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Religion & Spirituality

Ta Shma

Hadar Institute

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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  • 780 episodes
  • Updated Yesterday

Episodes780

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  • Feb 19, 2024 · 9 min

    It is Better to Give: The Tisch With Dena Weiss #21

    Gifts are more than their monetary equivalents. A gift can be an expression of love and affection, of fear and obedience, an obnoxious demonstration of wealth, or a powerful equalizer of means. By thinking about our donations to build the mishkan (tabernacle), the Ohev Yisrael teaches us that being willing to step into the receiving role, to be humble and accepting, is itself a gift. Transcript and source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/WeissTisch5-1.pdf “Mitteler Rebbe,” "Ach L'elokim," and “Hu Elokeinu” from RAZA Kapelya (2023) by Chana Raskin. Produced by Joey Weisenberg and Chana Raskin for Hadar’s Rising Song Records.

  • Feb 14, 2024 · 9 min

    R. David Kasher on Parashat Terumah: Holy Containers

    This week, we are introduced to what will become the holiest object in the Hebrew Bible, although it is not really so much an object as it is a container. The Ark will occupy the innermost sanctum of the mishkan, the “Holy of Holies,” and it is from above the Ark that God communicates with Moshe (see Exodus 25:22). The camp of Israel was centered around it at rest, and carried it with them as they marched through the wilderness. A midrash, however, notices that this Ark, the Aron ha-Edut, was not the only aron the Children of Israel carried with them through the wilderness.

  • Feb 12, 2024 · 42 min

    R. Elie Lehmann: Torah of the People

    How can we access Torah? Who has the right to speak Torah? The hasidic rebbes encourage us to reach deep inside ourselves for the eternal springs of Torah. Come learn texts about how each of us holds Torah that the world needs. This lecture was originally recorded at Hadar's Manger Winter Learning Seminar in December 2023.

  • Feb 5, 2024 · 57 min

    R. Shai Held: Build Homes and Pray for the Peace of Babylon

    By looking closely at a passage from Jeremiah, Rav Shai in his lecture "Build Homes and Pray for the Peace" of Babylon, explores the relationship between hope and realism, exile and home, in the Bible and today. Originally recorded in Summer 2023. Download the source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/EXS2023HeldJeremiah.pdf

  • Jan 31, 2024 · 12 min

    R. David Kasher on Parashat Yitro: The Trouble With Desire

    The last of the Ten Commandments is distinct from the rest in several ways. Structurally, it is in the second five, but it stands out from the others. After the clipped language of six through nine, all fitting into one verse (“do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness against your neighbor”), this last one suddenly takes up a whole verse to itself - and a very strange construction at that.

  • Jan 29, 2024 · 1 hr 12 min

    R. Ethan Tucker: Covenant, Land, Power, and Responsibility

    The Jewish people live in eternal covenant with God, but what is the relationship of that covenanted people to the Land of Israel? Is it eternal, or affected by the passage of time or historical context? What does our tradition say about Jews wielding power in the Land of Israel? How are Jews meant to take responsibility for themselves through power, and what happens if they fail? This lecture, delivered in memory of Dr. Eddie Scharfman z"l in January 2024, offers sources, framing, and reflection on contemporary questions of Jewish power and the Land of Israel.

  • Jan 22, 2024 · 6 min

    R. Avi Strausberg on Tu Bishvat: Wait For It

    Tu Bishvat is a holiday that is about slow growth, patience, and gratitude. In a culture that is all about instant gratification and next day delivery, Tu Bishvat teaches us to slow down. It requires us to wait.

  • Jan 19, 2024 · 11 min

    R. David Kasher on Parashat Bo: Hameitz u-Matzah

    Just as we are about to arrive at the apex of the Exodus drama—the final plague and the actual departure from Egypt—the Torah makes a sudden shift in genre. Chapter 12 opens with, “This month will be for you the first of months,” the marking of the new moon, the first mitzvah given to Israel—and with that, the Jewish legal tradition officially begins. Having established the calendar, the Torah immediately begins detailing the rituals for what will become the first of its yearly observances: Pesah. At the center of those rituals are two related mitzvot (eating matzah and not eating hameitz) that together will serve as keys to understanding the role of the mitzvot in the life of the new people of Israel.

  • Jan 15, 2024 · 5 min

    R. Avi Strausberg on MLK Day: They Should Have Learned

    In Letter from Birmingham Jail, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addresses his critics and writes, “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” To be a real ally and advocate for change requires more than just good intentions and lukewarm support; it demands deep understanding and personal accountability. I worry that I might be just the kind of person with shallow understanding and good will about which Dr. King wrote.

