mirroring each other.  Yet, despite the extensive linguistic parallels between them, these similarities actually serve to highlight the deep gaps and contrasts between the two parts of the story, inviting us to reflect on the ability of minority groups to speak and be heard.

Who were the rabbis who shaped Judaism as we know it today? This class delves into  Talmudic stories about Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, comes to know him as a human being and tries to understand his approach to rebuilding Judaism in the wake of a lost world. Recorded in Winter 2026. 

The rest of the series is available on Hadar's Torah Library: https://hadar.org/torah-tefillah/collections/rabbinic-personalities-0

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/AdlerRabbinicPersonalities2026Part1.pdf

Over 250 years in America, Judaism—a way of life that centers obligation—has had to negotiate a culture defined by autonomy and freedom. How has that tension shaped Jewish life, mitzvot, and halakhah over the past 250 years? What will it take to sustain a culture of mitzvot over the next 250 years? Recorded at Hadar's Summer 2026 Kickoff Event. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/250YearsJudaismAmericaTucker2026.pdf

Over the past three years, a myriad of terms for the reality of war have emerged in Israeli discourse: a commanded war (milhemet mitzvah), an existential war (milhemet kiyyum), a war of restoration (milhemet komemiyut), an optional war (milhemet reshut), and more.  At the core of each concept lies a different mode of conduct and a different motive, and they express a stance on the place war occupies in society as a whole, and in relation to other social duties and needs in particular.  

The tragedies we remember on 17th Tammuz are really of different kinds.

Bilam’s prophecies are rich, dense, and enigmatic. One in particular was emphasised recently in 2025 when the war with Iran took its name from Bilam’s words: “a people like a lion” (am ke-lavi). What does this phrase mean? What kind of people are “like a lion”? What does this mean for our identity as Israel? And what use of power does Bilam’s analogy suggest? 

Before the Amidah, we take three steps forward. What is the origin of this custom, and what is the symbolism of these steps? This class explores a number of approaches, all oriented to deepen our connection with God. Recorded at Hadar's Rabbinic Yeshivah Intensive, March 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RYI2026KaunferSteppingIntoPrayer.pdf