The Gates of Repentance

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Parshas Haazinu (Rebroadcast)

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Still in the final day of Moshe’s life, he conveys to the nation a 43-verse Song predicting the contours of Jewish history, both past, present, and future. The patterns are familiar to the readers of Deuteronomy and even casual observers and students of Jewish history: The nation is recipients of tremendous divine goodness, yet they become corpulent and rebel against God. Consequently, God allows the nations to feast upon the people, but despite the harsh and painful torment and suffering, we continue to exist. The Song ends with a vivid description of the Messianic reclamation.

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God’s Cherished Possessions (6:10)

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God owns everything. He created everything and owns it all. But there are some things that God cherishes above others. Our Mishnah describes five cherished possessions of God. These five are uniquely beloved by Him. They are what He “acquired.”

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Nitzavim Vayeilech – Like Clockwork

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We are not machines. We are humans. And that’s messy. We have all sorts of struggles doing the right thing. We are influenced by a myriad of impulses, inclinations, and predispositions. We don’t operate like clockwork. There are other things that always follow a prescribed pattern: The sun always rises in the East and sets in the West. The sun’s reliability is unfailing. The Earth is also completely predictable: It sprouts what you plant. None of us would ever compare fickle humans to the Sun or the heavens or the Earth. But Moshe does. In this profound Parsha podcast, we explore a fascinating and apparently inexplicable demand that Moshe places before us prior to his passing.

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Vayeilech – Career Capstone (5782)

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On the last day of Moshe’s life, he accomplished a lot. He wrote 13 copies of the Torah, one per tribe and one to be permanently stationed in or near the Ark, he spoke words of comfort to the people, and he formally passed the baton of leadership of the nation to his disciple and successor, Joshua. When we study the Torah’s description of Moshe’s final die, we discover an interesting pattern that appears one other place in the Torah, a discovery that reveals a new insight into the lives and purpose of the great exemplars of our past.

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Nitzavim – The Penitent Manifesto (5782)

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Repentance is one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind. When we blunder; when we err; when we create distance and barriers between us and God, we are afforded the ability to rectify and restore our previous pristine state. But repentance, at first glance, seems nightmarishly hard. To change demands an admission that we are flawed; to change demands action which we are always biased against; to change demands that we overcome our instincts and ingrained habits. In this very special pre-Rosh Hashanah podcast, we explore the 40 verses of our Parsha and present them as a manifesto for the penitent. In the podcast we learn of a new way to view the entire subject of repentance, and by extension, a new approach to change.

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Place of Torah (6.9)

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There are only three rules of real estate: location, location, location. When it comes to choosing a place to live, the same principle applies. But what determines a good location? In this very interesting Mishnah we learn about the absolute imperative of living in a place of Torah.

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Parshas Nitzavim & Vayeilech (Rebroadcast)

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On the final day of Moshe’s life, he gathered the entire nation – men, women, children, and according to the Talmud, all souls of future Jews – to pass them through a final covenant with God. The parsha also contains the prophetic predictions of the Messianic times, and it ends with a simple, binary choice: Moshe tells the nation, “Behold I have placed before you today, the life and the good, and death and evil… Choose Life!” Moshe is 120 years old to the day. He was born on the seventh of Adar and now it is the seven of Adar 120 years later. Today is his last day before his passing and he is taking leave from the nation and handing over the reins to Joshua.

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Ki Savo – Gaze from Heaven

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Blessings and curses. That is the dominant theme of our Parsha. We read the admonition of Deuteronomy – 98 bone-chilling curses that will befall our people in the event that we repudiate our covenant with God. Blessings and curses appear a second time: the nation is instructed to assemble at Mount Gerizim and mount Ebal on the day of the crossing of the Jordan. There, they must make a public pronouncement of blessings and curses. What is the lesson of blessing and curses? Why do we get blessings and curses? In this special and sprawling Parsha podcast, we thread a theme throughout the Parsha that wraps together of the first fruits, the confession of the tithes, the blessings and the curses, and Moshe’s joyous exclamation to the people when he declares that they have finally, forty years after the Exodus, been forged into a nation. Put away your pagers, beepers, and walkie-talkies. Now it’s time for the Parsha podcast.

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Ki Savo – Clinging to Gold (5782)

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On the surface, Bikkurim appears to be an ordinary, tithe-like Mitzvah. When the first fruits of a season’s crop begin to sprout, you designate them as Bikkurim, and eventually bring them to Jerusalem with much pomp and ceremony. Upon closer examination, this mitzvah is associated with all kinds of surprising people: When we bring the Bikkurim we invoke Pharaoh and the Egyptian experience and Jacob’s father-in-law Laban, of all people. In addition, the Midrash makes a stunning statement that Bikkurim is emblematic of the reason why God created the world. In this special edition of the Parsha Podcast, we propose a novel explanation of the Mitzvah of Bikkurim that reveals it’s association with Pharaoh and Laban, and offer a new rationale for why it represents the goal of creation.

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DONATE to TORCH: Please consider supporting the podcasts by making a donation to help fund our Jewish outreach and educational efforts at https://www.torchweb.org/support.php. Thank you!

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Double-Edged Swords (6.8)

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Not everything that we covet in life necessarily redounds to our benefit. There are great many things that are double-edge swords: they can be used for good; they can accelerate our ascent to righteousness, and they can be absolutely destructive and lead us towards a death spiral of decadence. Proceed with caution.

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DONATE to TORCH: Please consider supporting the podcasts by making a donation to help fund our Jewish outreach and educational efforts at https://www.torchweb.org/support.php. Thank you!

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Parshas Ki Savo (Rebroadcast)

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As the Book of Deuteronomy draws to its conclusion, the narrative makes a transition: Moshe finishes conveying the mitzvos to the nation, and sets up his final parting message to the people. First, he commands the nation to perform several elaborate ceremonies on the very first day that they cross the Jordan River; then he conveys a scathing, terrifying list of curses that will befall the people in the event that we deviate from the Torah.

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DONATE to TORCH: Please consider supporting the podcasts by making a donation to help fund our Jewish outreach and educational efforts at https://www.torchweb.org/support.php. Thank you!

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