Shows / Ta Shma
Ta Shma
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.
Episodes
- Ta Shma
R. David Kasher on Parashat Noah: Naming Noah
Noah is a notoriously difficult character to pin down. Is he being presented as one of our heroes, to be emulated for his exceptional virtue, or as a tragic…
- Ta Shma
The Joy of Belonging: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #16
At Sinai, people hear God’s voice. But a Midrash records that what they were most impressed by a glimpse of the entire community of the angels in heaven, and…
- Ta Shma
R. David Kasher on Parashat Bereishit: The Grammar of God
The Torah signals to us from the start that words have great power. A book that opens with an account of a world created through divine speech acts reveals its…
- Ta Shma
R. Avi Strausberg on Simhat Torah: Becoming Torah
At the end of the day, or perhaps at the end of the Jewish calendar year, am I actually a better person as a result of the many hours given over each year to…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat VeZot HaBerakhah: Blessing - A Purifying Pool of Water
In our prayers, we often call God “ברוך - blessed.” What images might this word evoke, and how might it deepen our connection to God, the source of blessings?
- Ta Shma
R. Avi Strausberg: Holding God Holding Us
For much of our lives we are unable to receive or offer the holding and embracing that we need. Sukkot is yhe holiday that invites us to pause—to hold and to…
- Ta Shma
R. Avi Killip: Forgiveness, Intimacy, and the Eternal Search
The search for God will span a lifetime. But once a year the dynamic is different. If Judaism offers up life as a giant game of hide and seek with the Holy…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Ha'azinu: Praying for Resurrection, Literally and Figuratively
The idea that God can revive the dead became central to our prayers and Jewish theology in general. But what does this “resurrection” entail? Do we have to…
- Ta Shma
R. Jamie Weisbach: Eating as if You’re Fasting
There is a halakhic obligation to eat on the day before Yom Kippur. What is the nature of this obligation? Where does it come from? What can it teach us about…
- Ta Shma
R. Tali Adler: Sacrifice - What It Is, What It Could Be, Why It Matters
Akeidat Yitzhak, the Torah reading for the second day of Rosh Hashanah, is usually seen as the ultimate Jewish model of personal sacrifice. But is willingness…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Nitzavim-VaYelekh: How Do We Return?
How are we meant to begin the process of teshuvah, returning to God? Is this something we initiate, or does God help us to begin? Or perhaps it is some…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer: Introduction to Malkhuyot
In a newly released video and audio series (originally recorded in 2020), Rabbi Elie Kaunfer introduces aspects of the High Holiday Mahzor as we prepare for…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Ki Tavo: The Power of “Amen”
In Parahsat Ki Tavo, the word “amen” appears 12 times in 12 consecutive verses (Deuteronomy 27:15-26). It is also a word that features prominently in our…
- Ta Shma
Sustenance - A Talmudic and Culinary Exploration of Women in Judaism
In what way is the Talmud like a recipe book? In this panel event that brought together an incredible slice of the New York Jewish community, Hadar’s Rabbi…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Ki Teitzei: Are Gerim Treated Differently in Prayer?
