The Parasha with Rabbi Dweck

In this special episode we examine the end of the Torah reading for the first days of Succot which speaks about the festival. We read of the mitsvot of taking the 4 species and sitting in the Succa. In the midst of it is a charge to happiness. We explore what these 2 mitzvot have to do with happiness and how doing them might help bring happiness into our lives.

In this 17 minute episode we consider the nature of poetry and the fact that Moses opens his poem with calling the Heavens and Earth to listen. We recognise that there are many possibilities that life brings us and that atonement lives within these.

We read the story of Isaac's birth on Rosh Hashana. In this special episode we discuss the theme of judgment in all of its facets that permeate the story and what it means for our lives and our experience of Rosh Hashana, the Day of Judgment.

Closing his words, Moses ratifies the covenant with all the people of Israel. He firmly establishes God's commitment to the people and the responsibility of the people to keep to the covenant they have accepted. We explore in this episode some of the important elements of this unique, unmatched and yes, brazen agreement between God and Israel.

**This episode is dedicated in memory of Elliot Setton A"H - אליהו בן אליס**

The bulk of this parish deals with a harsh foretelling of what will be the experience of the people of Israel if they live unfaithfully to the covenant and God's commandments. It is an eerie and uncomfortable harbinger of a story that unfolds with persecution and pain that we sadly know only too well as Jewish history. In this episode we ponder that reality and also consider the unique and before unmentioned aspect of living the covenant with happiness and a goodness of heart.

Ki Tetse is highly focused on the moral behaviours of the nation of Israel in every aspect of society. There are more commandments mentioned in this parasha than any other. At the end, however, Moses implores us to remember the unexpected attack of Amalek on the Israelites in the desert on the way out of Egypt. We discuss what the ideological differences between Amalek and Israel are and how they apply to us today.

Shofetim presents the governmental system that would serve the nation of Israel under God in covenant. The Supreme Court of Israel was the ultimate legal authority and they ruled on and interpreted Torah's law. In this episode we explore the nature of this authority, what we do when we no longer have it, and what principles we can glean from it for our times.

Moshe presents two paths before the people. The path of blessing and the path of curse. There is apparently no in between. We explore the reason for this stark binary option and its implications on how we live our lives.

In this episode we consider a message Moses relays to the nation: Be sure to remember you did not merit coming into the Promised Land.

We consider entitlement, and circumstances of life that come to us despite our actions rather than because of them and how we might deal with them.

Before Moshe dies, he speaks to the people of what they must know before entering into the Promised Land as a sovereign nation. He reminds them that God did not choose them because of a quantifiable factor, but because he loves them. We explore the implications of that int his episode.