IKAR Podcasts

How knowing God is a revelation of ourselves.

Tisha b’Av is a day of communal grief-- we fast, lament and hold the memory of the greatest catastrophes the Jewish people have endured. The danger in revisiting the tragedies of generations past is that our rituals foster a distorted self-perception, a feeling of eternal victimization. Instead, we must remember because grief is an expression of love, because there is an urgent moral message in the stories of our suffering that we must hear today, and because we are drawn again and again, through our collective grief, into community.   

Who does Moses remember as his greatest enemies?

If Moses speaks for God and the People of Israel, what happens when he decides to speak for himself? 

What’s the first step of a spiritual journey? According to the Me’or Einyaim (18th century Hasidic Master), it’s not a grand gesture or a dramatic departure. Instead, it’s the recognition that we’re disconnected, spiritually dehydrated and yearning for something more. Once that realization is acknowledged and felt, the journey has already begun. We’ll find the water we need.

Moses has a problem. This is an edited down recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly Parsha studies class from July 28, 2022.

The last stop in the itinerary of the Israelites' desert journey has a very strange name. And a heartbreaking story.

The Legend of Serah bat Asher. And a commandment we too often overlook.

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha Studies class from July 21, 2022

It's one of the most difficult problems in theology: does God know everything we're going to do, or do we have free will? This week, we consider an answer by Judaism's most deterministic thinker: Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner, the Mei HaShiloach, and a response by his most illustrious student.