Jewish identity is irreducibly made up of both religious and ethnic components. One of the situations where this complexity comes to the fore is for converts…
- Ta Shma
R. Avital Hochstein: Seeing as a Path to a Life of Ethics and Hesed
Putting together a lot of her teaching over the years, Rabbi Avital Hochstein explores the verb “to see” in the Torah. How can seeing someone else create…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Shoftim: Praying for Peace
At the end of the Amidah, we ask for God to “שים שלום - grant peace.” But the word “שלום - peace” has multiple meanings, and it is not clear exactly what we…
- Ta Shma
Saying What We Don't Mean: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #15
One of the most quintessential human emotions is regret. Regret is so intimately tied with my sense of human frailty and fallibility that it’s always jarring…
- Ta Shma
Bringing Your Tears: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #14
God, understandably, demands the first and the best. In the Torah, this mostly is about agricultural produce. But the Degel Mahaneh Efrayim extends this idea…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Re'eih: Calling God “Our Father” in Prayer
In many prayers, we call God “אבינו - our Father.” What biblical allusions are we drawing on when we say this, and what are we trying to express when we call…
- Ta Shma
A God By Many Names: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #13
It's almost impossible to imagine people with more different life experiences than Moshe and the Israelites. Moshe grew up in the palace; the Israelites were…
- Ta Shma
Your Better Half: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #12
Ours is a culture of media consumption in large and often indiscriminate amounts. This is in part because we don’t view ourselves as transforming and being…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Eikev: The Meaning(s) of “Great, Mighty, and Awesome”
What does it mean to call God “great, mighty, and awesome,” as we do in the first blessing of the Amidah? Perhaps we are praising God as creator of the world…
- Ta Shma
Spiritually Welcoming: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #11
Avraham is the epitome of the kind and gracious host. But there's more to the alchemy between hosts and guests than just the practicality of dietary…
- Ta Shma
R. Avi Killip on Tisha B'Av: How We Choose to (Re)Build
Recent years have pushed us to examine the foundational structures of so much in our world. Previously unthinkable realities have called into question the…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Devarim: Praying for our Religious Leaders
We often think of prayer as motivated by personal needs: I pray for myself or others close to me. But one of our prayers specifically asks us to focus more…
- Ta Shma
R. Miriam-Simma Walfish: Hunger in the Streets of Jerusalem
How do we—and ought we—respond to suffering? R. Miriam-Simma explores stories in the Talmud that express the extent of Jerusalem's destruction through a focus…
- Ta Shma
R. Tali Adler: The Hidden Destruction of Shiloh
Before the destruction of the first and second temples, Shiloh was destroyed. Discussed in Yirmiyahu and alluded to in Shmuel, Shiloh is the spiritual center…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Pinhas: Fixed and Spontaneous Words of Prayer
Why is there a fixed liturgy to the Amidah? After all, if I am meant to pray to God with focus and intention, shouldn’t I use my own personal words, and not…
- Ta Shma
R. Avi Killip on 17 Tammuz: When Longing is the Relationship
Those who mourn tremendous losses know that the rupture is ongoing and often cannot be contained by marking a single anniversary. When was the last celebration…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Hukkat-Balak: Praying to God as a King
What does it mean to call God a king in our prayers? What kind of king is God, and how might we as worshipers engage with that metaphor?
- Ta Shma
R. Shai Held: The Radical Social and Theological Vision of Deutoronomy
A close reading of Devarim 15 explores such questions as: What kind of social ethic does Devarim seek to instill? How does it work to ensure that there will be…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Korah: Striving to be Holy
In ancient times, in order to come as close as possible to God’s presence in the Temple, one had to be considered holy—fully purified and separate. When we…
- Ta Shma
R. Micha'el Rosenberg: Righteous Anger, Useful Anger
Even though the dominant view of anger in Jewish tradition is that it is a bad character trait that should be avoided, there is one passage from the Talmud…
- Ta Shma
Let it Move You: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #10
One of the distinctive features of traditional Jewish prayer and study is shuckling, moving back and forth. The Zohar explains that this movement of the body…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Shelah: Speaking Directly to a God Who Sees Us
Moshe addresses God three times in one verse with the word “You.” In our prayers, we speak directly to God, calling God “You.” Why is this so, and what is the…
- Ta Shma
Judging with the Whole Picture: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #9
