PODCAST · religion
Ta Shma
by Hadar Institute
Bringing you recent lectures, classes, and programs from the Hadar Institute, Ta Shma is where you get to listen in on the beit midrash. Come and listen on the go, at home, or wherever you are. Hosted by Rabbi Avi Killip of the Hadar Institute.
Episodes
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R. Avi Strausberg on Parashat Noah: After the Worst Happens
Where there is order, there is the potential for disorder. Where forces are held back, there is the potential for them to break free. Last week, in Parashat Bereishit, God ordered the world, separating light from darkness, the upper waters from the lower waters, dry land from water, and the...
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R. Jason Rogoff: Cooperation and Competition: Israel and Babylonia as Centers of Torah
This class explores the competing claims to religious authority in the Talmudic era between the Land of Israel and Babylonia. Through close reading of selected stories and debates in the Talmud, one can trace a broader struggle over where Torah resides and who has the authority to shape it. These...
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R. Avi Strausberg on Parashat Bereishit: A Song of Rising Up
In the beginning, God lifted the world out of chaos. The Torah paints a dramatic scene. A wasteland. A darkness covering the surface of the tehom, the great depths. God sweeping over the face of the water. Out of this expanse of nothingness, God creates something. God creates order.
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R. Avi Killip: The Long and Winding Road to Redemption
We long for a better world. Judaism teaches us to yearn and pray and work to bring the messiah, reach redemption, and earn our place in the world to come. But what does that mean? What are these different conceptions of redeemer and redemption, and what does each require of us? This class…
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A Festival About Nothing: Dr. Tsivia Frank Wygoda on Shemini Atzeret-Simhat Torah
In Israel, Shemini Atzeret-Simhat Torah feels like the busiest day of the year. So many prayers; so many different atmospheres. Year after year, juggling back and forth from the joy of celebrating the completion of the annual Torah cycle with singing, dancing, and endless Torah readings, to the...
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R. Avital Hochstein on VeZot HaBerakhah: Journey Summary
R. Simlai taught: Torah—its beginning is kindness and its end is kindness. Its beginning is kindness—as it is written, “God made leather garments for Adam and his wife and dressed them” (Genesis 3:21) And its end is kindness—as it is written, “[God] buried [Moshe] in the valley” (Deuteronomy…
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R. Dena Weiss: Language As a Lens: Silence (Part 5)
Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. Source sheet:...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Ha'azinu: A Topography of Distance
“I will hide My face from them” (Deuteronomy 32:20)—so declares the Holy Blessed One in Parashat Ha’azinu. This is one of the most painful and jarring statements in the Bible. It describes a deep rift in the relationship between God and Israel: a dynamic of hiding, withdrawal, and a sealed face....
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R. Dena Weiss: Language As a Lens: Prayer (Part 4)
Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. Source sheet:...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Nitzavim-VaYeilekh: On Mutual Responsibility
At this time of year, as the High Holidays approach, we are used to thinking about our own personal responsibility. In the Yom Kippur Vidui, we worry not only about our sins that we are aware of, but even those that “are not revealed to us,” rather known to God alone. But the verse that…
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R. Dena Weiss: Language As a Lens: When Is It OK to Lie? (Part 3)
Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. Source sheet:...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Ki Tavo: Clearing the Holy from the Home
Our parashah describes a ceremony known as vidui ma’aser. The word vidui here from the root י.ד.ה. probably means something like “declaration of thanks” (like the prayer Modim), but can be also literally translated as “confession,” like the vidui familiar to us from our High Holiday liturgy. What...
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R. Dena Weiss: Language As a Lens Part 2
Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. Source sheet:...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Ki Teitzei: Three Contemporary Readings of the Rebellious Son
One of the most emotionally charged and provocative legal passages is found in our parashah: the case of the rebellious son.
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R. Dena Weiss: Language As a Lens Part 1
Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. Source sheet:...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Shoftim: The Torah of Military Service
The preoccupation with the question of who goes to war is not new. It is a question that meets us, Israeli society, in our day-to-day lives. There is an acute sense here of exhaustion of military forces, alongside awareness of the high price that those who serve and their families pay…
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R. Elazar Symon on Rosh Hodesh Elul: A Different Kind of Comfort
The month of Elul marks the beginning of a process that leads us toward the Yamim Noraim, the days of awe. Yet in another sense, even at the beginning of Elul, we are already mid-process. Going back to at least medieval France, the sequence of haftarot we read in the synagogue on Shabbat from the...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Re'eih: The Dangers of Incitement
In Parashat Re’eih, the Torah warns against a uniquely insidious threat: the mesit or inciter. In Hebrew, this act of enticing or manipulating another person toward harm is known as hasatah, “incitement.” The discourse of incitement is one of the most central and sensitive topics in social and...
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R. Tali Adler: What Are You Doing Here, Elijah?
