Mining The Riches Of The Parsha

Kohelet is filled with remarkably practical wisdom about how to live. Today we look closely at several more of these verses and ask what they might teach us about living more appreciatively, wisely, and deliberately. But one verse from Kohelet I will never forget. Years ago, I took my oral examination for Semichah - Rabbinic Ordination. The rabbi examining me was intimidating, and the exam did not go well. At the end, he gave me his verdict in such an oblique and cryptic way that I walked out not knowing whether I had passed or failed. Only later did I realize that the key to understanding what he had told me was a verse in Kohelet. I had passed - barely. I can still remember the relief and exhilaration of that moment. I could not have known then how consequential that barely-passed examination would be for the course of my life. Sometimes we study a verse of Torah. And sometimes, unexpectedly, a verse of Torah becomes part of our own story. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

On the intermediate Shabbat of Sukkot, we read Kohelet - Ecclesiastes - traditionally attributed to King Solomon and one of the Biblical books scholars call Wisdom Literature. Kohelet can be difficult, provocative, and sometimes unsettling. But again and again, Solomon stops us with remarkably practical wisdom about how to live: appreciate what you have while you have it, don't waste the days you are given, and pay attention to the kind of person you are becoming. Today we look closely at several of those verses. None offers a complicated philosophy. Instead, they remind us of truths about life we probably already know - and somehow keep forgetting. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

This evening we explore the life-long connection Leonard Cohen had to Yom Kippur, through his music and his writing. We provide a new understanding of the central prayer, Unesaneh Tokef, which for many is frightening and harsh. Partially inspired by Cohen's last interview, we can understand this prayer as expressing the joy of God's loving intimacy, and the control we have to be better. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Moshe ends his life with one of the hardest declarations in the Torah: HaTzur Tamim Po'alo - God's work is perfect. "All His ways are just, a faithful God who does no wrong." But what happens when what we see makes those words almost impossible to say? Last night I watched episodes 7 and 8 of Fauda, Season 5, its dramatic recreation of October 7. I was shattered by what I saw. And this morning, Moshe's words are much harder for me to hear. Judaism does not ask us to pretend otherwise. Abraham challenged God. Moshe challenged God. Jeremiah and Job challenged God. For thousands of years, Jews have refused to surrender the question - even as we have refused to surrender our faith. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reminds us that this is one of the remarkable patterns of Jewish history. Again and again, after catastrophe, we have emerged shaken, scarred, limping - and begun again, rededicating ourselves to our mission and our faith. I cannot reconcile everything I saw last night with HaTzur Tamim Po'alo. I cannot explain how God's ways are perfect when the world can contain such evil. But perhaps faith does not begin when the contradiction disappears. Perhaps faith is what allows us to live with the contradiction - to question, to protest, to grieve, and still to trust. This Shabbat we will hear Moshe say that God is perfect and just. After everything we have seen, those words can be terribly hard to say. But we will. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Hope sounds like something you either have or you don't. But scientists have discovered something remarkable: hope can be defined, measured - and increased. In a fascinating conversation with Daniel Gordis, oncologist Dr. Benjamin Corn tells two stories that changed the way he understood hope. After more than 30 years practicing and teaching radiation oncology, Corn came to see hope not simply as an emotion or an encouraging word, but as something we can study and deliberately strengthen. And the tools developed through Life's Door are now available to people facing cancer and other profound challenges anywhere in the world. But there is another part of Corn's story that moves me deeply. He says this work could only have developed as it did after he and his family made Aliyah. Hope is woven into the Israeli experience - so deeply that our national anthem is HaTikvah, "The Hope." At a time when Israel itself faces enormous difficulties, something rooted deeply in its soul is being offered to the world: not simply a message to be hopeful, but practical tools that can help us become more hopeful. Life's Door: https://lifesdoor.org/ Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

