Torah Cafe

In Judaism, in addition to a general Mitzvah to care for people in need, we have a specific Mitzvah to comfort mourners. Comforting mourners is a challenging Mitzvah because it requires us to support someone at their most difficult moments, often facing a loss, we've never experienced.

A fascinating class about the Mitzvah of comforting mourners.

Abraham's first son was Yishmael, born from his second wife Hagar. However, G-d rejected Yishmael as the future of Abraham's movement. Later Abraham was forced to send Yishmael away and he fell into an unholy life. Today many people (mostly Arabs) claim to be descendants of Yishmael.

What do our Jewish traditions say about Yishmael? What does he represent in Judaism?

The Torah opens the story of Abraham when he is 75 years old and G-d commands him to go to the land of Canaan. What happened for the first 75 years of Abraham's life?

A fascinating tale of the first 75 years of Abraham's life.

We believe that Judaism is not only about Jews. We Jews have a message to share with the world around us. A universal code of morality and values that we should encourage all humans to live by.

A fascinating discussion about the Jewish message to humanity.

Many people are afraid to have more children. They add to a already too large population competing for scarce resources. They increase the pollution and add to the CO2 destroying our planet. They are to expensive to raise and take too much energy. Throughout our culture we are encouraged to have as few children as possible.

The first of our 613 Commandments is not only that we must have children but also to have many. Is that really a good idea? Are we not afraid of the harmful results of irresponsibly having children?

What about people who cannot or did not have children? Are they missing this commandment? Do they have an alternative?

Each year on Sukkot for over 3,000 years, we have taken an Etrog along with three other plants to shake together on the festival. The Etrog is a very unusual fruit and obtaining a real Etrog each year was a challenge in many Jewish communities across the Jewish diaspora.

A discussion about the extraordinary Etrog and the other plants for Sukkot as well as the history of our people's use of this amazing fruit.

Today, Yom Kippur is marked by fasting and all-day prayer in the synagogue. when the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, Yom Kippur was marked by a unique service performed by the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest. The highlight of the service was when he entered the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant stood.

Today, we read in detail about the service in the ancient temple during our Yom Kippur prayers while mourning the loss of the Temple and praying for its restoration.

Kol Nidrei is for many the most important prayer of the year. However the prayer itself was once extremely controversial. Many Jewish scholars and rabbis called for removing the prayer, others made changes to it.

A fascinating history of the Kol Nidrei prayer and the controversy behind it.

We believe that G-d is our Creator and in our prayers often refer to Him as our father. However, on Rosh Hashanah, we mostly refer to G-d as our King.

What does it mean that G-d is a King? Is there an advantage to being a Monarch? How does G-d's role as King connect to Rosh Hashanah?

A fascinating discussion about G-d role as a king.

Poetry has always played a central role in Judaism. Jewish poetry began in the Tanach (the Hebrew scriptures), which contain the earliest known poetry. Later in the early Middle Ages, Jewish poets developed extensive liturgical poems that became central to our prayers and served as a model copied by Christian and Muslim poets.

A fascinating discussion about Piyyut, early Jewish poetry and how it influenced all subsequent poetry.

It is a great Mitzvah to do everything we can to free our fellow Jews who have been captured. Many Jewish communities maintained special funds for freeing captives and hostages. But should we always free captives at any price? Can we overpay? What if we are asked to exchange the captives for terrorists? What if the captives' lives are in danger? J

A fascinating class about the Jewish responses to the agonizing questions about freeing hostages.

Judaism allows for couple to go separate ways once their marriage reached an end. The process of Jewish divorce - Get in Hebrew - is among the most detailed and complex religious ceremonies in Judaism.

A fascinating overview of the detailed Jewish divorce ceremony.

