This evening we discuss the reassurance Moshe gives to the Jewish People in his last speech to them, that is spite of all the mistakes and failures of the past 40 years, they stand today, together, before God. Rabbi Zeff Leff explains that while as individuals each of us is directly accountable to God, as a Klal, the entity of the Jewish People, which is expressed by "Kulchem" - together, is eternal.

We see this is the narrative of Elisha and the Shunamite woman, who declines the prophets offer of help, as "In the midst of my people I dwell."

Then we analyze the last two Mitzvot of the Torah, Hakhel and writing a Torah, the two ways in which we are promised eternity as a People, collectively and individually.

Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship.

Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/

Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO

Please contact Rabbi Whitman ([email protected]) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Our rabbis imagine a remarkable conversation before God creates human beings. Knowing what we would be capable of - cruelty, sin, rebellion, and failure - some of the angels argue that humanity should never be created. God creates us anyway, with the freedom to choose good or evil.

Why? Our rabbis point to Isaiah's description of God's extraordinary patience. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains that God gives us another chance, and then another - not because our failures don't matter, but because God refuses to believe that our failures define who we can become.

Rashi finds that same message in the opening words of this week's Parsha, Nitzavim. After forty years filled with sins, rebellions, and terrible mistakes, Moshe tells the Jewish people: Atem Nitzavim Hayom - "You are standing here today." After everything, here you still stand. God has not given up on you.

That is an extraordinary message as we approach Rosh Hashanah. We may look back at promises we didn't keep, changes we didn't make, and mistakes we repeated yet again, and begin to wonder whether we really can become different. But if God still believes we can choose differently, perhaps we should too.

God hasn't given up on us. Why should we?

Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship.

Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/

Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO

Please contact Rabbi Whitman ([email protected]) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Sixteen religious Israeli soldiers refused an operational mission in Gaza because a female paramedic would accompany them in their armored vehicle. Their brigade rabbi had permitted it. They refused anyway. The mission was canceled, the soldiers were punished - and prominent religious and political voices defended them.

Daniel Gordis sees something much larger in this incident, and so do I. The Dati Leumi world with which I identify has built something extraordinary: a community deeply committed to Torah that also serves, leads and sacrifices for the State of Israel. But what happens when increasingly extreme voices claim that greater religious stringency makes them more authentically Jewish - even when responsible Halachic authority says otherwise? What happens when extremism starts calling itself Halacha?

The Mishnah and Talmud have a remarkably harsh term for precisely this danger: Chasid Shoteh - a "pious fool." One example is a man who allows a woman to drown rather than compromise his supposed religious standards by saving her. Sometimes what looks like greater piety is actually a betrayal of Torah and its values. And when religious extremism presents itself as authentic Judaism, those committed to Torah cannot afford to remain silent.

Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship.

Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/

Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO

Please contact Rabbi Whitman ([email protected]) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

You know the melody. You may have sung it hundreds - perhaps thousands - of times. But do you know who wrote it, and how Jews around the world came to know it?

Michael Feldstein tells the remarkable story of Cantor Moshe Nathanson, who wanted to create a melody that would get Jewish children at summer camp to sing Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after a meal. The children learned it, loved it, and carried it with them. From one summer camp, Nathanson's melody traveled into Jewish homes, schools, camps and communities around the world.

Today, countless Jews sing his tune without knowing his name. But Nathanson's story is about more than one extraordinarily successful melody. He understood something important about Jewish continuity: teach Judaism to children in a form they will love, and they may carry it farther than you ever imagined.

Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship.

Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/

Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO

Please contact Rabbi Whitman ([email protected]) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

As the Jewish people prepare to enter Israel, the Torah introduces a new covenant of responsibility: Arvut - the source of Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh Lazeh. Every Jew is responsible for every other Jew.

That sounds magnificent. But it is also frightening. The story of Achan and Israel's disastrous defeat at Ai demonstrates that another person's wrongdoing can become my responsibility if I could have tried to prevent it, challenge it, or repair it. And Arvut reaches even further: spiritually, my obligation to perform a Mitzvah is not entirely fulfilled as long as another Jew who wants to perform that mitzvah still needs my help to do so.

The word itself reveals what is being asked of us. An Arev is a guarantor - someone who willingly assumes responsibility for another person's debt. Economically, it makes little sense: there is no upside, only risk. Proverbs even warns against it. But we do it for family. We do it for people we love.

