Ta Shma

Nov 20 2024 614 ep. 26 mins 385
Ta Shma Podcast artwork

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.

  Religion & Spirituality
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R. Tali Adler on Parashat Hayyei Sarah: Unfulfilled Promises

Nov 20 2024 7 mins  
At the end of this week’s parashah, Avraham—who has been promised time and time again ownership over all the land of Canaan—owns nothing but a grave.When we read Avraham’s journey carefully, this ending may not surprise us. From the very beginning of Parashat Lekh Lekha, Avraham’s life is marked by fantastic, unbelievable promises, shortly followed by obstacles that make

R. Shai Held: Psalm for Monday

Nov 18 2024 46 mins  
The psalms attached liturgically to each day of the week are often mumbled over quickly, without much attention to their meaning. In this series, we'll engage in careful literary-theological readings of these psalms, looking at how various midrashim interpret the psalms, and bring new meaning to this part of our daily prayers. Key themes explored will include the idea that God crea

R. Tali Adler on Parashat Vayera: The God of Hagar

Nov 13 2024 6 mins  
There is a script for mothers of sick children. There are imperatives: do everything. Seek a second opinion, and a third, and a fourth. Learn to sleep sitting up. Show up to doctors appointments prepared with a binder the size of a local phonebook. Ask every question, pursue every option.And never, ever give up.

R. Shai Held: Psalm for Sunday

Nov 11 2024 50 mins  
The psalms attached liturgically to each day of the week are often mumbled over quickly, without much attention to their meaning. In this series, we'll engage in careful literary-theological readings of these psalms, looking at how various midrashim interpret the psalms, and bring new meaning to this part of our daily prayers. Key themes explored will include the idea that God crea

R. Tali Adler on Parashat Lekh Lekha: The Heir Who Might Have Been

Nov 06 2024 9 mins  
It’s possible that if things had been different, if things had gone as planned, that Yishmael, Avraham’s half-Egyptian son of a slave, might have been our ancestor instead of Yitzhak.

R. Ethan Tucker: From Parchment to Practice

Nov 04 2024 37 mins  
Last week Hadar celebrated the arrival of a newly commissioned and completed Sefer Torah, which was generously donated by the Schiller family in memory of Martin Schiller z”l. Rabbi Ethan Tucker’s address, focusing on the important and timeless elements of Torah scrolls, speaks directly to Hadar’s core values, while honoring the memory of Martin Schiller. Recorded in October

R. Tali Adler on Parashat Noah: Surviving the Flood

Oct 30 2024 6 mins  
We ask the wrong questions about the story of the Flood.We ask how God could do such a thing. We ask how a God who is good could destroy a world. We ask how a just God could ignore the difference between perpetrator and victim in His zeal to wipe the world clean. We ask how a loving God could abandon His creation.The right question, for anyone who knows the names Auschwitz, Treblin

Why Rain Comes From Above: A Conversation with Dr. Devora Steinmetz and Rabbanit Leah Sarna

Oct 28 2024 71 mins  
Dr. Devora Steinmetz joins Rabbanit Leah Sarna in conversation around the release of Dr. Steinmetz’s book Why Rain Comes From Above: Explorations in Religious Imagination (Hadar Press, 2024) They discuss the book and explore how imaginative engagement with religious texts and practices might transform our relationship to the world around us. Recorded in March 2024. Learn more and

R. Tali Adler on Parashat Bereishit: Home, Exile, and How to Wander Together

Oct 22 2024 8 mins  
Human beings don’t have to be told that we are living outside of paradise. It’s not just the fact that the world is not perfect: it’s that deep inside many of us, we feel a longing for a place that might be. Within each of us there is a longing for a home we have never fully found.Midrashically, this human experience of exile begins almost immediately, on the eighth day of cr

R. Micha'el Rosenberg on Simhat Torah: Joy and Trembling

Oct 21 2024 9 mins  
We tend to think of Shemini Atzeret and Simhat Torah, which conclude the somber and at times terrifying High Holiday season, as a time of tremendous joy. This year, on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ brutal attack and the terrible war that followed, the exultation we associate with these days will be impossibly incongruous with how many of us will feel. How are we supposed to