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The Torah Learning Library of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah

Category: Torah

Truth and Oneness

by Raffi Levi
Posted on December 1, 2022

Is it possible that Truth is different in different settings? Or is Truth always only one thing? (Or, can both of these be true?)  The Rabbis say “elu v’elu divrei Elokim chaim”—that these and those are the words of a living God.…

Planting Seeds of Light

by Raffi Levi
Posted on November 22, 2022

What is Judaism’s take on the goal of spiritual living? Importantly, what is the essential realization we need in order to live with sacredness? In this week’s parsha, after Yitzchak struggles to survive a famine and risks his life by visiting the king Avimelekh, he comes home and decides… to plant!…

Sarah: Living Her Best Life

by Raffi Levi
Posted on November 17, 2022

How can we make our religious experience sustainable? In other words, how do we maintain a sense of connection with HaShem even when we are not doing a mitzvah? Often, our experience of Judaism can feel reserved. Whether it is reserved for the Shabbat table, for holidays, for the synagogue, or for prayer.…

Vayeira: How to Find Inner Sight

by Raffi Levi
Posted on November 10, 2022

What can we do to easily create intentional motivation in our lives? I often find that when I have trouble beginning an important and challenging task, the simple transition of taking a deep breath helps make the whole process much easier.…

Emerging from the Flames

by Dvir Cahana
Posted on November 3, 2022

My grandmother, Alice Lok Cahana, Hinda Aliza bat Yehuda, was thrown into the gas chamber. Though she was crunched between 200 terrified people, at that moment she was completely and utterly alone. Staring death in the face, she contemplated her 15 years on earth.…

Love, Ocean and Dove-otion

by Dvir Cahana
Posted on October 27, 2022

(The following is a constructed midrash of the final days on the ark) It was a brisk afternoon in late October. Noah looked out from his Teiva and noticed how the tips of the mountains had begun exposing their nibs through the ocean foam.…

The Patria in our Patriarchs

by Dvir Cahana
Posted on October 20, 2022

In the opaque smoke of battered trust and unrelinquished uncertainty through the void of the pandemic, the upcoming 2022 midterm election serves as a momentary relief, suspending us outside of our worn pessimism. The ability to have a say in future outcomes seems like such a scarce resource these days and restores us with a sense of empowerment.…

Sukkah As Tabernacle

by Tadhg Cleary
Posted on October 6, 2022

The Rema—the great Halakhic Codifier of Ashkenazi Jewry—rules that we should build the sukkah on the day after Yom Kippur (starting even right after we break the fast) (Orach Chaim, 624:5-625:1). Some infer that, ideally, we are not supposed to even begin construction of the sukkah at all during the Aseret Yemei Teshuva—the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.…

Moshe’s Story—Looking to the Future (Hebrew)

by Rabbanit Yafit Clymer
Posted on September 29, 2022

Were the Makkot Life Threatening?

by Rabbi Yitzchak Blau
Posted on September 29, 2022

A Conspiracy of Silence Ends With A Loud Curse: Rereading the Storv of the Mekallel

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper
Posted on September 29, 2022

Isaac’s Ashes: Medieval Ashkenaz Confronts the Akedah

by Dr. Julie Goldstein
Posted on September 28, 2022