We live in a vast, complex world. It’s beautiful, but wracked with devastation and suffering. Infinitesimal in the face of it all, one wonders how they could possibly make a difference. The first four words of Parshat Re’eh teach us that each individual’s presence does in fact have an impact on the wider community, and a single action can even tip the whole world toward good. Let’s choose to live like every single one of us matters, like the way we live can bring us closer to a healed, redeemed ...
Aug 30, 2022•18 min
As we prepare to bring our oldest to college, I feel for Moses, struggling to say goodbye to his own children, poised to enter the Promised Land on a part of the journey they must take without him. Somehow, amidst the confused, rambling contradictions of his farewell speech, Moses helps b’nai Yisrael remember what matters most, and reminds us just what we need to hear as well.
Aug 22, 2022•20 min
The Torah warns us against someone - maybe even someone very close to us - who might come try to entice us to worship other gods! But when we look a little closer at the commentators, we begin to wonder if the real enticement might be coming from… a higher source.
Aug 22, 2022•11 min
This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from August 18, 2022
Aug 19, 2022•41 min
The legends of the magical Clouds of Glory.
Aug 16, 2022•13 min
Stories from Rabbi Kasher’s early prayer days. A rabbinic list of ten types of prayer. And a prayer reframe from the Sfas Emes.
Aug 14, 2022•22 min
How knowing God is a revelation of ourselves.
Aug 11, 2022•12 min
Tisha b’Av is a day of communal grief-- we fast, lament and hold the memory of the greatest catastrophes the Jewish people have endured. The danger in revisiting the tragedies of generations past is that our rituals foster a distorted self-perception, a feeling of eternal victimization. Instead, we must remember because grief is an expression of love, because there is an urgent moral message in the stories of our suffering that we must hear today, and because we are drawn again and again, throug...
Aug 07, 2022•22 min
Who does Moses remember as his greatest enemies?
Aug 05, 2022•50 min
If Moses speaks for God and the People of Israel, what happens when he decides to speak for himself?
Aug 03, 2022•18 min
What’s the first step of a spiritual journey? According to the Me’or Einyaim (18th century Hasidic Master), it’s not a grand gesture or a dramatic departure. Instead, it’s the recognition that we’re disconnected, spiritually dehydrated and yearning for something more. Once that realization is acknowledged and felt, the journey has already begun. We’ll find the water we need.
Jul 31, 2022•14 min
Moses has a problem. This is an edited down recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly Parsha studies class from July 28, 2022.
Jul 28, 2022•44 min
The last stop in the itinerary of the Israelites' desert journey has a very strange name. And a heartbreaking story.
Jul 26, 2022•15 min
The Legend of Serah bat Asher. And a commandment we too often overlook.
Jul 24, 2022•20 min
This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha Studies class from July 21, 2022
Jul 21, 2022•1 hr 4 min
It's one of the most difficult problems in theology: does God know everything we're going to do, or do we have free will? This week, we consider an answer by Judaism's most deterministic thinker: Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner, the Mei HaShiloach, and a response by his most illustrious student.
Jul 19, 2022•18 min
Recovery and Bilaam’s addictive tendencies.
Jul 18, 2022•14 min
If Bilaam is really so bad, that brings us back to our original question - what is he doing in the Torah? What are we reading this bizarre story at all???
Jul 13, 2022•14 min
The Red Heifer. Supposedly the greatest mystery of the Torah. Our Sages have puzzled over it for centuries. But isn’t this just a distraction from the main events of Parshat Hukat: the deaths of Miriam and Aaron!
Jul 10, 2022•15 min
Every June, we turn our attention and love to the LGBTQ+ community at IKAR. For many years we have taken the opportunity during PRIDE month to stories from LGBTQ+ folks and their family members. We're excited to share a compilation of the past three year's stories.
Jun 30, 2022•1 hr 1 min
This week, the Angel of Death showed up twice.
Jun 29, 2022•15 min
“There were four judges in Sodom, and they were named for their actions: Shakrai, meaning liar, Shakrurai, habitual liar, Zayfai, forger, and Matzlei Dina, perverter of justice” (Babylonian Talmud). In our grief and rage for the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, it is clear that we are living through the return of Sodom. But, Sodom and subsequent corrupt societies were undermined and ultimately destroyed through clarity of conscience and determined action, both of which are urgently ne...
Jun 26, 2022•18 min
Ours is a tradition of stories. We see this from the flawed humanity of Adam and Eve through the tangle of relationships in Genesis and the struggle and redemption of Exodus, to the creative rabbinic interpretations of Midrash and Talmud, to the spiritually rooted Chasidic tales. Stories are essential to understanding one another and informing how we make sense of and choose to live in the world. Right now, we need to be telling and hearing our abortion stories.
Jun 24, 2022•42 min
Forty years in the desert?? Really?!?
Jun 22, 2022•11 min
The Israelites have begun complaining. They say they miss the meat and melons they had back in Egypt. Really?! After God freed them from slavery and is raining down manna from heaven?! These ungrateful wretches! Disgraceful. But, then again…are really they so different from us?
Jun 21, 2022•19 min
God gave us the law. Now we're giving it back.
Jun 17, 2022•56 min
Someone must have slipped something into my drink. I’m reading my Torah late one night and, suddenly, the letters start to run backwards...
Jun 15, 2022•17 min
Today's episode is a bit later than usual because of Shavuot.
Jun 09, 2022•12 min
Thoughts on the dangers and the blessings of flag-waving
Jun 07, 2022•16 min
In such a turbulent time we need to remember what love looks like. The unique mutual devotion of the biblical heroines Naomi and Ruth teaches us that our interpersonal relationships can have transformative and healing power — for us, our descendants, and the human community.
Jun 02, 2022•14 min
