Ta Shma

The "Stripping" of the Egyptians. Three times the Book of Exodus tells us that as the Israelites were departing Egypt, they "plundered" the Egyptians. Bible scholar Brevard Childs notes that “few passages have provoked such an obvious embarrassment both to Jewish and Christian expositors as this one.” And yet unease with the surface meaning of the text has enabled interpreters to uncover deeper and deeper layers of meaning within it. The result has been a stunning array of exegetical and ethical-religious insights.

Where do our religious and civic identities meet—and clash—in prayer? How does participating in a democracy change what it means to pray for the government, now that we as individuals and communities are supposed to have control over it? We will take up these questions, and others, by engaging a series of traditional Jewish legal and theological positions stretching from the Babylonian Exile to medieval Europe into 19th and 20th century American Jewish liturgy. All sources will be available in both Hebrew and English.

Join us as we explore the essence of the kaddish, moving on an interpretive journey that has implications for all prayers we read. Along the way we will encounter the hidden biblical characters who stand behind the kaddish, and discover the meaning these characters can provide to our own prayer life. Recorded live at the annual Dr. Eddie Scharfman Memorial Lecture.

The conviction that human beings have the freedom—and the responsibility—to choose how we will act lies at the very heart of Jewish theology and spirituality. Not surprisingly, then, commentators both traditional and modern have often found the idea of God hardening Pharaoh's heart—so central to the book of Exodus—deeply disturbing. How could God rob Pharaoh of his freedom, they wonder, and then punish him for his deeds? Shai Held analyzes Maimonides' response to this question and whether it has support in the biblical text.

Crowdsourcing is a "popular web 2.0 buzzword" following the principle that if two heads are better than one, then surely a million heads are better than two. Through a close reading of two versions of the same story about Hillel the Elder one year when Pesach fell on shabbat, Avi Killip explores crowdsourcing in the Talmud and the Tosefta and, through this comparison, arrives at two very different models of leadership with applications to the Jewish world of today: do we want leaders that we can trust to make the right decision, or do we want to appoint leaders that trust us?

How does the person who composed a prayer affect our understanding and relationship to it? In the case of the prayer Avinu Malkeinu, how does the relationship between Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues affect our understanding of what the prayer is about? Elie Kaunfer investigates the sources behind the prayer. Recorded live at the Singing Communities Intensive 2014.

An honest and searching conversation about two of the greatest and most influential Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century. Rabbis Shai Held and Yehudah Mirsky discuss the writings and teachings of these two Jewish giants and ask how they might have responded to one another, criticized one another, and learned from one another. A conversation about figures from the past whose lives and teaching still resonate deeply and widely in the present.

We will discover what makes Rachel such an interesting character, how she is embedded in and affects her family, and how she is presented and imagined throughout the Bible and Jewish thought. Recorded live at the Global Day of Jewish Learning 2014.

How do we respond when someone we care about is violated? Genesis portrays both Jacob and his sons responding in ways that are, ultimately, totally inappropriate. The Torah’s account of their reactions prods us to imagine how we might respond in the face of such disorienting and infuriating brutality.

If God made us who we are, then shouldn't God shoulder some of the blame for our sins? In this class we'll engage this question through a Hasidic approach to teshuvah and forgiveness. We will explore the theological advantages and disadvantages of shifting blame from ourselves to God, or conversely, shifting blame from God to ourselves.