Today, the tenth of Tevet, marks the beginning of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. It just so happens that today’s Tuesday TorahTutors Tidbit tells a dramatic story that includes a very different siege – at least, a planned one – much earlier in our history. The book of Shoftim (Judges) tells of a series of…
What’s this week’s Tuesday TorahTutors tidbit about? We’re glad you asked – because we love questions! And this week, our real Torah, from a real TorahTutors session, is all about the questions. A new TorahTutors student was beginning to study the book of Bamidbar and his tutor challenged him to ask three questions on the…
Special for Chanukah: a Tuesday TorahTutors tidbit! Real Torah, from real TorahTutors sessions. While oily foods (latkes and donuts) get the most press on Chanukah, Rema (Shulchan Aruch OC 670:2) mentions a custom to eat cheese, in commemoration of a miracle performed through milk in the story of Yehudit – who fed milk to an…
Time for a Tuesday TorahTutors tidbit: real Torah, from real TorahTutors sessions. A TorahTutors student learning the beginning of Shemot noticed that the multiple verbs describing how the Israelites increased and spread throughout Egypt convey an impression that they were felt to be intruding – though they had already been settled in the land, welcomed…
A TorahTutors student learned a Mishna in Pirkei Avot (5:7) with clear relevance to daily communication skills. The Mishna says that a wise person: doesn’t answer on behalf of someone older or wiser doesn’t interrupt when someone else is speaking thinks before they answer asks relevant questions and answers accordingly responds in an orderly manner…
A TorahTutors tutor recently started with a new student and has taken to singing the parshiyot of the Torah with him, in order, at the beginning of each session. This tuneful technique is a time-honored tradition; in fact, the tune they’re using is the same one the tutor was taught as a child! And of…
A TorahTutors student recently engaged in some comparative character study, by learning Rashi’s explanation of two different incidents about two different people and their attitudes towards others’ property. In the first, Rashi cites a midrashic explanation for the quarrels between Avraham’s and Lot’s shepherds in Bereishit 13:7. Noting the seemingly irrelevant statement, in the same…
A tutor recently started learning Chumash with a pre-teen student, with an eye toward introducing her to nuances in the language and an appreciation of both peshat and derash approaches to interpretation. They began at the beginning of Shemot by looking at two different translations available on popular websites; the student was excited to discover…
Here’s today’s Tuesday TorahTutors tidbit – real Torah, from real TorahTutors sessions. A TorahTutors student looking to learn Chumash content as well as boost her Hebrew language skills saw how paying attention to grammatical details, as basic as identifying pronouns and who is doing what action, can shed important light on the story. When the…
For this week’s Tuesday TorahTutors Tidbit, a tutor describes an important teaching moment that occurred in a real TorahTutors session: In the course of studying Tanach, we discussed a pasuk (verse) that concludes the story we were learning. My student interjected and asked how this pasuk can conclude the story, seeing as it is actually the…