Links to related classes

Beth Din - The Jewish court system https://open.spotify.com/episode/09KcwTo04tQSmpQlHNaVsX?si=zQkf-1STRWijimsTFQf0oA

The Aguna problem https://open.spotify.com/episode/7oVSHf15s3tWvomhmDgKnt?si=3ayHGUYWR3K2ElquMNkglg

From the beginning of time, people have been predicting the end-of-times, when the world as we know it will come to an end. Today, there are countless people who claim to know the signs that we are almost there.
Jews have always believed in the coming of Mashiach and the "end-of-times". But is that going to happen soon? Do we know when Mashiach will come and when history will end?

A fascinating discussion about the Jewish traditions regarding predicting the end-of-times.

Link to past episode about the End of Times https://open.spotify.com/episode/0R4X8w7NDAFscNpIYZLAAO?si=WpGJAtdkTQ6sxWbZfv9DQQ

The Torah forbids us from eating milk and meat together. What about fish and meat, fish and fowl, or even fish and milk?

A fascinating discussion about the rules of eating fish with meat or milk in Judaism.

Links to related episodes

Mixing Milk and Meat https://open.spotify.com/episode/5FtZuAhFtMbOLfpHhPf6IO?si=sMrC4igkTFie6GOQ8sWpxQ

What makes fish Kosher? https://open.spotify.com/episode/4NVIqPADTsRGf4S1E5XyQl?si=vfmlreIrT2uR3wPke4rqeg

The Shulchan Aruch https://open.spotify.com/episode/5gwgTVDqHl6bNOEnoLcJcB?si=lJ1QLKlURIWuR3cwqTev_w

An important part of the Temple service was the chopping and donating wood to the Temple for the fire on the Altar. This Mitzvah came with great celebrations and many families had designated days for wood donations. This Mitzvah is still celebrated today on the 15th of Av each year.

A fascinating discussion about the Wood Chopping Mitzvah, its celebrations, and the life changing impact it has on us today.

Josephus is our single most important source for the final decades of the Second Temple period. He was a former Jewish commander who surrendered to the Romans and later became a writer in the court of the Flavian emperors. Josephus wrote important books about the Jewish revolt, Jewish history, and Judaism that we still have today.
But can his account be trusted? Was Josephus a careful historian preserving the past, a political propagandist serving Rome, or something far more complicated?

In our personal lives and our world in general, there is an epic battle between good and evil. Each side is constantly battling to gain the upper hand. Who wins this battle?

Our own life experience and observations often suggest that evil is winning, but counterintuitively, the Rebbe explains why logically, in the long run good will always win

A fascinating discussion based on the teachings of the Rebbe about the epic battle between good and evil and how we can definitively show that good always wins. Links to related episodes

Why do bad things happen https://open.spotify.com/episode/7j8YTPU2TNaQRDacsrLspr?si=2kj04lNYRF6wcfqDkGYkDA

Do Jews Believe in Satan? https://open.spotify.com/episode/2bPGhW5ZxVANNIc8gGhL1H?si=dztRQvx7S8i1Biktg4iWRw

Can people be truly bad? https://open.spotify.com/episode/5wGuRasHfU3oXQJhdIZYtL?si=Rz31y0QRQAGqTT5YthozPg

The Battle of Two Souls https://open.spotify.com/episode/4B2WFOLWlop7Yb4742AY9X?si=EEVfTYLaRhOWxucsxZ5pwA

While historically, Jewish communities were organized and structured, the freedoms in the United States have made Jewish communities fractured and fragile. This created an open market for Judaism in the United States that never existed anywhere else.

How did Judaism in America adapt to this unusual community structure? What can guarantee Judaism's survival in this free open society?

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, the sixth Chabad Rebbe, was one of the most fascinating and impactful Jewish leaders of the early 20th century. The Rebbe began his leadership role as a teenager, spanning the final decades of the Russian Empire, World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Stalinist Soviet Union, World War II and finally in the United States during and immediately after the war.

A discussion about Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson and his fascinating life story.

One of the strangest stories in the Torah is when Balaam decided to go and curse Israel but G-d sent obstacles to disuade him from going. One such event was when Balaam hit his donkey and the donkey began to speak back to him. J

A fascinating discussion about the strange story of the talking donkey and the lessons for us today.