Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 58 minutesSynopsis: Tonight (11/13/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we successfully "landed the plane"! Last time we ran through the Radak to get the big picture and I shared the core of my theory. This time we read through him at a more deliberate pace and then brought it all together by asking a key question: When should this perek be said? The answer to that question unlocked the main idea and purpose of the perek...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 46 minutesSynopsis: This morning (11/8/24), in our tefilah-focused Machshavah Lab series for women, we began a new topic: the nusach ha'tefilah (liturgy). We began by reviewing the relevant facts: what the mitzvah of tefilah from the Torah entailed, how Ezra and his Beis Din changed it, and the historical reasons why. I then presented my understanding of the REAL reasons why tefilah desperately needed this change, which I supp...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 26 minutesSynopsis: This morning (11/8/24), in the "Tefilah Reexamined" series of our Machshavah Lab for women, I decided to start with a review of the three models of tefilah we've learned in Parts 1-4, followed by a quick overview of my "go to" model of tefilah that has been the foundation of my approach to tefilah for years. This review is not intended as a substitute for the in-depth analysis we engaged in over the past co...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 58 minutesSynopsis: Tonight (11/6/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we quickly reviewed the perek and all the questions from last time. After exploring an approach from one of the shiur attendees, we learned the Radak's commentary which I attempted to elucidate with a little help from the Ibn Ezra. I believe I managed to get everything out on the table, but we'll need to mull it over and come back to it next week to s...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 58 minutesSynopsis: Tonight (10/30/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began (re)learning what I believe is the most well-known psalm of them all. The last time I gave shiur on this was WAAAY back in November 2020, and I figured it was time to revisit it, especially now that I have new resources. We translated the perek on our own, then consulted four other translations. We theorized about the pivot point, then raise...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 1 hour 27 minutesSynopsis: This morning (9/27/24), in our NEW Machshavah Lab series for women called "Tefilah Reexamined," we began with a grand review of the essential ideas in parts 1-3, focusing on the mitzvah de'oraisa of tefilah as explained by Ralbag, Rambam, and Ramban. Picking up where we left off last time, we reviewed the Rav's explanation of the machlokess between the Rambam and Ramban, bringing support from "Rav sc...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 57 minutesSynopsis: Tonight (9/25/24), in Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, our goal was "to land the plane" - to distill all of our insights and observations into a unified theory - and land the plane we did! Thanks to Sforno and R' Elia di Nola, we emerged with a powerful understanding of what it REALLY means to want Moshiach and gained clarity on what we're asking Hashem to do in this perek. We even managed to explain how this...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 1 hour 22 minutesSynopsis: This morning (9/20/24), in our NEW Machshavah Lab series for women called "Tefilah Reexamined," we began with a comprehensive review of Parts 1 and 2, then delved into the Ramban's critiques of the Rambam's stance on tefilah. After reading through the Ramban, we compared and contrasted his approach with the Rambam's, which - at this point - seem worlds apart. We concluded by reading the Rav's creativ...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 58 minutesSynopsis: Tonight (9/18/24), in Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, I decided not to review and refine the approaches we came up with last time, but instead, to jump right into the Sforno. We learned through his commentary at a leisurely pace, with lots of help from R' Moshe Kravetz's footnotes and R' Elia di Nola's commentary. During the last 15 minutes of shiur we worked on coming up with a unified theory. It feels like...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 1 hour 38 minutesSynopsis: This morning (9/13/24), in our NEW Machshavah Lab series for women called "Tefilah Reexamined," we began by reviewing our questions on the Rambam's initial presentation of the mitzvah of tefilah and the Ralbag's answer. We then delved into the Rambam's Allegory of the Palace in the Guide for the Perplexed, in which he presents his definition of "avodah" (Divine service) and "avodah she'ba'lev" (servi...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 57 minutesSynopsis: Tonight (9/11/24), in Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we reviewed our cleaned-up translation of the perek from last time, went over all our questions (raising some new ones in the process), and then we opened the floor for approaches. There were a LOT of great ideas, but three complete theories for the perek, each one good in its own way. I didn't even get to share the approach I'm developing, which worked o...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 1 hour 28 minutesSynopsis: This morning (9/6/24), in the first shiur of our NEW Machshavah Lab series for women called "Tefilah Reexamined." Since I'm designing and teaching a year-long course on tefilah for high school students, I decided this summer to investigate the whole subject of tefilah afresh, from the ground up. We'll begin with a deep dive into what the mitzvah of tefilah is, and we'll see where that takes us. In th...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 57 minutesSynopsis: Tonight (9/4/24), in our first Wednesday night Tehilim shiur of the 2024-2025 season, we began our re-analysis of Sunday's Shir Shel Yom. We learned through this in shiur two years ago (10/26/22, 11/2/22), but found it to be difficult. I don't remember what we said, but I remember that I wasn't satisfied. Because this perek if featured prominently in the Malchiyos section of the Mussaf Rosh ha'Shanah, I tho...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 1 hour 9 minutesSynopsis: Last night (5/29/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we attempted to "land the plane." Since it had been two weeks since our last shiur, we began by reviewing everything - the translations, the questions, and the approaches - and then set out to get as many individual ideas as we could. The ideas were great, but I wasn't sure we'd be able to pull it all together. But with Hashem's help, we were...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 1 hour 3 minutesSynopsis: Last night (5/16/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we dove into our in-depth analysis of this perek, raising a bunch of questions, making a bunch of observations, and following our intuition. We discussed a few ideas from the meforshim - most notably, Radak's interpretation of the grammatically anomalous word: יִרַדֹּף - but the main moves we made came from our own theorizing. We began develo...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 1 hour 2 minutesSynopsis: Tonight (5/8/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began a new and unfamiliar perek. I selected it because it's clearly about David's struggles with his enemies and (unfortunately) that theme continues to be relevant to Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora today. The translation-work was difficult and we didn't get super far into our analysis beyond finding the pivot point and getting the backgr...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 5 minutes Synopsis: This evening (4/17/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we concluded our relearning of Tehilim 113 with the commentary of the Abravanel - and boy did he deliver! I think we ended up in a similar place to where the Radak took us last time, but we arrived there through a classically nuanced Abravanelesque reading of the pesukim. With this understanding in hand, we were able to appreciate how this...

