Jacob and Esau haven’t seen each other for 20 years, ever since Jacob took their father’s blessings and Esau threatened to kill him. Now they’re headed toward one another – Jacob with his family and his riches, and Esau with 400 of his henchmen. Jacob’s got so many things on his mind at this moment: Keeping his family safe. Placating his brother. Using his wits to get out of the situation without making things worse. That’s the best he can hope to achieve, right? Or… is it? Could Jacob have actually had a shred of hope for reconciliation?

And there’s more we could wonder about: How does Jacob choose what preparations to make for seeing Esau? Why does Esau meet his brother with open arms? If you’re curious to dig into these questions, join Ami Silver as he takes a fresh look at this tense encounter. It turns out that there's a whole lot more to this story than meets the eye.

What did you think of this episode? We’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback. Leave us a voice message – just click here, click record, and let your thoughts flow. You may even be featured on the show!

Parshat Vayeitzei opens with Jacob on the run, experiencing a dream with angels on a ladder. Jacob’s ladder, with its angels ascending and descending, is probably one of the most iconic images in all of Genesis. It’s so iconic, we can miss a basic question about it - and that is - why is it actually here? Does the ladder add something to this vision? Why is it here at all?

In this week’s episode, Rabbi Fohrman discovers a whole new level of meaning in Jacob’s ladder. He shows how, when you read the story carefully, the dream of the ladder actually seems to be referencing other stories in the Torah, and, when you look at these stories together, they reveal something powerful about God’s promise to Jacob and about how we can make this world a more Godly place.

Rabbi Fohrman has an amazing webinar on Jacob’s ladder. It expands and dives deeper into this iconic scene from the Book of Genesis. Check out that webinar here.

This week’s parsha contains the only story in the Torah in which the patriarch Isaac takes center stage. No, it’s not the Akeidah (that was mostly about Abraham), and it’s not the story about the blessing of the firstborn (that story is really about Jacob and Esav).

It’s the time Isaac goes around digging wells! Is this the illustrious legacy of our great forefather Isaac? Why does the Torah waste its time telling us about this story? You’d think that Isaac has more to teach us than how to find underground water sources. But what if the story of the wells is actually teaching us something fundamental about Isaac’s legacy? 

In this week’s episode Imu Shalev and David Block show us the deeper meaning behind the story of Isaac's wells.

What did you think of this episode? We’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback. Leave us a voice message – just click here, click record, and let your thoughts flow. You may even be featured on the show!

Parshat Chayei Sarah begins with the death of our matriarch, Sarah. In this week’s episode, Rabbi Fohrman reflects on her impact and finds a clue to the lasting legacy of Sarah’s life by looking, in all places, at the Torah’s description of her death. That clue hinges on a seemingly technical fact found in the parsha’s opening verse: the number of years Sarah happened to live, 127. 

It seems like mere trivia, the kind of thing that you forget as quickly as you read it. But, this number pops up again in one other place in the Bible: It’s the number of provinces in the Persian empire in the days of Queen Esther. Is there a connection between the two? What could Sarah’s age possibly have to do with Persian provinces? Rabbi Fohrman thinks there is a lesson hidden here, a profound insight into the legacy of Sarah.

What did you think of this episode? We’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback. Leave us a voice message – just click here, click record, and let your thoughts flow. You may even be featured on the show!

Parshat Vayera includes one of the Torah’s most memorable conversations: God and Abraham negotiating about whether God will destroy the city of Sodom. But there’s another fascinating conversation right before that one. Abraham and Sarah receive the message that Sarah will bear a son… but Sarah laughs because she and Abraham are already so old. And God actually comments on her laughter! What’s that about? And could it possibly be connected to the Sodom negotiation that comes next?

In this episode, we get to follow Beth Lesch on the twists and turns of her research journey, as she and Rabbi Fohrman explore the mysterious link between these two stories.

What did you think of this episode? We’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback. Leave us a voice message – just click here, click record, and let your thoughts flow. You may even be featured on the show!

This parsha is full of little vignettes about Abraham’s life, and it feels like a bunch of random episodes of “A Day in the Life of Abraham.” Is there some central theme here that can teach us why God chose Abraham to be the father of a great nation?

In this episode, Rabbi Fohrman shows us the common thread that weaves its way through all of these stories and ties them together into an epic saga. In each of these life events, Abraham faces a single struggle and this struggle holds the key to understanding why God chooses Abraham in the first place and what his mission is all about.

To enjoy more amazing content that dives deeper into the Abraham Saga, check out these two phenomenal courses:

1. The Book of Ruth: https://www.alephbeta.org/playlist/book-of-ruth
2. Abraham’s Journey: https://www.alephbeta.org/playlist/abrahams-journey 

What did you think of this episode? We’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback. Leave us a voice message – just click here, click record, and let your thoughts flow. You may even be featured on the show!

Why doesn’t the Torah ever mention dinosaurs or other prehistoric creatures? Does this mean that according to the Torah there were no dinosaurs? Is this a sign that the Bible doesn't match up with history and science?

In this episode, Rabbi Fohrman provides a profound, yet amazingly simple answer to the question of how to reconcile Torah and science. He argues that if we’re asking about the absence of dinosaurs, then we’re actually misunderstanding something fundamental about the nature of what the Torah is – and what it isn’t. 

Join Rabbi Fohrman as he works to make sense out of several puzzling things about the Torah.

The holiday of Sukkot brings us one of the stranger Jewish customs: Carrying the “four species” of plants around, waving them in all directions as we pray. The Torah commands us to take these plants but doesn’t tell us why. The only clue we get is what the Torah says next: “And you shall rejoice before God” on this holiday. But what exactly are we rejoicing about? And why is holding these plants supposed to bring us so much happiness? Ami Silver and Imu Shalev explore some unexpected connections between this mitzvah and another story in the Torah… and uncover a deep insight into the true source of joy.

New for Sukkot 2022! Check out the beautifully animated video version of this course. 

What did you think of this episode? We’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback. Leave us a voice message – just click here, click record, and let your thoughts flow. You may even be featured on the show!

In this special bonus episode Imu and Rabbi Fohrman discuss a challenge, raised by a listener just like you, to a previous episode.

This challenge sparked such an interesting and inspiring conversation, that we just had to share it with you. The topic: What is the role of fear on the High Holidays?

Make a High Holiday donation here: https://www.alephbeta.org/donate

What did you think of this episode? We’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback. Leave us a voice message – just click here, click record, and let your thoughts flow. You may even be featured on the show!

Yom Kippur: It’s one of the most significant days of the whole year. We go into this day hoping for some weighty things… forgiveness, a chance to be a better version of ourselves. So it’s confusing that the Torah doesn’t give Yom Kippur any big buildup at all. Instead, we get a long description of the High Priest’s service in the holiest parts of the Tabernacle… and only at the end do we find out when this service is supposed to happen: Every year on Yom Kippur. Oh, and by the way, “on this day atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse you of all your sins.” Wait a minute, that sure sounds like the main point! So why didn’t that come first? Why does the Torah seem to introduce Yom Kippur in such a topsy-turvy way? 

In this episode, Rabbi Fohrman digs into the Torah’s presentation of this day. It’s about forgiveness, all right… but before that, it’s about something else. Something that brings us to the true source, the ultimate way to achieve atonement and a new beginning.