Episode 10 – Shoftim: Checks & Balances; Prophets & Sorcerers |
This week in Parshat Shoftim, we hear the call to appoint judges and officials in all your gates. From here the Torah builds a framework for justice and governance: judges to interpret the law, officials to carry it out, kings bound by limits, priests serving in the Temple, and prophets guiding the people. We explore how these roles balance one another and what it means to pursue justice, mishpat tzedek, as the foundation of a society.

We explore:
• The Torah’s blueprint for a judicial and executive system at the city gates
• The king’s limits and the principle that even rulers are bound by law
• The place of prophets — and how to distinguish prophecy from forbidden sorcery
• Why Torah insists that justice is not just lofty but practical, rooted in daily governance

| Parshat Shoftim 5785
Torah: Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9 | Haftarah: Isaiah 51:12–52:12 |
https://miko284.com/

Special thanks to Toli Kohane-Carter for editing and to Abigail Seman for music.

Episode 9 – Re’eh: Seeing Is Not Necessarily Believing |
This week’s portion, Re’eh, begins with a choice: blessing or curse, set before the people as they prepare to stand between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. We ask what it means to “see” and why Judaism often calls us instead to hear and listen.

We explore:• The difference between seeing everything at once and hearing slowly over time — and why both matter in Torah• Standing between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal: two peaks so close together, yet representing blessing and curse• The subtlety of moral landscapes, where context makes the same act a mitzvah or a transgression• What to do with the holy sites of the Canaanites and how to think about monuments, shrines, and lost causes today• Why Jerusalem is not named directly in the Torah, but only described as “the place God will choose”• Don’t add and don’t subtract: how the Torah is like a piano, the same instrument that do so many things in different hands• Prophets, miracles, and Sinai — why belief can’t rest only on wonders• Kashrut and the place of food in Judaism: is what we put into our mouths as important as what comes out of them?

| Parshat Re’eh 5785
Torah: Deuteronomy 11:26–16:17 | Haftarah: Isaiah 54:11–55:5 |
https://miko284.com/

Episode 8 – Eikev: Heels, Little Things, and Big, Big Things |
This week on L’Dor V’Dor, we explore Parshat Eikev, named for the “heel.” We ask: what does it mean to be a heel in the Torah? And what are the easy mitzvot we trample underfoot, as Rashi suggests?

Where last week’s parsha spoke of our love for God, this week focuses on God’s love for us and for the Land of Israel. Eikev challenges us to see the big significance in small acts: the “light” commandments, humility, gratitude, and memory.

We discuss:
• The mitzvot we overlook — and why they matter
• What it means to remember the whole journey, not just the destination
• The order of blessing and satisfaction in our meals and throughout in our lives
• Humility, haughtiness, and the Midrash on why the Torah was given at Sinai
• The centrality of the Land of Israel in Jewish spiritual life
• Is mitzvah observance in the diaspora just “practice” for the Land?
• If God promises reward and punishment, how do we understand Jewish suffering?
• Can we do cheshbon nefesh or are these things beyond our understanding?
• Why are God's promises so physical and this-worldly — and what does that say about our agency in the covenant?

| Parshat Eikev 5785
Torah: Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25 | Haftarah: Isaiah 49:14–51:3 |
https://miko284.com/

Episode 7 – Vaetchanan: Hear Oh Israel, Hashem is One |
This week, we open Parshat Vaetchanan with Moshe who is asking, pleading, even begging, to enter the Land of Israel. Through midrash and commentary, we explore Moshe's humility as he is denied his final wish.

There’s too much in this parsha to cover in one episode, but we touch on the Shema and the repetition of the Ten Commandments — two foundational texts of Jewish tradition — and use them as a lens for larger questions:

• What does it mean to love God with all your heart, soul, and might?
• Why is the Shema framed as something spoken to Israel — as if from the outside?
• Are Jews a religion, an ethnicity, a nation, or something else?
• If God is One, how do we make sense of the bad in the world?
• What does it mean to be a people who listen rather than a people who see?
• Why is “coveting” forbidden while slavery is permitted in the 10 Commandments (or statements)?
• How do we handle commandments that govern not action, but internal thought?
• Why didn’t anyone interrupt or correct Moshe’s retelling of the commandments ?

| Parshat Vaetchanan 5785
Torah: Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11 | Haftarah: Isaiah 40:1–26 |
https://miko284.com/2025/08/07/the-sun-moon-and-starts-vaetchanan/

Special Thank you to Abigail Seman for her rendition of Lecha Dodi.

Episode 6 – Devarim: Moshe’s Farewell Speech |
This week, we open the last book of the Chumash with Parshat Devarim. Moshe has fully overcome his early speech difficulties to deliver a month-long farewell address, the Mishne Torah, to the people of Israel on the edge of the Promised Land, which they will enter without him. His words are both rebuke and encouragement, memory and warning, and they are recorded not just as Moshe's parting words at the "bus stop" but as God’s word itself. Along the way, we reflect on other farewells — from George Washington’s to the parting scenes of the movie Hair — and on our own personal experience saying goodbye at moments we cannot cross with them. |

We explore:
• Why is the last book of the Torah is entirely Moshe’s speech, and how each of the Five Books of Moshe is tied to the theme of speech?
• The place, time, and context of the speech: why does it matter that Moshe begins with a careful rebuke, recalling where things went wrong like the Golden Calf?
• Moshe’s retelling of the story of the spies: what changes from the first telling and why does he make the spies his first issue in explaining why he cannot enter the Land?
• The Torah’s special connection to the Land of Israel: are we building snow sleds for the sand dunes of diaspora?
• How long does it really take to travel through the Sinai and what does that say about the people’s journey and mistakes?
• What is difference between the leader who brings the people to the Land and the leader who leads them within it?