Length: 58 minutes Synopsis: This evening (4/3/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we continued our relearning of the first chapter of Hallel. After reviewing our translation, our questions, and our approach - which we developed a bit - we decided to start learning the Abravanel's explanation in his haggadah commentary. We only got through the first three pesukim, but MAN were there a lot of fundamental ideas about praising Hashem! We decided not to rush it, and our plan is to finish...

Length: 1 hour Synopsis: This evening (3/27/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began a new project: re-learning Hallel! (or at least, the first two chapters) The last time I gave shiur on Hallel was three years ago, and there's been enough distance and enough natural forgetting that I feel like I can learn everything with a relatively fresh mind. And even if I can't, we have SOOO many more resources on AlHaTorah than we had last time! Tonight we began with the first perek of...

Note: You are advised to at LEAST listen to Part 2 before this one, but in a pinch, you'll probably still gain if you just listen to Part 3, since we begin with a review of everything we covered in Parts 1 and 2. Length: 1 hour 2 minutes Synopsis: This evening (3/20/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we had one objective: to "land the plane" (i.e. bring our analysis to a close), and with Hashem's help, we did! We began by reviewing the text, then reviewing the approach we started...

Tehilim 22: Al Ayeles ha'Shachar (Part 2: Developing an Approach) Note: In this case, you do NOT need to have listened to Part 1 in order to follow Part 2 Length: 1 hour 4 minutes Synopsis: This evening (3/13/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we had a LOT of work to do, since we barely got any analysis done last time. I was hopeful but worried about whether we'd make any progress, since this is a TOUGH perek. With Hashem's help, we made a huge breakthrough! After identifying the...

Length: 1 hour 3 minutes Synopsis: This evening (3/6/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began a new perek: the somewhat lengthy and exceedingly difficult-to-read chapter 22. We chose this because Chazal hold that it's about Esther, but we'll follow our usual approach and attempt to learn it on its own before delving into that approach. We ended up needing to spend the entire hour cranking out a translation - with plenty of help from the BDB, Artscroll, and Alter - which left almost...

Length: 1 hour 8 minutes Synopsis: This evening (2/28/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we aimed to wrap up our analysis. After a thorough review of what we covered last time, we read the Meiri's commentary on the final six pesukim. This drew us into the esoteric vortex-like topic of God's Omniscience. We spent as much time on that as we needed (and perhaps a little more), then finished the Meiri and attempted to state the main idea, and I believe we succeeded! Sure, there's a lot...

Length: 1 hour 3 minutes Synopsis: This evening (2/21/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we continued our analysis of Tehilim 139. After reviewing our translation, our questions, and our approaches from last week, we began learning the Meiri's beautiful pasuk-by-pasuk commentary. We covered the first section of the perek, and decided to stop at the pivot point. Next week (בג"ה) we'll read the rest of his commentary and attempt to understand the main idea and its...