Torah Books

Three Interpretations;Three Categories of Mitzvos On the verse:Shmos 21:1. “These are the judgments which you shall place before them,” our Sages and Rabbis offer several interpretations of the Hebrew לפניהם , translated as “before them.” a) Judgments mus...

At Sinai, the people “saw what is [usually] heard and heard what is [usually] seen.” The spiritual and the G‑dly, intangibles that can’t be seen and can be appreciated only through hearing – was able to be “seen,” accepted by the Jewish people with the ce...

Throughout our nation’s spiritual history, we find scholars who were masters of the Talmud and the Jewish legal tradition, yet wrote little, if anything, about ethics or philosophy and were not overly involved in our mystical tradition. Conversely, there ...

The Torah begins describing the preparations for the Giving of the Torah in Parshas Yisro. The next Torah reading, Parshas Mishpatim, commences with the enumeration of the Torah’s civil laws. Afterwards, the Torah seemingly returns to a description of the...

Jewish criminal and civil law are discussed in a triad of tractates named Bava Kama (First Gate), Bava Metziah (Middle Gate), and Bava Batra (Final Gate). This class reveals the spiritual dimension of these laws as an illuminating roadmap to self-refineme...

Tractate Bava Basra concludes with a discussion of which type of guarantor must make an official "kinyan" obligating himself at the time of the loan. In this class, we will analyze a dispute between the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds plus the deeper, sp...

Our Sidra begins with the words, “And these are the judgments which you shall set before them,” and the last phrase of this sentence has troubled many commentators. What is the precise meaning of the expression “set before them?” Several different answers...

What are the steps that are designed for entering the faith? Can they be done without the temple standing in Jerusalem? And what is the lesson for everyone?

The very first law the Torah records after the account of the giving of the Torah is the law of the Jewish bondsman. This is most puzzling for a number of reasons including the fact that the Torah discourages the ‘acquisition’ of servants, and in fact his...

How does a convert finish the conversion process? In the times when the Holy Temple stood, it was necessary to bring a sacrificial offering. What do we do now, after the Temple was destroyed? We look closely at the opinion of Maimonides that a convert req...