Tuesday Tel Aviv Torah: Encountering God - Avraham and the Birah Doleket

What happens the moment before God speaks to Avraham for the first time?

What is it that Avraham sees or does that convinces God to enter into dialogue with him, to create a covenant between them?

Does it provide us with any clues as to how we can encounter the divine in our own lives?

This week we studied a Midrash about Avraham that suggests different ways in which people can hear God's voice. The Shiur included guest appearances from Jewish philosopher Maimonides, English poet Wordsworth, Talmudic heretic Elisha Ben Abuya and author of ‘The God gene’.

Click here for the source sheet.
Click here for the audio recording.

Jerusalem Shiur & Tuesday Tel Aviv Torah: Between Lag BaOmer & Shavuot

Both Lag Ba'Omer and Shavuot provide ideas on how we should (and should not) learn Torah.

In preparation for the festival, this week looked at some famous stories from the Gemara in order to explore questions revolving around the authority of the Rabbis to radically re-read text, how we should transfer tradition from one generation to the other, and maintaining the balance between arguing for truth on the one hand, and becoming cruel and ambivalent towards others on the other.

Click here for the source sheet.

Click here for the audio recording of the Jerusalem Shiur (90 mins)

Click here for the audio recording of the Tuesday Tel Aviv Torah Shiur (60 mins).

Tuesday Tel Aviv Torah: The Theological Significance of the Holocaust

The final week of the mini-series on reward and punishment looked at the question of the Shoah .

It began by studying the disagreement as to whether the Shoah constituted a unique event. Following this, we looked at the views of different theologians – from those who view it as punishment for sins (such as the Satmar Rebbe) to those who claim it portends the Death of God (such as Richard Rubenstein), as well as lots of positions in between (Eliezer Berkovits, Emil Fackenheim, Elie Wiesel and Irving Greenberg.)

Click here for an audio recording.

Click here for the source sheet.

Tuesday Tel Aviv Torah: Responding to Tragedy

Having spent the last 2 weeks looking at why bad things happen to good people, this week we focused on our response to suffering and tragedy (the what now).

Through studying and discussing a wide range of positions – from Job, to saintly Rabbi Akiva, arch-Talmudic heretic Elisha Ben Abuya, Hasidic master Levi of Berditchev and Auschwitz survivor and psychologist Victor Frankl – we tried to better understand the tapestry of opinion that makes up the Jewish tradition.

Click here for the audio recording.

Click here for the source sheet.

Comments welcome

Jerusalem Shiur: When Reality and Tradition Clash

Click here for the audio recording. Click here for the source sheet.

I would rather tell you a story. It’s about a man who stumbles in his prayers. Day after day, every time he is about to say אהבה רבה אהבתנו [with a great love You have loved us] he must stop. He Must.

Every word turns into an obstacle. He feels a shadow enveloping his gaze and weighing on his breath. He feels pain and the pain makes him sad, profoundly sad, and his sadness overwhelms him with memories and nostalgic images and tunes, bringing him back a vanished world, his childhood, and the fervently innocent prayers of that childhood. His pain increases and, for a moment, he feels trapped. No matter what he would do, what he would say, it would be a lie, a betrayal…the existing prayers are inadequate, or to use a modern cliché, irrelevant.

How is one to proclaim and extol divine justice, divine mercy in the century after Majdanek and Treblinka? אהבה רבה and Aushwitz? חמלה גדולה ויתרה [much pity and compassion] and Belsen?

How can one say these words without turning them into lies, into blasphemy?

How can we pronounce words that have been denied before our own eyes?

A thousand communities uprooted and עמך אהבת [You loved Your people] ?

One million Jewish children massacred, some of them thrown into the flames alive and אתה בחרתנו מכל העמים? [You chose us from amongst all the peoples] (Elie Wiesel)

Tuesday Tel Aviv Torah: The Question of Evil in the World

This week, we continued to discuss what Jewish sources have to say about reward and punishment, the question of evil, and the role of God in the world.

Click here for the audio recording. Click here for the source sheet.

Lessons from the Shoah and our Psychological Legacy

We spent part of our morning yesterday at Reut standing in silence for the victims and discussing personal stories.

Of those who saw the danger early and left.

Of those who stayed yet survived against the odds.

Of those who stayed and didn’t.

And of the type of psychological legacy they've left us. After all, most of us come from families who were either paranoid enough to leave Europe before the unspeakable horrors of the war, or traumatized enough by living through them.

There is a famous story that in 2003 Israeli pilots (descendents of Holocaust survivors) flew F15 fighter jets over Auschwitz in commemoration of the victims.

Less well known is the response of the Auschwitz museum which criticized the plan arguing the site was "a place of silence and concentration" and that the demonstration of military might was an "entirely inappropriate way to commemorate the victims."

In many ways, that disagreement reflects different lessons that can be taken from the Shoah.

For many in Israel, Holocausts happen when people are weak. To prevent their recurrence we must ensure our strength (thus the F15s).

For many in Europe, Holocausts happens when countries are too strong (and nationalistic). In order to prevent their recurrence, we must curb our strength (and sovereignty).

Another story I thought about yesterday involves the family of former MK and head of the Jewish Agency Avram Burg. Having lived in Hebron for seven generations, half of them were brutally murdered in the Arab riots of 1929. The other half were saved by their Arab landlord.

Ever since, the family has argued over who is the 'genuine' Arab – the one who killed his family or the one who saved them.

Meanwhile, the best article I read relating to Yom Hashoah came from Yair Lapid, son of survivor and former MK Tommy Lapid. Discussing the day, Lapid junior argued that "The Holocaust dismantled everything human beings knew about themselves, and then taught us two unforgettable lessons"

"The first one is that we must survive at any price, that we can't rely on the world to protect us…that we must always prepare for the worst case scenario, because otherwise it will materialize."

"The second one is that we must be moral."

Interestingly enough, the national commemoration service at Yad Vashem reflected both ideas.

The survivors spoke about the importance of treating humans with respect.

The politicians – Bibi, Barak and Peres to a man - discussed the Iranian threat.

What none of our leaders seemed able to discuss was the question Lapid termed the biggest challenge of all - what to do when these two lessons contradict each other, when ensuring our existence at all costs means carrying out morally questionable acts.

Yom Hashoah thus raises more questions than answers.

Is the archetypal 'goy' he who stood by as we were slaughtered, or he who put his family's life on the line to save us?

Should we enhance our strength, or curb it?

Emphasize security or empathy?

Become particularists or universalists?

Distrust the world, or open our hearts (and doors) to the stranger?

And how can we – with our questionable psychological legacy – authentically and honestly engage with these questions and work out the correct balance between them?