This class explores the powerful stories of the prophet Elijah, asking what they reveal about prophecy, leadership, and religious zeal. As Elijah performs miracles and confronts the people of Israel, the narrative raises difficult questions about certainty and compassion. Recorded at Hadar's…
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Eikev: Memory and the Divine-Human Partnership
Two intertwined themes are explored in Parashat Eikev: memory and human agency. What is the connection between these ideas? And how do they work together in our brit, our partnership with God?
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R. Shai Held: Hope After Hope Is Lost
How might we maintain hope during a time when it seems to many of us that all hope is gone? One biblical idea is that, although God is frequently disappointed, God also refuses to give up. (What) can we learn from that? This class turns to Tanakh, to midrash, and to medieval Jewish thought to…
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Va'Ethanan: Law After War
Our parashah describes a deeply charged moment—a moment where the Israelites are at risk of forgetting the Holy Blessed One. Surprisingly, this danger does not stem from lack or deprivation, but rather from a reality of abundance and tranquility that awaits them after conquering the Land.
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R. Elazar Symon on Tisha B'Av: Wood and Stone
At least in the plain sense of Lamentations 4, the destruction of Jerusalem is not presented as the execution of a carefully designed plan. It is a moment of unleashed fury.
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Devarim: Eikhah: What Does God Lament?
Parashat Devarim is always read on the Shabbat preceding Tisha B’Av, the week in which we read Megillat Eikhah (the Book of Lamentations). This creates a triple echo of a single word within our tradition: eikhah (which can mean both “alas” and “how”). The first is the one read on Tisha B’Av, the...
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R. Dani Passow: Esh Kodesh: Finding God in the Midst of Suffering
In the darkest days of the Holocaust, Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Piaseczner Rebbe, offered weekly teachings to his community in the Warsaw Ghetto. These sermons, later collected as Esh Kodesh (“Sacred Fire”), are among the most profound works of spiritual courage ever written. In this...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Mattot-Masei: The Daughters of Tzlofhad and the Sons of Menashe
The Book of Numbers concludes by revisiting a narrative we first encountered last week: the story of Tzlofhad’s inheritance. This episode appears first in chapter 27 and again in chapter 36, with the two accounts mirroring each other. Yet, despite the extensive linguistic parallels between them,...
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R. Tali Adler: Rabbinic Personalities: Getting to Know R. Yohanan Ben Zakkai
Who were the rabbis who shaped Judaism as we know it today? This class delves into Talmudic stories about Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, comes to know him as a human being and tries to understand his approach to rebuilding Judaism in the wake of a lost world. Recorded in Winter 2026. The rest of the...
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4th of July Special: R. Ethan Tucker: 250 Years of Judaism in America
Over 250 years in America, Judaism—a way of life that centers obligation—has had to negotiate a culture defined by autonomy and freedom. How has that tension shaped Jewish life, mitzvot, and halakhah over the past 250 years? What will it take to sustain a culture of mitzvot over the next 250…
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Pinhas: Between Optional and Obligatory Wars
Over the past three years, a myriad of terms for the reality of war have emerged in Israeli discourse: a commanded war (milhemet mitzvah), an existential war (milhemet kiyyum), a war of restoration (milhemet komemiyut), an optional war (milhemet reshut), and more. At the core of each concept lies…
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R. Elazar Symon on the 17th of Tammuz: What Must Be Broken
The tragedies we remember on 17th Tammuz are really of different kinds.
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Balak: “A People Like a Lion”
Bilam’s prophecies are rich, dense, and enigmatic. One in particular was emphasised recently in 2025 when the war with Iran took its name from Bilam’s words: “a people like a lion” (am ke-lavi). What does this phrase mean? What kind of people are “like a lion”? What does this mean for our…
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R. Elie Kaunfer: Stepping into Prayer
Before the Amidah, we take three steps forward. What is the origin of this custom, and what is the symbolism of these steps? This class explores a number of approaches, all oriented to deepen our connection with God. Recorded at Hadar's Rabbinic Yeshivah Intensive, March 2026. Source sheet:...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Korah: Living in Dispute
This parashah focuses on the leadership and religious dispute that erupts between Korah and his assembly and Moshe and Aharon. Seemingly, the parashah rules in favor of one side—that of Moshe and Aharon—against Korah’s claim. It could easily be extrapolated from this drama that disputes are...
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R. Dena Weiss: Unintended Consequences
Not everyone has the best intentions. This class explores the category of the "eid zomem" - the false witness who tries, but fails, to condemn an innocent person through their testimony. What is the proper way to think about one who tries to do wrong, but doesn't succeed? What do we do when the...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Shelah: How to Stand in Minority
Parashat Shelah confronts us with a poignant question that touches our personal lives from time to time: How do we hold fast to a minority opinion? How can we align ourselves with Yehoshua and Calev, resisting the temptation to join the majority consensus of the spies?
