Parashat Mishpatim shines a spotlight on human beings and their responsibility for the rest of others on Shabbat. 

Do you love midrash? Hate it? In this class, Rabbi Ethan Tucker delves into this unique rabbinic genre to try and understand its essence: Reading the Torah like a love letter, poring over every phrase, while also allowing our deepest values and concerns to come to the fore. Out of this alchemy, midrash is born and the traditional canon is never the same. Recorded at Hadar's Tanakh Intensive 2026. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/TI2026TuckerMidrashRabbinicImagination.pdf

The Torah describes a moving encounter between Yitro and Moshe, in which Moshe shares his journey and experiences.  A close reading of the details reveals that the Torah offers us a model for meaningful human connection—a way of meeting another person with openness, allowing space both to show and to be seen, to listen deeply and to receive with empathy.

Tu Bishvat is often called the “birthday of the trees.” There is also a reactionary trend to reject this framework of “birthday” and go back to its original, technical and halakhic purpose, which is found in the Mishnah.

The Torah describes: “Amalek came and fought with Israel at Refidim” (Exodus 17:8). Where does Amalek come from? What is the context out of which this war begins?  

On its face, it is a real anomaly in Jewish practice: we recite blessings before putting on tefillin or lighting Shabbat candles, but we don't recite any before we visit the sick or comfort a mourner.  In this session, we'll probe a range of sources that try to explain why that is, culminating in a careful examination of one of Maimonides' post-powerful and important essays about the role of character and virtue in Jewish life. Recorded at the Rabbinic Yeshiva Intensive 2025. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RYI2025HeldWhyNoBlessingsInterpersonalMitzvot.pdf

Woven into the account of the Exodus are two distinct and seemingly contradictory images of the Children of Israel.  On one hand, they are a nation of oppressed slaves, redeemed from a bondage of both body and soul.  On the other, they appear as a vast, armed, and formidable group, driven out in haste by an Egypt terrified of their power.  The opening chapters of the Book of Exodus present these two narratives in parallel, without attempting to reconcile them.

For many people, the conflict between faith and experience is difficult and often devastating to live through.  Psalm 77 is a very odd text: the first part is a lament by a person who wonders whether God has forgotten how to show mercy.  And then the second part recounts God's salvation of Israel with great passion in the Exodus. What's the relationship between the two parts of the psalm? Has the psalmist's crisis been resolved, or does the tension remain—mirroring our own struggles with faith? Recorded at Hadar's Rabbinic Yeshiva Intensive 2025. 

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RYI2025HeldRiddlePsalm77.pdf

Pharaoh succeeded.  He brought the Children of Israel into a state of slavery.  The opening of Parashat Va’Era focuses on one particular consequence of this: the loss of the ability to listen.

What does it mean to strive toward unity and togetherness in a moment in which we are so divided? What is gained—and what is lost—by holding fast to notions of klal yisrael? Is it possible and even desirable to bridge our differences, or are there times in which our values take priority over notions of togetherness? R. Avi explores these questions through biblical, midrashic, and hasidic sources in her lecture in memory of Dr. Eddie Scharfmanm, given in 2026.

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/StrausbergPromisePossibilityUnity2026.pdf