Lifelong Jewish Learners Podcast

Growing up, I had a poster on my wall that said “Leadership: Some are born with it; others have it thrust upon them.” And as I’ve been studying Parshat Shmot, the first Torah portion in the Book of Exodus, I quickly realized that the poster I had looked at for close to a decade is where I wanted to begin our podcast. There are times where we’d have to step up to the plate and be the leader that a situation calls for, but sometimes that responsibility is thrown our way. It's not necessarily always easy though.

At the start of this week's parsha, Jacob asks Joseph to bury him in Canaan, not Egypt. Find out why!

Joseph tells his brothers he was sent to Egypt ahead of them for a purpose. What is yours?

Prepping for the end of the world is often stigmatized as selfish and paranoid, but Parshat Miketz explores a prepper who is rewarding for prepping. Explore how Joseph saves Egypt by prepping for catastrophe. 

We see how easy it can be to go from the top to the bottom in today's Torah Portion. But what if we are on the top? How do we respond? Do we brag on ourself or do we see the impact of our behavior? 

As we wrap up the soap opera that has been Jacob's life, it's often easy to look at the reunion between Jacob and Esau through the perspective of forgiving people, but let's look at the other perspective. How do we repent in order to be forgiven? Join us as we look at their interaction through Jacob's eyes. 

My high school biology teacher often said, "Correlation doesn't imply causation," but with Parshat Vayetzei, causation doesn't play as big a role as karma does. As we examine the correlation between Parshat Toldot and Parshat Vayetzei, join us as we discover how Jacob affected his karma in these two thematically similar parshiyot!

We're all familiar with Jacob receiving his brother Esau's birthright in exchange for a bowl of soup. We're all familiar with how Jacob is dressed up as Esau to receive his father Isaac's blessing. But could this entire ordeal have been avoided if Isaac and Rebekah chose to challenge their favorite children? 

After the attempted sacrifice of Isaac, we get to see how Sarah took the news in this week's parsha, Chaye Sarah. 

For many, Parshat Vayera is often associated with G-d testing Abraham's faith by sacrificing his son, yeah, Isaac, but what if I were to tell you that wasn't the real test?