This evening we sharpen the question of why we don't blow Shofar when the first day of Rosh Hashanah is Shabbat (like this year), adding to the difficulty in three levels. Then we present an approach based on the novel "Paradise" by Toni Morrison. The motto, "Beware the Furrow of His Brow" is what we refer to as proclaiming God as Melech, the sovereign whose laws must be fulfilled, while taking no chance for a mistake. According to Rabbi Meilech Biderman, the Tifrach bus driver learned this lesson the hard way. May the merit of our not blowing Shofar this Shabbat, stand in our stead for a happy, healthy, and sweet New Year. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Rosh Hashanah asks us to have some difficult conversations with God - about accountability, expectations, disappointments, and the people we hope to become in the year ahead. But Judaism doesn't send us into those conversations cold. First comes Ellul. The letters of Ellul are famously understood as an acronym for Ani L'Dodi V'Dodi Li - "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." Before Rosh Hashanah confronts us with judgment and accountability, Ellul gives us an entire month to establish something more fundamental: God loves us. That changes how everything that follows is heard. Accountability within a loving relationship is different from judgment delivered at a distance. The difficult conversations of Rosh Hashanah are not evidence that God has rejected us. They take place precisely because the relationship matters. And perhaps that is a model for every relationship that matters to us. Before telling someone what disappointed you, what needs to change, or what you hope for from them, make sure they know something first: I love you. Then the difficult conversation can be heard for what it is - not a threat to the relationship, but an expression of how much the relationship matters. As 5786 comes to a close, I have deep gratitude for each of you who gives me the privilege of studying together. I wish you, your family, and our entire community a New Year of good health, security, spiritual growth, and blessing. Shana Tova! Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Why do we still fast over the assassination of Gedalyah more than 2,500 years later? After the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of most of the Jewish People, Gedalyah was appointed governor over the small Jewish population that remained in the Land of Israel. His murder by another Jew was not only a political assassination - its aftermath led to the collapse of that remaining Jewish community and an even more complete rupture between the Jewish People and their Land. But Gedalyah had been warned that someone intended to kill him. He refused to believe the accusation - and failed to protect himself. Our Sages derive from this tragedy a remarkably subtle principle: when we hear something damaging about another person, we should not accept it as true. But we should take seriously the possibility that it might be true and take reasonable precautions. Rabbi Yisroel Reisman illustrates the other side of this principle with a wonderful story about two women and a box of cookies - and the anguish caused by assuming we know something that we really don't. Tzom Gedalyah teaches us to hold two difficult ideas at once: don't rush to judge another person, but don't ignore a warning either. We can protect ourselves without condemning someone before we know the truth. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

On Rosh Hashanah, we go to a body of flowing water and recite the words of the prophet Michah, asking God to cast our sins into the depths of the sea. What exactly are we asking God to do? Surely we cannot simply throw away what we have done. The Torah reading for the first day of Rosh Hashanah offers an answer. In the story of Hagar and Yishmael, Rashi highlights the principle of Ba'asher Hu Sham - God judges a person as he is now, in this moment. Our past matters. We remain accountable for our sins and mistakes, and Teshuvah requires us to confront and correct them. But what we have done need not become who we are. That is the extraordinary possibility embodied by Tashlich. Teshuvah is not pretending I didn't do it. Teshuvah is refusing to believe that because I did it, I must always be that person. Our sins can be cast away. They need not define us forever. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Prayer doesn't always have to sound like what we think prayer is supposed to sound like. I wish I prayed more often in my own words - informally, intimately, directly to God, saying what I actually think and feel. Three very different writers help me imagine what that might sound like: Rainer Maria Rilke, wondering not only what we need from God but what we might offer God; Regina Spektor, speaking to God with both intimacy and struggle; and Hanna Yerushalmi, expressing the extraordinary feeling of being personally known and cherished by God. As we approach the High Holidays and enter some of the most ancient and structured prayers of the Jewish year, perhaps these very different voices can help us find our own voice within those prayers - and outside them. The words don't always have to sound like prayer. They have to allow us to speak to God personally, intimately, and genuinely. Thanks to my beloved, creative, spectacular cousin, Judy Katz, for inspiring this. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

We shouldn't walk into something holy unprepared. And we certainly shouldn't walk into Rosh Hashanah cold. Selichot is our preparation. At its heart is an astonishing passage in the Talmud: God promises to forgive the Jewish People when they do this prayer - the 13 Attributes of Mercy. The beautiful Piyutim of Selichot surround and lead us repeatedly back to these words, placing God's mercy, compassion, and forgiveness at the center of our preparation. But remarkably, we cannot do this alone. The 13 Attributes require a minyan. Sivan Rahav Meir points to the tens of thousands of Jews of every kind who gather at midnight at the Kotel for Selichot - perhaps the greatest expression of Jewish unity in the world today. We prepare personally for Rosh Hashanah, but we approach God's mercy together. Rabbi Shlomo Aviner reminds us of the Zohar's teaching that holiness requires preparation. Selichot gives us that opportunity now, before we stand before God on Rosh Hashanah. Don't walk in cold. Take a deep breath - and fill your lungs with holiness. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Selichot can be studied. We can examine their words, their structure, and the Biblical events on which they draw. And we will. But before we study Selichot, I think we need to feel them. Beginning Saturday night, we enter a different kind of prayer - more vulnerable, more urgent, more deeply pleading for God's mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. Understanding the words matters. But we also need to enter the emotional and spiritual world those words are trying to create. For me, Eitan Katz's singing of "L'Maancha" does exactly that. In just two lines from Selichot, I hear the essence of what we are reaching for throughout this entire High Holiday season. So today I offer a brief introduction - and then Eitan Katz's beautiful performance - as a way to prepare ourselves not merely to say Selichot, but to enter Selichot. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