When the Torah outlines the need for judges and enforcers, it takes pains to say that they should judge the people with a righteous judgment - but isn’t…
- Ta Shma
Does God Perform Miracles? The Tisch with Dena Weiss #8
Perhaps the most miraculous time described in the Torah are the events of Yetziat Mitzrayim, the Exodus from Egypt. In fact, God says explicitly that Pharoah…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat BeHa'alotkha: Praying for Healing—Urgently
Praying for the sick is a core part of Jewish worship. One of the earliest examples of this is Moshe’s prayer for Miriam in Parashat BeHa’alotkha, one of the…
- Ta Shma
Me of Little Faith: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #7
Noah is sort-of a hero. On the one hand, he was selected by God to build the ark and save his family and a sampling of animals. On the other, there's no…
- Ta Shma
Love is Hard: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #6
Welcome back to "The Tisch with Dena Weiss: A Taste of Hasidut,” a mini-series for Ta Shma. In this next batch of episodes, Dena Weiss introduces the Kedushat…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Naso: The End of the Amidah: A Blessing from God
In Parashat Naso we read what is known as the Priestly Blessing, or Birkat Kohanim. This is a moment in which God blesses Israel, through the medium of the…
- Ta Shma
R. Avi Killip on Shavuot: The Beauty of Every Word
Torah should be read slowly. Very slowly. One idea—and maybe even one word—at a time. To experience Torah at its most sensual, most fragrant, is to read it…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Bemidbar: Moderating Enthusiasm for God
In Parashat Bemidbar, we see the critical importance of separation from the holy, violated by Nadav and Avihu's bringing "strange fire" to the altar. This is…
- Ta Shma
R. Avi Strausberg: All the Torah I Never Learned
Jewish sources come down hard on the evils of forgetting Torah, going so far as to consider one who forgets one item of learning "as if he were mortally…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on BeHar-BeChukkotai: Praying for Freedom
The tenth blessing in the daily Amidah, which asks God to return those in exile, begins, “Sound the great shofar for our freedom…” What kind of freedom are we…
- Ta Shma
R. Ethan Tucker: When an Angel is Not an Angel
VaYikra Rabbah is one of the great midrashic collections from the land of Israel in the Talmudic period. In this 4-part class, we will examine one midrash each…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Emor: "You Are Holy": Relationship After Disappointment
One of the themes in Sefer Vayikra is the holiness of God. God calls Godself holy five times in the book. In some ways, this is the opposite of our liturgical…
- Ta Shma
R. Avi Killip on Pesah Sheini: A Ritual Made for All
Redemption cannot happen without everyone. We learn this lesson from the Seder ritual, when we open our homes by inviting guests and asserting that all who are…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Acharei Mot-Kedoshim: When God Feels Distant: The Response of the Kaddish
The Kaddish contains an anomaly: a liturgical phrase used to respond to God's name, but no triggering mention of God's name. Noting God’s missing name in the…
- Ta Shma
R. Avital Hochstein on Yom Ha-Atzma'ut: Sanctity and Land
The concept of the “קדושת הארץ - sanctity of the Land” simultaneously gives meaning to, and creates a tremendous challenge to, life in the State of Israel. Yom…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Tazria-Metzora: Praying for the Healing of Others
Asking God for healing is a core aspect of prayer. But the ideal form of this prayer (as expressed in the Amidah) pushes us to widen the circle of our concern…
- Ta Shma
R. Avi Killip on Yom HaShoah: Legacy
There is no Judaism—no understanding of Jewish history or culture or theology—without accounting for the Shoah. This part of the Jewish story is now canon. For…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Shemini: Stoicism and Grief
Imagine how Aharon must have felt, watching his sons die, on what should have been the greatest day of his life: the inauguration of the system of sacrifices…
- Ta Shma
R. Avi Killip: Hameitz and Uncovered Pits
What can cleaning for Pesah teach us about the limits ownership and responsibility? R. Avi Killip shares reflections on the holiday from this year's Hadar…
- Ta Shma
Feeling the Way You Should Feel: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #5
How can God command us to feel a particular emotion? While we often can't change feelings on demand, Shabbat offers a pathway for how actions and rituals can…
- Ta Shma
R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Tzav: The Eternal Nature of Gratitude
How are we meant to conclude the Amidah? What is the emotional orientation to the end of an intense encounter with God?
- Ta Shma
On Being Essential: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #4
Every single Jewish soul is as integral to the Jewish people as every letter in the Torah scroll. No person is dispensable. "Mitteler Rebbe's Kapelya" and…
- Ta Shma
With All of Your Might: The Tisch with Dena Weiss #3
It can feel impossible to approach an infinite and all-powerful God. But God desires closeness with us, with the limited power that we do have, in all of our…