Shana Tova from TorahTutors!
We’ve had a wonderful year of Torah learning at TorahTutors.org and can’t wait to see what 5782 brings. Shana tova to all our students, teachers, and friends!
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A Tuesday TorahTutors Tidbit About Bending or Straightening Before God
A TorahTutors student explored the question of what attitudes a bent or straight posture might convey and which would be more conducive to getting into the mood of Rosh Hashanah. The Shulchan Aruch (siman 586) rules that a shofar used on Rosh Hashana should be from a ram and should be bent. Under extenuating circumstances,…
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A Tuesday TorahTutors Tidbit About Listening to Parents…and to God
A TorahTutors student explored the limits of comparisons and of obedience. The Gemara (Bava Metzia 32a) notes a tradition that the mitzvah of honoring one’s parents is on par with the responsibility to honor God. (This tradition is rooted in a comparison between the verses “Honor your father and mother” (Shemot 20:11) and “Honor God…
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A Tuesday TorahTutors Tidbit About King David and Musical Stereotypes
We are now in the month of Elul, when there is a widespread custom to recite Psalm 27. This psalm is one of many that states explicitly it was written by King David, poet and musician extraordinaire – among other qualities. One TorahTutors student, a recent high school graduate with an affinity for music herself,…
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A Tuesday TorahTutors Tidbit About Meeting Challenges First
A very special #TuesdayTorahTutorsTidbit: Real Torah, from real TorahTutors sessions. A group of TorahTutors students learning the book of Yehoshua discussed the choice of Yericho (Jericho) as the first site for conquest. They noted the obvious factor of location: in order to conquer the entire land of Canaan, they would have to start at the…
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A Tuesday TorahTutors Tidbit About Balancing Responsibilities
Devarim 12:5 instructs that any animal promised as a sacrifice must be brought to the Beit Hamikdash. The Sefer Hachinuch (mitzvah 438) explains that the animal must be brought on the first festival that occurs after the vow was made, because, he writes, “It is not appropriate for a person to be lazy about a…
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TorahTutors is Growing!
It’s been a pleasure and privilege in recent weeks to add a number of new tutors and students to our rosters. New students include: A young mother who felt her skills in learning Chumash with Rashi were lacking, and decided to do something about it A pair of twin girls who have never been to…
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A Tuesday TorahTutors Tidbit Straight From The Student
One of the most valuable things we do as educators is empower our students to learn on their own. Recently, a TorahTutors tutor introduced her pre-teen student to a website with a Hebrew-English dictionary and tools for learning Hebrew. Even though their twice-weekly sessions together are focused more on content than language, the tutor reports…
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A Tuesday TorahTutors Tidbit About Blessing Over the Bad (and Other Concepts Found in Shema)
A small group of TorahTutors students finished off the last mishna in Brachot, including its interpretations of several clauses repeated multiple times in daily prayers (and found in this week’s Torah portion, Devarim 6:5). This mishna raises a number of questions, from the textual to the theological. Some of the questions these students addressed with…
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A Tuesday TorahTutors Tidbit About the Temple
As the mourning practices of the Three Weeks build towards the intensity of the coming fast of Tisha B’Av, it is a good time to think about what we lost with the destruction of the Temple(s). One TorahTutors student explored what the Sefer Hachinuch has to say – at least, on one level – about…
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