This evening we discuss the reassurance Moshe gives to the Jewish People in his last speech to them, that is spite of all the mistakes and failures of the past 40 years, they stand today, together, before God. Rabbi Zeff Leff explains that while as individuals each of us is directly accountable to God, as a Klal, the entity of the Jewish People, which is expressed by "Kulchem" - together, is eternal. We see this is the narrative of Elisha and the Shunamite woman, who declines the prophets offer of help, as "In the midst of my people I dwell." Then we analyze the last two Mitzvot of the Torah, Hakhel and writing a Torah, the two ways in which we are promised eternity as a People, collectively and individually. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Our rabbis imagine a remarkable conversation before God creates human beings. Knowing what we would be capable of - cruelty, sin, rebellion, and failure - some of the angels argue that humanity should never be created. God creates us anyway, with the freedom to choose good or evil. Why? Our rabbis point to Isaiah's description of God's extraordinary patience. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains that God gives us another chance, and then another - not because our failures don't matter, but because God refuses to believe that our failures define who we can become. Rashi finds that same message in the opening words of this week's Parsha, Nitzavim. After forty years filled with sins, rebellions, and terrible mistakes, Moshe tells the Jewish people: Atem Nitzavim Hayom - "You are standing here today." After everything, here you still stand. God has not given up on you. That is an extraordinary message as we approach Rosh Hashanah. We may look back at promises we didn't keep, changes we didn't make, and mistakes we repeated yet again, and begin to wonder whether we really can become different. But if God still believes we can choose differently, perhaps we should too. God hasn't given up on us. Why should we? Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Sixteen religious Israeli soldiers refused an operational mission in Gaza because a female paramedic would accompany them in their armored vehicle. Their brigade rabbi had permitted it. They refused anyway. The mission was canceled, the soldiers were punished - and prominent religious and political voices defended them. Daniel Gordis sees something much larger in this incident, and so do I. The Dati Leumi world with which I identify has built something extraordinary: a community deeply committed to Torah that also serves, leads and sacrifices for the State of Israel. But what happens when increasingly extreme voices claim that greater religious stringency makes them more authentically Jewish - even when responsible Halachic authority says otherwise? What happens when extremism starts calling itself Halacha? The Mishnah and Talmud have a remarkably harsh term for precisely this danger: Chasid Shoteh - a "pious fool." One example is a man who allows a woman to drown rather than compromise his supposed religious standards by saving her. Sometimes what looks like greater piety is actually a betrayal of Torah and its values. And when religious extremism presents itself as authentic Judaism, those committed to Torah cannot afford to remain silent. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

You know the melody. You may have sung it hundreds - perhaps thousands - of times. But do you know who wrote it, and how Jews around the world came to know it? Michael Feldstein tells the remarkable story of Cantor Moshe Nathanson, who wanted to create a melody that would get Jewish children at summer camp to sing Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after a meal. The children learned it, loved it, and carried it with them. From one summer camp, Nathanson's melody traveled into Jewish homes, schools, camps and communities around the world. Today, countless Jews sing his tune without knowing his name. But Nathanson's story is about more than one extraordinarily successful melody. He understood something important about Jewish continuity: teach Judaism to children in a form they will love, and they may carry it farther than you ever imagined. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

As the Jewish people prepare to enter Israel, the Torah introduces a new covenant of responsibility: Arvut - the source of Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh Lazeh. Every Jew is responsible for every other Jew. That sounds magnificent. But it is also frightening. The story of Achan and Israel's disastrous defeat at Ai demonstrates that another person's wrongdoing can become my responsibility if I could have tried to prevent it, challenge it, or repair it. And Arvut reaches even further: spiritually, my obligation to perform a Mitzvah is not entirely fulfilled as long as another Jew who wants to perform that mitzvah still needs my help to do so. The word itself reveals what is being asked of us. An Arev is a guarantor - someone who willingly assumes responsibility for another person's debt. Economically, it makes little sense: there is no upside, only risk. Proverbs even warns against it. But we do it for family. We do it for people we love. That is Arvut. Your obligations become, in some measure, my obligations. Your failures concern me. Your success concerns me. Every Jew is a guarantor for every other Jew. Magnificent, frightening, and momentous. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Modern weather forecasting began with a remarkable insight: knowing the weather where you are isn't enough. You need to know what's happening somewhere else - because that weather may be heading toward you. Today, weather data is collected from more than 1,800 locations around the world, twice a day, helping make forecasts about 85% accurate. But the system only works because everyone shares. Even countries at war with one another freely exchange weather data, because no country can see enough of the atmosphere on its own. By giving away information that helps others, each country receives something far more valuable in return: a more accurate picture of the weather that none of them could produce alone. That is a powerful model for Jewish community. We create synagogues and communities so others will have places to pray, learn, gather, celebrate, and support one another. But in building those places for others, we create something we desperately need ourselves. Weather forecasting demonstrates a remarkable truth about life: when everyone contributes what they have, everyone receives something that no one could have created alone. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