  • Jan 10, 2024 · 10 min

    R. David Kasher on Parashat Va'Era: Divine Disclosure

    Many theories have been offered to explain the Torah’s use of multiple names for God. Medieval kabbalists understood the names to be expressing different aspects in the manifold nature of the Divine. Early modern biblical scholars took the same phenomenon as evidence of the composite nature of the Torah. In Parashat Va’Era, the Torah itself addresses the issue, and suggests that the critical question may not be what God’s name is, but who’s asking.

  • Jan 8, 2024 · 52 min

    R. Tali Adler: Challenging the Establishment

    In the last of this series from Spring 2023, Rav Tali returns to R. Yehudah ha-Nasi and his interactions with another friend/antagonist: Bar Kappara. In what ways does Bar Kappara try to teach Rabbi the Torah he thinks he needs to hear? How can someone without power teach someone who has power? Download the source sheet here: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/Adler2023TorahBelong3.pdf

  • Jan 3, 2024 · 10 min

    R. David Kasher on Parashat Shemot: Callbacks to Creation

    From the moment we begin the Book of Exodus, we are already being called back into Genesis. The very first words of Parashat Shemot are: taken directly from Parashat VaYigash, during Ya’akov’s actual journey down to Egypt, where the Torah gives us a list of all the members of his household. The Ramban, in his masterful fashion, manages to quickly give both a philosophical and a literary explanation for the repetition of the verse. As a matter of reading strategy, then, he explains that the Torah uses the callback as a device to emphasize the interconnectedness of these two books. Genesis and Exodus are thus connected not only through an ongoing storyline, but also through a set of interlocking word parallels.

  • Jan 1, 2024 · 49 min

    R. Tali Adler: Inside / Outside

    Part 2 this series from Spring 2023 centers the character of Rabbi, also known as R. Yehudah ha-Nasi, the leader of his generation. Rabbi is concerned lest the Torah get beyond his control and be misunderstood. His student and friend, R. Hiyya, on the other hand, thinks the Torah should be heard far and wide. What happens when these two rabbis come into conflict? Where does the Torah belong? Download the source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/Adler2023TorahBelong2.pdf

  • Dec 28, 2023 · 10 min

    R. David Kasher on Parashat Vayehi: Echoes of Redemption

    One of the Torah’s signature literary techniques is the use of textual echoes: the repetition of roots, words, or phrases that call us back to an earlier moment in the text. The echo establishes an associative link between the earlier passage and the latter, and encourages us to consider comparisons between two different sections of the Torah. In Parashat Vayehi we are given the epitome of all echoing phrases, one that became a symbol for the power of echoing itself.

  • Dec 25, 2023 · 55 min

    R. Tali Adler: When Your Torah Doesn't Belong

    In this first lecture in a series of 3 taught in Spring 2023 (Who Does Torah Belong To?), Rav Tali Adler explores the character of R. Elazar ben Arakh and why his colleagues couldn't understand what he taught. What can we do if we feel like the world is not ready for what we have to teach? Download the source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/Adler2023TorahBelong1.pdf

  • Dec 22, 2023 · 9 min

    R. Avi Strausberg on the 10th of Tevet: The Imperative of Hope

    Asarah b’Tevet (the 10th of the month of Tevet), marks the beginning of the end of the First Temple. It marks the beginning of a 30-month period in which the Jews in Jerusalem found themselves pressed on all sides, overcome by the army of the Babylonian empire, with little hope in sight. What was it like for them to be at the beginning of this period of great uncertainty? Did they hold on to hope and, if so, what was the nature of that hope? Or, from the beginning, could they only think about the end, fearing their own destruction at the hands of the Babylonians?

  • Dec 19, 2023 · 12 min

    R. David Kasher on Parashat Vayigash: The Story of Hushim ben Dan

    My mother tongue was no tongue at all, but a pair of hands. My parents were both deaf, so my first language was American Sign Language. I didn’t think much about it at the time; when you’re a kid, your parents are just your parents and your life is just your life. It is only in retrospect that I have come to appreciate how profoundly the experience of growing up in a Deaf family, and spending my early years signing as well as speaking, has shaped my relationship to language in general. So when I came upon a deaf character in the Torah, of course I took notice. To be more precise: the character is in the Torah, but his deafness we learn from a wild story in the Talmud. How the Talmud arrived at that connection is a wild story of its own.