| Parshat Devarim 5785
Torah: Deuteronomy 1:1–3:22 | Haftarah: Isaiah 1:1–27 |
https://miko284.com/2025/07/31/20-years-later-white-blue-orange-still/

Episode 5 – Matot-Masei: A Foot in Each World and the Point of No Return |
This week, we reflect on the double portion Matot-Masei, and the ending of the Book of Numbers. From censuses to conquests, we explore the challenge of closing one chapter while standing on the edge of the next. What does it mean to count—as an individual, and as part of a people? What happens when ancient texts challenge modern moral frameworks? And how do we live in the tension between exile and promise? |
We explore:
• Why the Jewish lunar-solar calendar sometimes gives us double parshiot and how time in Torah reflects cycles and spirals, not just linear progress.
• The laws of vows and the power of speech: is it a uniquely human trait and how does speech shape the world?
• The war against Midian: how do we read difficult passages of divine-commanded violence through a modern ethical lens?
• Moshe’s heartbreak: leading to the threshold, having to separate from his in-laws, and does he end up buried in the land or at least with his people?
• The tribes of Reuven and Gad asking to settle east of the Jordan with their flocks and children or rather their children and flocks?
• The bridging role of Menashe and Joseph holding ground in both the Promised Land and the diaspora.
• The journeys of Masei - anxiety of being halfway and how does the math work out?

| Parshat Matot-Masei 5785
Torah: Numbers 30:2–36:13 | Haftarah: Jeremiah 2:4–28, 3:4 |

https://miko284.com/

Episode 4 – Pinchas: Don't Try This at Home |This week on L’Dor V’Dor, we pick up where last week’s parsha left off: the daughters of Moab and Midian seducing the Israelites, a plague, and a violent intercession. In the heat of this crisis, Pinchas (grandson of Aaron) kills Zimri and Cozbi mid-act, and is rewarded by God with a brit shalom, a pact of peace. But what does it mean to call a violent zealot “righteous”? |We explore:• What was the Israelite sin in the worship of Baal Peor—and why did it provoke such a severe response?• Who were Zimri and Cozbi, and why did Pinchas kill them in such a manner?• How do we understand Pinchas's act as both extra-legal and divinely sanctioned but not rabbinically?• How is Pinchas spiritually linked to both Aaron and Eliyahu the prophet, and what does it mean to act “without personal agenda”?• Why is counting the people such a central act in this parsha and what does it say about community, order, and care?• What connects Pinchas, Joshua, and the daughters of Zelophehad through the models of complimentary Jewish leadership exemplified by Joseph and Moses?

| Parshat Pinchas 5785
Torah: Numbers 25:10–30:1 | Haftarah: I Kings 18:46–19:21 |
https://miko284.com/2025/07/17/off-road-with-the-daughters-of-zelophehad-the-torah-portion-of-pinchas/

Episode 3 – Balak: Blessings or Curses for a People That Dwells Apart |This week, we unpack Parshat Balak, and the story of attempted curses turned into unexpected blessings. Why does the Moabite king hire Bilam, a foreign prophet with unclear loyalties, to curse Israel with words? And why does the Torah choose him to utter some of its most poetic visions of the Jewish people? |We explore:• Why does Balak fight the Israelites with speech instead of substance?• What does it mean that the Torah’s greatest blessings come from outside the "tribe"?• What is the torah and contemporary meaning of a “rising lion/ess”?• Why does Balak, of all people, get a parsha named after him?• How does Bilam compare to Moshe and Avraham—and what makes a prophet legitimate?• What does it mean to be a “people that dwells apart”?

| Parshat Balak 5785 Torah: Numbers 22:2–25:9 | Haftarah: Micah 5:6–6:8 |

https://miko284.com/2025/07/10/balak-the-1st-operation-rising-lion/

Episode 2 – Chukat: The Red Heifer, Losing Leaders, and What We Cannot Explain | This week, we wrestle with Parshat Chukat, a portion packed with paradox: the mystery of the Red Heifer, the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, and Moses hitting the rock and losing the chance to enter the Promised Land. |

We explore:

• What does it mean to keep a mitzvah that is outside human reason?

• What do animal sacrifices, processes, and rituals say about our relationship to death, purity, and responsibility?

• Why does the loss of a leader (Miriam, Aaron) provoke such different responses from the people?

• What does Moses’ punishment teach us about leadership, anger, and consequences?

| Parshat Chukat 5785 Torah: Numbers 19:1–22:1 | Haftarah: Judges 11:1–33 |https://miko284.com/2025/07/03/and-you-will-love-in-the-storm-the-torah-portion-of-chukat/

Episode 1 – Korach: Revolt, Chosenness, and the Blooming Almond
This week, we begin our Torah journey with Parshat Korach—a story of rebellion, holiness, chosenness and leadership that still echoes today.

We explore:

• Who was Korach, and why did he challenge Moses and Aaron?

• Is the holiness of Am Israel collective or individual?

• What does a society's religious focus tell us about their cultural character?

• The deeper meaning behind the earth swallowing dissent, and the miracle of Aaron’s almond-blossoming staff.

• Torah as history or metaphor: what does this story teach us about conflict, and chosenness?

• Plus: how the Haftarah from Samuel echoes and critiques Korach’s challenge.

Korach 5785 Torah: Numbers 16:1-18:32 Haftarah: I Samuel 11:14-12:22

https://miko284.com/2025/06/26/it-blossomed-sprouted-buds-and-borne-almonds-the-torah-portion-of-korach/