A farmer sees the first fig beginning to ripen on his tree. He marks it as Bikkurim - his first fruit, to be brought to God. It takes only a moment. Almost no effort, no expense, no sacrifice. And yet when that farmer eventually reaches Jerusalem, something remarkable happens. Important people come out to greet him. Shopkeepers interrupt their work and stand in his honor. Why does Jerusalem make such a fuss over an ordinary farmer carrying a piece of fruit? The great Chasidic teacher Rabbi Yerachmiel Yisrael Yitzchak Danziger, the Yismach Yisrael, sees a profound message in that extraordinary welcome: what looks small to us may be enormously precious in God's eyes. We constantly measure our good deeds by how difficult they were, how much they cost, how many people noticed, or how much difference we think they made. Bikkurim teaches us to use a different measure. A small mitzvah, a small kindness, a seemingly insignificant good act - none of them is insignificant. If God cherishes them, we should learn to cherish them too. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

This evening we investigate the famous phrase referring to Israel as "a land flowing with milk and honey." To whom was it said first (you may be surprised), and what does it mean, according to Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom. As we approach the High Holidays, the time when more people come to synagogues to pray than any other time of year, we look at the social aspect of prayer, and share insights into how we should act toward each other to make prayer more meaningful for all of us. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Dr. Seuss kept a file he called "Noble Failures" - ideas that hadn't worked, but that he wasn't willing simply to throw away. The Torah does something strikingly similar with the stories we tell about ourselves. The farmer bringing his first fruits begins with Arami Oved Avi - taking us back to idolatry, wandering, vulnerability, and weakness. At the Seder, we do it again: the Talmud tells us to begin the magnificent story of the Exodus from our lowest point. Why would we deliberately preserve the parts of our story we'd rather edit out? Rabbi Ariel Rackovsky points toward a powerful answer. Judaism doesn't romanticize our failures, but neither does it erase them. We remember where we went wrong because what happened next matters - what we learned, what we repaired, and who we became. As Rosh Hashanah approaches, we don't stand before God pretending the failures aren't part of our story. We ask what we have done with them. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

The Mitzvot of Bikkurim and Maaser both ask a farmer to express gratitude. But they do so in strikingly different ways. Bikkurim - bringing the first fruits - is marked by procession, declaration, and communal celebration. Maaser is quieter and more private. Why? Rabbi JJ Schachter points to a crucial difference in timing. Bikkurim comes at the beginning of the harvest, when the farmer holds only the first fruit and most of the harvest is still a promise. He celebrates with faith in what is yet to come. Maaser comes at the end, when the harvest has been gathered and the farmer can look at what actually fills his silo and give thanks for what he has received. As we approach Rosh Hashanah, we need both ways of seeing. We look back at the year ending with gratitude for what we actually received - the blessings safely gathered into our lives. But we also look forward with the faith of Bikkurim, recognizing the first shoots of possibility even before we know what they will become. On Rosh Hashanah, we don't merely inventory the full silos of the year ending. We also look for the first fruits of the year beginning. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

The 2018 massacre at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue changed the way Jewish communities across North America think about security. Locks, cameras, guards, training, and constant vigilance have become necessary parts of Jewish communal life. But they come with another cost beyond the enormous financial one: What happens when the place that is supposed to welcome people begins by treating every stranger with suspicion? Rabbi Steven Abraham argues that we are asking the wrong question when we debate whether our synagogues should become fortresses or remain open and welcoming like the tent of Abraham and Sarah. They must be both. The people protecting our synagogues need to be trained not only to recognize danger, but also to recognize and welcome the human being standing at the door - even when security requires questions, caution, or additional vetting. Because we don't protect synagogues simply to keep buildings safe. We protect them so we can keep the doors open - so Jews can pray, learn, celebrate, gather, welcome strangers, and live joyous Jewish lives inside. The purpose of synagogue security is not security. It is Jewish life. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

The Torah prohibits plowing with an ox and a donkey together. Why? Tosafot offers a remarkable explanation: because the two animals digest their food differently, the donkey may see the ox still chewing and imagine that the ox was given more food. The donkey wasn't actually deprived - but it may feel that it was. That means the Torah's concern for an animal goes remarkably far. It includes not only physical suffering, but even emotional anguish caused by something the animal merely imagines. The farmer didn't intend to cause pain. He didn't actually treat the donkey unfairly. And yet the donkey's experience still matters. Rabbi Aharon of Barcelona takes the lesson from animals to people. "I didn't mean anything by it" isn't always enough. Something completely innocent to me - boasting about what I have, displaying my good fortune, even an offhand remark - may hurt someone whose circumstances I haven't considered. We cannot protect everyone from every uncomfortable feeling, but the Torah asks us to cultivate the sensitivity to notice how our words and actions may be experienced by someone else. The Torah cares about something an animal only imagines. If even that matters, how carefully should we treat the human heart? Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

