Belief is core to the religious experience yet many don't quite believe with conviction or don't know what it means to say that they do. In this session, we'll turn to the Torah of Rebbe Nachman as well as a modern midrash by Rivka Lubitch to unpack what's at the center of belief. What do we mean when we say that we believe, who gets to call themselves a believer, and can we find new definitions of faith that allow us to expand the circle of belief? Recorded at the Rabbinic Yeshiva Intensive, March 2024.

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RYI2024StrausbergBelievers.pdf

Of all the anthropomorphic images used to describe God in the Torah, one of the most richly developed is “the hand of God.” The image appears for the first time in the Book of Exodus, and then is reworked and nuanced in various ways throughout the rest of that book. Here in the Book of Deuteronomy, in Parashat Eikev, Moshe will draw on several of those earlier images in order to frame a new religious message for the people about to cross over into the Land.

In this session, we will look at one of the most controversial - and censored - prayers in our tradition: Aleinu. How are we meant to understand the lines in these prayers? Who are the enemies and how might we relate to those concepts today? Who censored the prayers - and how? This class will explore all these questions through various textual traditions of these prayers. Recorded at the Rabbinic Yeshiva Intensive, March 2024.

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RYI2024KaunferAleinu.pdf