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R. Aviva Richman: A Torah of Sexual Ethics: Part 3
What do we do when our leaders—or our most sacred texts—repeatedly disappoint us? We live in a world that continues to struggle with how to live out a sexual ethics of mutual dignity. In this series, R. Aviva Richman confronts moments of disappointment related to sexual ethics in Talmud and...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat BeHa'alotkha: Mitzvot as a Communal Project
Parashat BeHa’alotkha returns us to the story of Pesah—this time, in the second year after the Exodus from Egypt—and underscores the ways in which observing God’s mitzvot is a fundamentally communal project.
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R. Aviva Richman: A Torah of Sexual Ethics: Part 2
What do we do when our leaders—or our most sacred texts—repeatedly disappoint us? We live in a world that continues to struggle with how to live out a sexual ethics of mutual dignity. In this series, R. Aviva Richman confronts moments of disappointment related to sexual ethics in Talmud and...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Naso: Divine Communication
Our parashah describes one aspect of the unique relationship between the Holy Blessed One, and Moshe. The final verse of the parashah describes how the Holy One and Moshe would communicate in the mishkan (tabernacle).
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R. Elazar Symon on Shavuot: Many Hearts, One Torah
According to Rashi, the defining feature of the people of Israel at the moment of receiving the Torah is complete unity.
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R. Aviva Richman: A Torah of Sexual Ethics: Part 1
What do we do when our leaders—or our most sacred texts—repeatedly disappoint us? We live in a world that continues to struggle with how to live out a sexual ethics of mutual dignity. In this series, R. Aviva Richman confronts moments of disappointment related to sexual ethics in Talmud and...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Bemidbar: Fire, Water, Wilderness: Living With the Torah
“God spoke to Moshe in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after their departure from the land of Egypt, saying” (Numbers 1:1). This verse opens the Book of Bemidbar and initiates God’s speech to the Israelites during these…
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Faith and Doubt in Our Final Hours: A Conversation Between Dr. Lydia Dugdale and R. Shai Held
For many of us, confronting death raises urgent questions of faith, doubt, and the meaning and purpose of our lives. Yet we live in a culture that avoids talking about death, let alone the existential challenges it raises. Physician and ethicist Lydia Dugdale, author of The Lost Art of Dying…
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat BeHar-BeHukkotai: A Reality Without Fear
The Book of Leviticus, and Parashat BeHukkotai that brings it to a close, makes a clear and recurring claim: reality is not an act of fate, but the outcome of human choice and behavior.
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R. Elazar Symon on the Omer: Counting Old and New
According to a midrashic tradition, the counting of the Omer (that may have seemed to be nothing but a calendrical counting of the days from Pesah to Shavuot) expresses the anticipation of the Israelites for the giving of the Torah. The biblical commandment, however, appears in an agricultural...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Emor: Where Do Sinners Come From?
In Parashat Emor, we encounter the story of the blasphemer. This blasphemer undermines, degrades, and treats with levity the very foundation of the religious system—the root of faith and the bedrock of the world. Yet various midrashim, in their characteristic fashion, are not satisfied with a…
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Faith WithHeld: A Conversation Between Sarah Wildman and R. Shai Held
When the unthinkable happens, what remains of faith? Journalist Sarah Wildman, who lost her young daughter, joins Rabbi Shai Held in a searching conversation about grief, love, and the struggle to go on. They will probe how mourning collides with meaning-making, and how faith might fracture,...
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Aharei Mot-Kedoshim: “Will You Hear My Voice, My Distant One?”
Drawing close is no simple matter. At times, it can be difficult—even dangerous. And yet, to come near is also wondrous: it can nurture, enrich, and expand life. The possibility of a misstep is always near—but so too are countless opportunities. The line between one kind of closeness and another…
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R. Elazar Symon on Yom HaZikaron/Yom Ha'Atzma’ut: Unless God Builds the House
Dedicated in loving memory of my nephew, Yishai Elyakim Urbach, who fell in Gaza one year ago, a few weeks after setting out to build his own home. Tehillim 127:1 "Unless God builds the house, those who build it labor in vain." Human beings cannot truly build alone. What we build by ourselves…
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R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Tazria-Metzora: Giving Birth to Hope
Chapter 12 of the Book of Vayikra deals with the sacrifice of the woman who has given birth.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Bringing you recent lectures, classes, and programs from the Hadar Institute, Ta Shma is where you get to listen in on the beit midrash. Come and listen on the go, at home, or wherever you are. Hosted by Rabbi Avi Killip of the Hadar Institute.
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Bringing you recent lectures, classes, and programs from the Hadar Institute, Ta Shma is where you get to listen in on the beit midrash. Come and listen on the go, at home, or wherever you are. Hosted by Rabbi Avi Killip of the Hadar Institute.
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