This evening we consider why the nations of Ammon and Moav are detrimental to Jewish families. And we explore the lesson from Paul Reichman (I think it was Paul) about wealth and Jewish law. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

IDF combat paramedics are the people everyone else depends on when the worst happens. They see terrible injuries, make life-and-death decisions under unimaginable pressure, and inevitably wonder afterward: Did I do everything I could? Did I make the right decision? Could I have saved someone I couldn't save? But who helps the medics? Elad Ariely and Yotam Cohen, two former IDF paramedics, recognized a critical need that wasn't being met. So they created Always Beside You - the Home for Military Paramedics, bringing medics together so they can discover that they are not alone, while providing emotional support and other forms of help. They built what was missing. Daniel Gordis introduces us to Elad and Yotam and their work. Their story is about much more than combat medicine. For me, it is another remarkable example of this generation of young Israelis: they see a critical need that isn't being met, recognize that someone needs to do something about it - and then become the people who do. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, who passed away on Thursday, was my friend and colleague. He is one of the holiest and most inspiring people I ever met. I share my conversations with him immediately after his debilitating stroke in July, 2011, when he could communicate only by blinking, and in the weeks and months after. I also share some of his writing, poetry, and teaching, which he miraculously continued until last week. Ronnie deeply affected and inspired me, his family, his congregation, all who knew and loved him, and the millions more who learned and will learn about him. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

God repeatedly tells us: Don't be afraid. But does faith really mean that we should no longer experience fear? Psalm 27 - which we begin reciting in Ellul - presents a much more complicated picture. It opens with extraordinary confidence: “The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear?” Yet as the Psalm unfolds, certainty gives way to vulnerability, anxiety, and longing. As Rivka Kahan writes, David expresses both “the conviction and vulnerability of the believer.” Faith and fear, it seems, can exist at the same time. Abarbanel goes further: sometimes fear is necessary. The person going into battle should be afraid - and then allow faith to guide them through that fear. And King Solomon teaches that fear of falling short can become a force for growth. That may be part of what the Shofar is meant to awaken during Ellul: not fear that paralyzes us, but fear that pushes us to examine ourselves, change what needs changing, and approach Rosh Hashanah better prepared. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

This evening we explore wider and more subtle forms of bribes, which the Torah forbids for judges, and for everyone making a decision; flattery, personal connection to the question at hand, etc. As we enter the month of Ellul, the last month of the year before Rosh Hashanah, we should start what every good business does, an audit - financial (in terms of Tzedaka) and spiritual - our losses and gains, income and expenditures, successes and failures. And then use what we learn from this year to plan for the coming year: what needs more attention, improvement, and effort. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

A young woman at summer camp volunteered for a difficult job no one wanted - cleaning an especially messy bunk. When she finished, her counselor told her something she never forgot: your reward is that you got to do it. Years later, she still teaches that lesson to her own children. We usually think the reward for doing good comes afterward - appreciation, recognition, gratitude, or some other benefit. But perhaps the deepest reward is already contained in the act itself: knowing that we did something good and worthwhile. Sivan Rahav Meir finds this idea in the opening of Parshat Re'eh: “See, I place before you today blessing and curse.” What is the blessing? That we listen to God's commandments. Perhaps the Torah is teaching us that doing what God wants is not merely the path to the blessing. It is the blessing. That changes everything. If our satisfaction depends on being noticed or thanked, we have handed other people control over our happiness. But if the reward is knowing that we helped someone, did what was right, and did something God wants from us, then no one can diminish it or take it away. The best reward for doing good is doing good. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Rabbi Menachem Shach once told a young man who had lost his way a remarkable story from his own life. Something that seemed terribly wrong at the time ultimately saved his life. R. Shach had learned what it means to place yourself wholeheartedly in God's hands - even when you cannot understand where God is leading you. That is one understanding of the Torah's command, Tamim Tihyeh Im Hashem Elokecha - "Be wholehearted with the Lord your God." Ramban understands it as wholehearted trust in God. But R. Aharon Lichtenstein points to two very different interpretations, from Ibn Ezra and Rambam, revealing more than one authentic way to fulfill this extraordinary command. And perhaps that is precisely what some of us need to hear. There is more than one way to come close to God. We do not all need the same religious personality or the same spiritual path. But we do need to find and cultivate the paths that allow us to reach toward God - with trust, commitment, and our whole heart. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

