Ta Shma

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?  And what are the limits of this responsibility?

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.