Mechon Hadar Online Learning

According to Rashi, the defining feature of the people of Israel at the moment of receiving the Torah is complete unity. 

What do we do when our leaders—or our most sacred texts—repeatedly disappoint us? We live in a world that continues to struggle with how to live out a sexual ethics of mutual dignity. In this series, R. Aviva Richman confronts moments of disappointment related to sexual ethics in Talmud and explores how to inherit this part of Torah in ways that invite honesty and growth. Recorded In Winter 2026. Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/WinterLectureSeries2026RichmanSexualEthicsPart1.pdf

“God spoke to Moshe in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after their departure from the land of Egypt, saying” (Numbers 1:1).  This verse opens the Book of Bemidbar and initiates God’s speech to the Israelites during these years of routine wandering.  

For many of us, confronting death raises urgent questions of faith, doubt, and the meaning and purpose of our lives. Yet we live in a culture that avoids talking about death, let alone the existential challenges it raises. Physician and ethicist Lydia Dugdale, author of The Lost Art of Dying, joins Rabbi Shai Held to draw on ancient and contemporary wisdom about mortality and meaning. Recorded in Fall 2025. This conversation is part of the Faith WithHeld series, generously sponsored by the Schiller family.Want the full Q&A? Catch the video version here: https://youtu.be/i1ktCH7ISoE

The Book of Leviticus, and Parashat BeHukkotai that brings it to a close, makes a clear and recurring claim: reality is not an act of fate, but the outcome of human choice and behavior. 

According to a midrashic tradition, the counting of the Omer (that may have seemed to be nothing but a calendrical counting of the days from Pesah to Shavuot) expresses the anticipation of the Israelites for the giving of the Torah.  The biblical commandment, however, appears in an agricultural context.

In Parashat Emor, we encounter the story of the blasphemer. This blasphemer undermines, degrades, and treats with levity the very foundation of the religious system—the root of faith and the bedrock of the world.  Yet various midrashim, in their characteristic fashion, are not satisfied with a dry, factual account.  

When the unthinkable happens, what remains of faith? Journalist Sarah Wildman, who lost her young daughter, joins Rabbi Shai Held in a searching conversation about grief, love, and the struggle to go on. They will probe how mourning collides with meaning-making, and how faith might fracture, endure, or be remade in the wake of devastating loss. Recorded in Fall 2025. This conversation is part of the Faith WithHeld series, generously sponsored by the Schiller family.

Drawing close is no simple matter.  At times, it can be difficult—even dangerous.  And yet, to come near is also wondrous: it can nurture, enrich, and expand life.  The possibility of a misstep is always near—but so too are countless opportunities.  The line between one kind of closeness and another is often fine.  It depends on sensitivity, harmony, the insistence on not including elements foreign to the relationship, and attentiveness to the nature of the invitation.

Dedicated in loving memory of my nephew, Yishai Elyakim Urbach, who fell in Gaza one year ago, a few weeks after setting out to build his own home.Tehillim 127:1 "Unless God builds the house, those who build it labor in vain." Human beings cannot truly build alone.  What we build by ourselves, the psalmist suggests, cannot ultimately endure.And yet one of the most beloved songs sung in Israel on Yom Ha’Atzma’ut insists: “I built a house in the Land of Israel.”  Human initiative—human courage, labor, and creativity—stands at the heart of the Zionist ethos.  Even in religious communities where the day is marked by the recitation of Hallel, a prayer of gratitude to God, the name of the day itself—Yom Ha’Atzma’ut, Independence Day—centers the human story.  

Chapter 12 of the Book of Vayikra deals with the sacrifice of the woman who has given birth.

When we think of the Holocaust, we can only be silent.We are incapacitated emotionally, morally, theologically.  At times it seems that the countless museums and memorials, the ceremonies and journeys, the songs and the prayers, are but a desperate attempt to break free from the paralysis that grips us in its shadow.The Torah, too, knows such a moment when children are consumed by fire, and their surviving family is left with nothing but silence.  

The opening scene of Parashat Shemini is both brief and dramatic.  It depicts the final day of the dedication of the mishkan (tabernacle)—the very day on which Nadav and Avihu die.  

The stories transmitted in the Talmud and midrash present contemporary readers with a rich and delightful entry point into the Rabbinic worldview and mindset, offering moral insights and memorable lessons. At the book launch for How to Read a Talmudic Story, Dr. Jeffrey L. Rubenstein and R. Aviva Richman explore how these narratives illuminate rabbinic values, struggles, and creativity. Together, they consider not only how to read these stories, but what they continue to teach us today.  Recorded in March 2026. Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/TalmudicStoryBookTalk2026RichmanRubenstein.pdf

Midrash Vayikra Rabbah offers an extensive homily on the shelamim (peace or well-being offering) based on the linguistic affinity between the Hebrew words shelamim, sheleimut (wholeness), and shalom (peace).  By examining both the technical details of how the offering was brought and the linguistic potential inherent in its name, the midrash transforms a discussion of ancient ritual into an exploration of the very nature of peace.

The exodus is nothing less than the "orienting event" of Jewish life. But Exodus memory also has another, much more painful side: amidst suffering and devastation, Jews remember the exodus and wonder why, if God redeemed us then, God does not do so now. In this lecture, R. Shai explores the double-edge of memory: exploring how it can sustain us in hope and how, sometimes, it can deepen our despair.This lecture was delivered in memory of Jerome L. Stern z"l in March 2026.Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/SternPesahLecture2026HeldLivingWithoutExodus.pdf

The Book of Leviticus, Vayikra, begins: “God called (ויקרא) to Moshe and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying” (Leviticus 1:1).  Why does God begin with a call?  What is the essence and context of this kind of summoning?

What is the value and beauty of Tanakh? And how are biblical texts aware of, and in conversation with one another? In this class, Rabbi David Kasher investigates the Tanakh's conception of Kingship as it is first formulated in the Torah and then recalled and reconsidered by the prophets and kings. Recorded at the Tanakh Intensive 2026.Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/TI2026KasherReadingTanakh.pdf

The Torah portions of VaYakhel and Pekudei describe the practical implementation of the construction plans for the tabernacle (mishkan), originally detailed in Terumah and Tetzaveh.  

The absence of a leader creates a vacuum, and this vacuum invites a question: What kind of leadership are we seeking?  At the beginning of Parashat Ki Tissa, Moshe is absent.  When he ascended the mountain at the end of Parashat Mishpatim, he entered the cloud, and left behind an alternative leadership structure, appointing two individuals in his stead: Aharon and Hur.  Who are they, what happens to them—and what do we learn from them about the essence of leadership?