What happens when judges discover that a decision they reached - properly, carefully, and according to the evidence before them - was terribly wrong? The Torah's law of Eidim Zomemim - plotting witnesses - presents an extraordinary case. A second pair of witnesses establishes that the original witnesses could not possibly have seen what they claimed to have seen. The Torah prescribes a unique punishment: the false witnesses are subject to the punishment they sought to impose on the defendant. But Rabbi Henoch Singer points to a deeper lesson. The new testimony doesn't only expose the original witnesses. It forces the judges to confront the fact that testimony they had accepted as valid was false - and that their judgment could have cost an innocent person his life. Their response is a model of humility for judges, leaders, and every one of us. They don't defend the earlier decision simply because it was theirs. When new evidence establishes that they got it terribly wrong, they act to correct it. An ancient and highly technical rule of Torah evidence thus teaches something urgently relevant to our own lives: being responsible doesn't mean never getting it wrong. It means having the humility to recognize when we did - and the courage to make it right. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Last time we asked whether admitting a mistake makes a leader - or any of us - weaker. Why does Moshe repeatedly remind the Jewish people throughout Devarim of where they failed, while also speaking openly about his own failures? Daniel Gordis recently did something that is much harder than pointing out where other people went wrong. Prompted by a news story in Israel, he turned the question on himself: Was I wrong? He revisited four contentious issues on which he had taken positions in recent years and seriously considered whether he had misunderstood something, failed to think deeply enough, or dismissed people whose arguments deserved more consideration. That may be exactly what Moshe is teaching us. Remembering our mistakes is not about guilt, humiliation, or proving that the other side was right. It is about learning. The people most in need of asking "Was I wrong?" may be those of us most certain that we weren't. If we refuse to question our own conclusions, we give ourselves very little chance of becoming wiser - and every chance of repeating our mistakes. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

This evening we follow from the verse to the dramatic application of not creating Machlokes, based on our being children of God. We analyze our requirement of Dirshu, to seek God both in place and in time, and the promise God makes to us when we do so. And we uncover the reference at the beginning of our Parsha, Re'eh, to announcing Rosh Chodesh Ellul this Shabbat (it will fall this coming Thursday and Friday), and to Rosh Hashanah, giving us a month to prepare for this auspicious day. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

The Book of Devarim keeps returning to the mistakes of the past. Moshe reminds the Jewish people where they failed - and he openly recalls where he failed as well. Why would the Torah end this way? Today we look at several examples and ask why this theme dominates the Torah's final book. Is it about guilt, blame, or shame? Or is something much deeper taking place? Tomorrow we'll uncover an answer with profound implications for leadership, personal growth, and anyone who has ever had to say, "I was wrong." Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

One verse tells us to do what is right and good. A few chapters later, the Torah tells us to do what is good and right. Is that just a change in wording, or is it teaching us something essential about the kind of people God wants us to become? Rashi offers two very different explanations for the relationship between "right" and "good." At first, they seem almost impossible to reconcile. Then Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch shows how they fit together into a profound vision of Jewish character - one that demands more than simply following the rules. A humorous sign on a receptionist's desk illustrates the difference between being right and being good. A remarkable story about Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach shows what it looks like to live that ideal. Can you be right and still fail to be good? This week's parsha gives a surprising answer. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Most people assume that compassion and economic prosperity pull in opposite directions. The Torah says they don't. God's design presents an economic vision built on interest-free loans, debt cancellation, and other commandments that seem, at first glance, to be acts of compassion alone. But economist Dr. Meir Tamari argues that they are also sound economic policy. By helping people remain independent instead of trapped in poverty, the Torah reduces the need for charity, preserves dignity and self-worth, strengthens the entire economy, and creates greater prosperity for everyone - rich and poor alike. God's commandments are not only morally right. They are designed to help human beings and human societies flourish. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

One of the greatest medical breakthroughs of the twentieth century began in a place few people have heard of. In the mid 1960s, Freedom House Ambulance Service in Pittsburgh trained Black men from the Hill District to become the world's first modern paramedics. Instead of simply transporting patients, they brought advanced medical care directly to the scene, saving lives and laying the foundation for the emergency medical systems and CPR training we rely on today. Despite their extraordinary success, they faced suspicion, hostility, and racism. When the city adopted their model, many of the very men who had built it lost their jobs. This is more than a forgotten chapter of medical history. It is a reminder that when prejudice prevents people from contributing their talents, everyone loses. Freedom House didn't just save thousands of lives in Pittsburgh. Their work changed emergency medicine around the world. Their legacy continues every time an ambulance arrives with trained and equipped paramedics ready to treat a patient before reaching the hospital. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

The Mitzvah of Tzedakah is often translated as "charity," but that misses its deeper meaning. Tzedakah is about justice, responsibility, and caring for another human being with dignity. In this week's Parsha, the Torah introduces the Mitzvah with an unexpected word: Laymor - "to say." Why begin a commandment about opening our hands with a word about speaking? Perhaps because the greatest gifts are not only the ones we place in someone's hand, but also the words we place in their heart. Words can restore dignity, awaken hope, and give another person the strength to keep going. A remarkable story about the Tosher Rebbe, Rabbi Meshulum Lowy, shows how a few carefully chosen words transformed the life of a young man in crisis. It is a powerful reminder that the most valuable thing we give another person may not be our money at all. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

