The very first verse of the Parsha Noach tells us that Noach was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. In his 2024 AJS podcast on the parsha, Rabbi Daniel drew on the medieval French rabbi Rashi to explore what it means to be a righteous person. Is righteousness innate, or is it relative to one's context? Rabbi Daniel went on to explore the concept of the tzadik, drawing on teachings from Tanach, the Zohar and Hasidic masters such as the Ba’al Shem Tov and the Me’or Einayim. These...

“A river issues from Eden to water the garden, and it then divides and becomes four branches.” (Gen. 2:10) This is the most frequently quoted verse from Genesis in the Zohar, one of the central texts of Kabbalah. The river is the metaphor for the continual flow of divine energy, sourced in an infinite Eden. The garden is our physical reality. What captures me most with this verse is that the river divides, and then divides again, becoming four separate water courses. This, according to the...

We are taught that in the olam haba/the world to come, all of the fast days will be transformed into days of festivities. The 17th day of the month of Tammuz is one such fast. It marks the beginning of three weeks of being "between the straits/bein hametzarim". On that day, we are put on notice. It is now three weeks until Tisha B'Av, that time of the year when we are at our most alienated and exilic. We have just three weeks to get ready for the hard work of teshuvah ahead. So what happened...