Ta Shma

“I will hide My face from them” (Deuteronomy 32:20)—so declares the Holy Blessed One in Parashat Ha’azinu.  This is one of the most painful and jarring statements in the Bible.  It describes a deep rift in the relationship between God and Israel: a dynamic of hiding, withdrawal, and a sealed face.  This is called in Jewish theology and tradition hester panim, the hiding of God’s face.

Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. 
Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/WeissLanguageLensPart42026.pdf

At this time of year, as the High Holidays approach, we are used to thinking about our own personal responsibility.  In the Yom Kippur Vidui, we worry not only about our sins that we are aware of, but even those that “are not revealed to us,” rather known to God alone.  But the verse that introduces the concept of revealed or hidden sins is about not personal, but national responsibility.  Since the evil of others can be even more hidden to us than our own, this introduces difficult questions.  What is our responsibility for the other members of our society?  And what are the limits of this responsibility?

Explore the role that language plays in our personal, religious, and spiritual lives, by challenging assumptions about core areas of speech like prayer (is it supposed to be effective?) gossip (is it really bad?), and telling the truth (is it necessary?). Recorded in Summer 2026. 
Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/WeissLanguageLensPart32026.pdf

Our parashah describes a ceremony known as vidui ma’aser.  The word vidui here from the root י.ד.ה. probably means something like “declaration of thanks” (like the prayer Modim), but can be also literally translated as “confession,” like the vidui familiar to us from our High Holiday liturgy.  What at first seems like an idyllic description of a perfect covenant in our land turns, through a reading of a Medieval commentator, into a pathway to move forward after sin and covenantal rupture.