You can't describe God. Judaism insists on that. So why does Anim Zemirot spend an entire poem trying? Written about a thousand years ago and still sung in many synagogues at the end of Shabbat morning services, Anim Zemirot wrestles with one of the deepest questions in Jewish thought: How can finite human beings speak meaningfully about the Infinite? Its vivid images and metaphors are not literal descriptions of God, but attempts to bring us closer to a reality that ultimately lies beyond words. This is what we do when the most important realities in life are bigger than language. In this video we explore the poetry, theology, and profound yearning of Anim Zemirot. Sometimes love speaks even when it knows language will never be enough. I also share my favorite performance of this remarkable Piyut by Ishay Ribo and Motty Steinmetz. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

The Torah explicitly commands one Brachah - Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after eating a meal. From that single command, our rabbis built one of Judaism's most remarkable spiritual practices: blessings before and after eating, before performing mitzvot, upon seeing extraordinary beauty or power in the world, and throughout the ordinary moments of everyday life. They recognized in Birkat Hamazon two enduring principles - live with constant awareness of God's presence, and take nothing for granted. A Brachah takes only a few seconds. But a life filled with Brachot becomes a life shaped by gratitude, awareness, and the constant recognition that God is present in every part of our day. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Revelation at Sinai began not with seeing, but with listening. The covenant between God and the Jewish people was formed through hearing God's voice, and the Shema is more than a declaration of faith - it is a command to listen. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out that the Book of Devarim uses the language of listening 92 times. Rabbi Zohar Atkins observes that the ear is the doorway to the body and the soul. Together they reveal a central truth: Judaism is fundamentally a religion of listening. Viktor Frankl tells the remarkable story of saving a life not through brilliant advice, but simply by listening. The deepest relationships - with God, with those we love, and even with strangers - begin the same way Judaism itself begins: by listening. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Birkat HaMazon is the only blessing explicitly commanded in the Torah. But the Torah does not present it as a polite ritual after a meal. It places it between two stark possibilities - what happens when we remember, and what happens when we don't. “You will eat, be satisfied, and bless…” comes at the moment of greatest danger. Not when we are lacking, but when we feel full, secure, and self-sufficient. That is precisely when memory begins to fade. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains that this mitzvah is not primarily about food. It is about memory. A person who remembers being helped retains gratitude for that help. A person who forgets God's gifts begins to believe “my strength and the might of my hand made this.” Birkat HaMazon is a daily discipline designed to protect us from that drift. In this video, we explore the context of Birkat HaMazon in this week's Parsha and discover that it is far more than a blessing after eating. It is a daily discipline of memory. The Torah teaches that gratitude begins with remembering, and that forgetting God is most likely not when we are hungry, but when we are full. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

The weeks between Tisha B'Av and Rosh Hashanah are filled with the words of Israel's prophets. This Shabbat Isaiah declares that Jerusalem's ruins will be rebuilt. For centuries those words sounded like hope for a distant future. Then I walked into the Hurva Synagogue. Destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again, and finally restored in magnificent beauty, the Hurva tells the story not only of one building but of the Jewish people themselves. Its history stretches back more than three hundred years, and today it stands in the heart of Jerusalem as something previous generations could scarcely imagine. When you stand inside its sanctuary, Isaiah's prophecy no longer feels abstract. It becomes visible. Not every promise has yet been fulfilled, and much remains to be rebuilt. But sometimes God allows us to see enough that hope becomes gratitude. The Hurva is one of those places. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Every airline passenger eventually faces the same question: should you recline your seat? It seems like a small decision, but it raises surprisingly difficult ethical questions. You paid for the seat. Does that give you the right to use it however you wish? Should you first consider the person behind you? Does it matter whether they're working, eating, sleeping, or unusually tall? And what if the person in front of you has already reclined into your space? Inspired by Joshua Rothman's recent New York Times column, I explore what Jewish texts and values contribute to this familiar dilemma. The airplane seat is just the beginning. The real question is how we should act whenever our comfort, convenience, or rights come into conflict with someone else's. Jewish tradition offers a practical framework for navigating those everyday moments with wisdom, sensitivity, and clarity. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Tisha B'Av is the day we mourn the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish People. But Rabbi Yosef Soloveitchik taught that mourning alone is incomplete. Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, the great 12th-century poet and author of the Kuzari, composed one of the most beautiful Kinnot we recite on Tisha B'Av. In it, he does not dwell on destruction. Instead, he paints a breathtaking picture of the beauty of Zion and the Land of Israel. According to a famous legend, he sang these words as he finally reached Jerusalem, the destination he had longed for his entire life. In this 10@9, we explore why Rabbi Yehuda Halevi's Kinah is indispensable to Tisha B'Av. Before we can truly mourn Jerusalem, we must first remember her greatness, her beauty, and what was lost. Only then can our grief be worthy of the past - and become the foundation of hope for the future. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