That is Arvut. Your obligations become, in some measure, my obligations. Your failures concern me. Your success concerns me. Every Jew is a guarantor for every other Jew.

Magnificent, frightening, and momentous.

Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship.

Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/

Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO

Please contact Rabbi Whitman ([email protected]) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Modern weather forecasting began with a remarkable insight: knowing the weather where you are isn't enough. You need to know what's happening somewhere else - because that weather may be heading toward you.

Today, weather data is collected from more than 1,800 locations around the world, twice a day, helping make forecasts about 85% accurate. But the system only works because everyone shares. Even countries at war with one another freely exchange weather data, because no country can see enough of the atmosphere on its own. By giving away information that helps others, each country receives something far more valuable in return: a more accurate picture of the weather that none of them could produce alone.

That is a powerful model for Jewish community. We create synagogues and communities so others will have places to pray, learn, gather, celebrate, and support one another. But in building those places for others, we create something we desperately need ourselves. Weather forecasting demonstrates a remarkable truth about life: when everyone contributes what they have, everyone receives something that no one could have created alone.

Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship.

Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/

Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO

Please contact Rabbi Whitman ([email protected]) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

A farmer sees the first fig beginning to ripen on his tree. He marks it as Bikkurim - his first fruit, to be brought to God. It takes only a moment. Almost no effort, no expense, no sacrifice. And yet when that farmer eventually reaches Jerusalem, something remarkable happens.

Important people come out to greet him. Shopkeepers interrupt their work and stand in his honor. Why does Jerusalem make such a fuss over an ordinary farmer carrying a piece of fruit? The great Chasidic teacher Rabbi Yerachmiel Yisrael Yitzchak Danziger, the Yismach Yisrael, sees a profound message in that extraordinary welcome: what looks small to us may be enormously precious in God's eyes.

We constantly measure our good deeds by how difficult they were, how much they cost, how many people noticed, or how much difference we think they made. Bikkurim teaches us to use a different measure. A small mitzvah, a small kindness, a seemingly insignificant good act - none of them is insignificant. If God cherishes them, we should learn to cherish them too.

Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship.

Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/

Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO

Please contact Rabbi Whitman ([email protected]) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

This evening we investigate the famous phrase referring to Israel as "a land flowing with milk and honey." To whom was it said first (you may be surprised), and what does it mean, according to Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom. As we approach the High Holidays, the time when more people come to synagogues to pray than any other time of year, we look at the social aspect of prayer, and share insights into how we should act toward each other to make prayer more meaningful for all of us.

Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship.

Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/

Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO

Please contact Rabbi Whitman ([email protected]) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Dr. Seuss kept a file he called "Noble Failures" - ideas that hadn't worked, but that he wasn't willing simply to throw away.

The Torah does something strikingly similar with the stories we tell about ourselves. The farmer bringing his first fruits begins with Arami Oved Avi - taking us back to idolatry, wandering, vulnerability, and weakness. At the Seder, we do it again: the Talmud tells us to begin the magnificent story of the Exodus from our lowest point. Why would we deliberately preserve the parts of our story we'd rather edit out?

Rabbi Ariel Rackovsky points toward a powerful answer. Judaism doesn't romanticize our failures, but neither does it erase them. We remember where we went wrong because what happened next matters - what we learned, what we repaired, and who we became. As Rosh Hashanah approaches, we don't stand before God pretending the failures aren't part of our story. We ask what we have done with them.

Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship.

Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/

Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO

Please contact Rabbi Whitman ([email protected]) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

The Mitzvot of Bikkurim and Maaser both ask a farmer to express gratitude. But they do so in strikingly different ways. Bikkurim - bringing the first fruits - is marked by procession, declaration, and communal celebration. Maaser is quieter and more private. Why?

Rabbi JJ Schachter points to a crucial difference in timing. Bikkurim comes at the beginning of the harvest, when the farmer holds only the first fruit and most of the harvest is still a promise. He celebrates with faith in what is yet to come. Maaser comes at the end, when the harvest has been gathered and the farmer can look at what actually fills his silo and give thanks for what he has received.

As we approach Rosh Hashanah, we need both ways of seeing. We look back at the year ending with gratitude for what we actually received - the blessings safely gathered into our lives. But we also look forward with the faith of Bikkurim, recognizing the first shoots of possibility even before we know what they will become.

On Rosh Hashanah, we don't merely inventory the full silos of the year ending. We also look for the first fruits of the year beginning.

Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship.

Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/

Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO

Please contact Rabbi Whitman ([email protected]) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.