Weekly Torah Commentaries
Religion & Spirituality Podcas
Reflections on the weekly Torah portions from a diverse group of Messianic Jewish rabbis, scholars, and lay people. Our contributors bring fresh insights to familiar texts, drawing connections to events across the whole of Scripture (including the Gospels and Epistles), and suggesting practical applications of these insights to our postmodern lives.
Location:
United States
Description:
Reflections on the weekly Torah portions from a diverse group of Messianic Jewish rabbis, scholars, and lay people. Our contributors bring fresh insights to familiar texts, drawing connections to events across the whole of Scripture (including the Gospels and Epistles), and suggesting practical applications of these insights to our postmodern lives.
Language:
English
Website:
https://www.umjc.org/commentary/
Episodes
What the World Needs Now is Hope
2/16/2023
We need hope today more than ever. But in what do we hope? Some think of our hope as going to “heaven" when we die. But this is not the biblical hope. The biblical hope, in short, is the future establishment of God’s Dwelling Place, God’s “tent,” on earth, on his holy mountain in Jerusalem.
Duration:00:10:21
The Upside-down Tent
2/7/2023
Then that night, something crazy happened. The campsite was on a hill. My fellow campers and I had placed our tent on that hill, and we figured it was okay not to put our tent stakes in the ground because we were going to be inside it.
Duration:00:05:06
Faith on a Stretcher
2/1/2023
Healing is a deep and universal human need, and praying for the sick and afflicted has always been part of my ministry as a rabbi and teacher—never more so than in recent years, with the Covid pandemic and a good number of friends and colleagues beginning to decline in health and vitality.
Where is Your Heart?
1/25/2023
On May 14, 1948, before signing Israel’s Declaration of Independence, David Ben Gurion looked back over 2000 years of our history and declared how the Jewish people had returned in a second exodus, “undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers.”
Duration:00:08:57
Accepting Our Heritage
1/18/2023
The life of Moses can be seen as three distinct movements, forty years each. First, Moses spends forty years thinking he is somebody. In the second act he discovers that he is nobody. But in the third forty years Moses discovers what Hashem can do with somebody who accepts he is nobody.
Yogi Berra, Making the Pitch, and Telling Stories
1/12/2023
The Prophet Yogi Berra told us, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” Such sage advice! But it is true that we can learn a lot for our own lives by watching how our ancestors lived theirs.
Duration:00:10:08
God Already Knows, but He’s Waiting to Hear from Us
1/4/2023
God knows all things, but he has assigned to human beings, and therefore to us, a priestly responsibility. Even though our ancestors were groaning under heavy bondage, they still represented God and had the authority to call upon him to intervene.
Duration:00:08:40
Hope Can Set You Free
12/28/2022
Who among us hasn’t contemplated revenge? Who hasn’t caught themselves musing at length about toppling an enemy from their pedestal, wanting them to feel for a moment the same pain that they inflicted? When Yosef was hauled off to prison at the whim of Potiphar’s wife, who do you think he blamed?
Duration:00:07:49
Light over Might
12/21/2022
Let’s make no mistake; the Maccabees did not fight for religious freedom, but to cleanse the land for the worship of the one true God of Israel. While they fought to end the Greek cultic practices imposed through the tyranny of Antiochus, they also fought to end the long-felt effects of assimilation.
Duration:00:08:26
What Would the Maccabees Do?
12/16/2022
When our Gentile friends or co-workers ask us “what’s Hanukkah about, anyway?” we tend to give them sugar-coated references to light, miracles, and funny games with spinning tops. But this is only half of the story.
Duration:00:08:17
“Turned into Another Man”
12/7/2022
A little old Jewish lady decides to make the long journey to speak with a holy man in India. When she arrives, his attendants turn her down—the guru is thronged by admirers—but she is so insistent that they finally let her in on one condition: she can only speak three words.
Duration:00:09:52
Making Peace with an Intimate Enemy
11/30/2022
Genesis is irreplaceable, forming a sturdy foundation for all of Scripture and all of life. Its portraits of family dysfunctionality provide a master class in ineffective and effective conflict resolution.
Two Sons, Two Ways of Life
11/23/2022
Do you ever feel as if your life is a conflict between good and evil? Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, was pregnant with twins, but the twins struggled within her, causing her great distress. When she inquired of the Lord, he answered her, “There are two nations in your womb.”
Duration:00:10:21
It’s a Family Thing
11/17/2022
I’m about to be a father for the first time. Our son will be born quite soon. This impending change brings a heavy feeling with it, though not a burdensome one. Lately, I’ve found myself looking at life in new ways.
Greeting God the Unexpected Guest
11/10/2022
The Almighty visits Abraham at the oaks of Mamre to show us how to care for the sick among us, those who are ill in body and soul, just as he provides the example of caring for the impoverished and vulnerable.
Duration:00:08:48
Abraham: Father of Faith of the Feet
11/2/2022
Often we struggle to believe in our minds, which are subject to so many diverse influences. The key is to stop thinking that our faith should defy gravity! Try letting your faith slide down into your feet! Just start walking, one foot after the other, in the direction you best discern God’s leading.
Lessons from Dry Ground
10/26/2022
Parashat Noach seems increasingly sobering over the past few decades and especially this year. September and October seem to bring new catastrophic threats and concerns to the southeast portion of the USA and the Caribbean Islands.
The Creation as a Pattern for Our Lives
10/19/2022
The first book of the Bible, B’reisheet, lays a foundation for the rest of the Torah and the entire Bible. But beyond this literary function, we do well to recognize how this book lays a foundation for our lives as descendants of the first parents, as people born into and through families, as members of a holy people.
Simchat Torah: Beginning Again . . . Immediately!
10/13/2022
As if to reinforce Rosh Hashanah as the beginning of our new year, Simchat Torah concludes our reading of the Torah (Deut 33–34) by immediately launching us into reading the Torah from the beginning again. So, we begin again immediately . . . not at some indistinct time in the future, but now.
Ha’azinu: Give Ear to the Future
10/7/2022
Shabbat Shuvah has passed for this year. All Israel has listened to the final note of the shofar at the Neilah, the Closing of the Gates at the last Yom Kippur service. Life continues.