One of the Torah's biggest surprises is that the Ten Commandments appear twice - and they aren't identical. Why did Moshe change them? Rabbi Ezriel Tauber suggests that the difference between "Remember the Sabbath" and "Guard the Sabbath" reveals something profound about our relationship with God. We begin as recipients of God's gifts, but we are meant to grow into partners who protect, build, and take responsibility for His world. That same journey defines Tisha B'Av. We begin by mourning the tragedies that happened to us. But Judaism refuses to let us remain there. The purpose of mourning is to transform grief into responsibility - to become active partners in rebuilding what was destroyed and bringing redemption closer. As Jalen Brunson put it: "You are allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but then you gotta go out there and do something about it." Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

The Book of Devarim is full of stories we've already heard. Yet Moshe tells them again, choosing carefully what to emphasize. He isn't changing the facts. He's teaching us that the meaning of our lives depends on the story we choose to tell about them. A child falls while learning to ride a bicycle. Is that a story of failure, or the first step toward independence? Moshe tells us how God refused his request to enter the Land of Israel, yet he also shows us how to see the blessing he was given instead, and how to understand his life's mission in a new way. As Tisha B'Av approaches, the Talmud offers us two models to remember the destruction of Jerusalem. We use both. We begin by mourning with the rabbis who weep over what was lost. We end with Rabbi Akiva, who laughs because he sees in those same ruins the certainty of redemption. The facts have not changed. But the ending has. And the story we choose to tell shapes the people we become. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

I expected "The Future Is Peace" by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon to challenge me. I didn't expect it to make me uncomfortable. The book asks something extraordinarily difficult of every reader: listen carefully to another person's story, even when every instinct inside you wants to argue, correct, or reject it. You don't have to agree. You don't have to abandon your convictions. But if we cannot hear one another's deepest experiences, we will never build anything beyond endless conflict. Peacemaking is not naïve. It is demanding. Those who pursue it are often mocked, dismissed, or accused of betraying their own people. Yet, as the authors write, "Ultimately, every conflict ends. It's up to us to decide how much blood must be spilled first." This episode explores the courage that peace requires - and why listening may be its hardest first step. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

I recently visited Professor Ben Mollov's Jewish-Arab Dialogue class at Bar-Ilan University, and it left me more hopeful about Israel than almost anything else I experienced during my trip. The class begins with something unexpected - conversational Arabic. From there, Jewish and Arab students learn, laugh, argue, and build genuine relationships. For many, it is the first time they have truly come to know one another as people rather than as representatives of opposing groups. Professor Mollov has spent years measuring the impact of this work, and his research shows that these encounters have a lasting impact long after graduation. He has created an environment in which stereotypes become impossible because real relationships replace them. I had the privilege of speaking to the students myself. Their openness, curiosity, and warmth convinced me that peace is not built only through diplomacy or political agreements. It is built one classroom, one conversation, and one relationship at a time. If Israel is ever to know lasting peace - and I am convinced it will, it will need courageous initiatives like this one - and they deserve far more attention than they receive. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin has become more than the grieving mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin. She has become the voice and vocabulary of October 7th and its aftermath. In her remarkable new book, "When We See You Again," she gives language to grief, faith, hope, love, and resilience with a precision that helps us understand not only what happened, but what it has done to us. In this episode, I share why I believe this is one of the most important books to emerge from October 7th. Rachel does not offer easy answers or comforting clichés. Instead, she offers something rarer: words that help us carry pain without surrendering to it, search for God without pretending to understand His plan, and embrace her daily conviction that "hope is mandatory." This is a book to read slowly, to underline, and to return to again and again. It deserves to be read not only because of Rachel's story, but because of the extraordinary way she tells it. Michael Whitman is the senior rabbi of ADATH Congregation in Hampstead, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at McGill University Faculty of Law. ADATH is a modern orthodox synagogue community in suburban Montreal, providing Judaism for the next generation. We take great pleasure in welcoming everyone with a warm smile, while sharing inspiration through prayer, study, and friendship. Rabbi Whitman shares his thoughts and inspirations through online lectures and shiurim, which are available on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FLcsC6xz5TmkirT1qObkA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adathmichael/ Podcast - Mining the Riches of the Parsha: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/mining-the-riches-of-the-parsha/id1479615142?fbclid=IwAR1c6YygRR6pvAKFvEmMGCcs0Y6hpmK8tXzPinbum8drqw2zLIo7c9SR-jc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3hWYhCG5GR8zygw4ZNsSmO Please contact Rabbi Whitman (michael@adath.ca) with any questions or feedback, or to receive a daily email, "Study with Rabbi Whitman Today," with current and past insights for that day, video, and audio, all in one short email sent directly to your inbox.