Ta Shma

From the very beginning, the Torah imbues certain numbers with great significance.  The first chapter of Genesis carefully divides Creation into seven days.  Seven then becomes the most significant number in nearly all Jewish time rituals—not just Shabbat, but Pesah, Shavuot, Sukkot, as well as the seventh month, the seventh year, the seven cycles of seven years—all of which are then imprinted with the themes of that first seven: creation, rest, and rejuvenation.

An awareness of the Torah’s “numbers of distinction” and their significance can help us decode  the complex structure of the birth ritual that opens Parashat Tazria, and the mysterious set of numbers it contains:

There's a catchy song that tells us what we're supposed to do during the Seder and when (Kaddeish Urhatz). But when you dig a little deeper, the song is a little simplistic for the actual Seder structure. How can the giant Maggid section be covered by a single word? And why is Hallel actually split into two? Rav Elie discusses the overall structure of the Seder. 

Recorded in March 2022 and available as part of a video series on the Haggadah (https://hadar.org/torah-tefillah/resources/seder-really-so-ordered) and our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H4xWZqaeIg).

Throughout our history, one of the central institutions of a Jewish community has been the mikveh.  Immersion in this ritual bath was required in Temple times in order to purify oneself after coming into contact with various types of tumah (ritual impurity).  Since then, the practical need for a mikveh has been relegated primarily to the laws of sex and conversion.  Yet the mikveh has taken on a greater significance in Jewish life than its specific halakhic applications would suggest.

In this panel discussion given at the February Learning Seminar 2024, Hadar’s rashei yeshiva, R. Ethan Tucker and R. Aviva Richman, reflect on their approach to Jewish law and how our quest for God can be lived through the details of our halakhic lives.

For the most part, Parashat Tzav repeats much of what we learned last week in Parashat Vayikra.  Again, the Torah details the choreography of the sacrificial system—only this time from the perspective of the priest.  All of the offerings from last week show up again.  But there is at least one thing that is unique to Tzav: a shalshelet.

To what extent is Jewish law “fake” or “real”? Is halakhah a game where you can say whatever you want, or does a ruling, once issued, create a new reality? What are the underlying principles of kashrut and Jewish food laws? Recorded live at Hadar's Manger Winter Learning Seminar in January 2024.

Source sheet available here: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RosenbergInsensibleFoodLaws2024.pdf

The laws of Leviticus appear to be entirely separate from the narrative and themes of the Torah so far.  Exodus, by contrast, picks up directly from the narrative of Genesis, and—as we have seen—even the case laws in Exodus sometimes make subtle references to earlier stories.  But when we enter Leviticus, we feel ourselves to be in another kind of book entirely.  There is no narrative at all in here the first parashah.  Instead, the book opens by listing the various types of korbanot (sacrificial offerings), and the precise details involved in their ritual preparation.  Speaking directly to the priest, absorbed in the procedural realm of the mishkan (tabernacle), it is as if this middle book of the Torah is detached from the world that has come before it.

As someone who longs to feel God’s presence in my life in a clear and direct manner, I have always been struck by the fact that God is noticeably absent from Megillat Esther.  In a story that is about the near demise and heroic salvation of the Jewish people, it is not God’s hand that is featured in this story as the saving force, but rather the human hands of Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai.  

What is Megillat Esther teaching us about living in a world in which, as in our own, God’s presence is unseen?  

There is something hidden in the mishkan. A story of creation.

Nehama Leibowitz, the great 20th century compiler of Torah commentary, calls our attention to a group of modern scholars who sensitized us to the use of repetition as a rhetorical device in the description of the building of the mishkan.  She cites a list of the greats: Buber, Rosenzweig, Benno Jacob, Cassuto, Meir Weiss, and others, who all highlight the way key phrases in our text echo an earlier story in the Torah—the earliest, in fact.

From one perspective, pregnancy is a miracle. But from another, pregnancy is a nightmare. In her essay that won the Ateret Zvi Prize in Hiddushei Torah, Rabbanit Leah Sarna argues that the Jewish tradition makes space for both of these stories about pregnancy. This presentation and conversation with Rabbi Tali Adler is from February 2024.