The AJR Center for Judaism and Science has an annual competition for the best student D’var Torah infused with science. Click here to view the entries that have won our לדעת חכמה (Lada’at Hokhmah) Award.
Parashat Devarim – 5785
July 30, 2025
Rabbi Susan Elkodsi (AJR '15)
Words of Questioning and Lamenting A D’var Torah for Parashat Devarim By Rabbi Susan Elkodsi (AJR ’15) HaZaL, our Sages of Blessed Memory, knew exactly what they were doing when they manipulated the weekly Torah reading schedule to make sure that Parashat Devarim would be read on the Shabbat immediately preceding Tisha B’Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. Tisha B’Av is a day of collective national mourning for a time, place, and way of life that no longer exist. Devarim, Moses’ final address to the Israelites during the last month of his life is similar; by looking back on what has transpired over 40 years, he is lamenting missed opportunities on an often frustrating journey and mourning the loss of a future he won’t be physically part of. The connection between this reading and Eikha, the Book of Lamentations, is more than the fact that the two share the word, eikha, translated simply as “how?” or “Alas!”. In Devarim...
Parashat Devarim 5784
August 5, 2024
Rabbi Greg Schindler (’09)
For Father’s Day this year, my children signed me up with a website called, Storyworth. Every week, they send me a prompt question (chosen by my daughter) to write about. At the end of the year, all the answers are assembled in a book. The first prompt question was, “What was it like learning to drive?” This is going to be easy, I thought.
Parashat Devarim 5783
July 17, 2023
Rabbi Ira J. Dounn (’17)
There’s a lot in our tradition that is difficult to accept. One of the concepts that seems especially not to square with our lived experience is the theology of Divine reward and punishment. It’s hard to reconcile for me, for many in the Jewish community, and for many of the students I work with. The haftarah that we’ll read on this Shabbat Hazon sums it up well: אִם־ תֹּאב֖וּ וּשְׁמַעְתֶּ֑ם ט֥וּב הָאָ֖רֶץ תֹּאכֵֽלוּ׃ וְאִם ־תְּמָאֲנ֖וּ וּמְרִיתֶ֑ם חֶ֣רֶב תְּאֻכְּל֔וּ כִּ֛י פִּ֥י יְ-הֹוָ֖ה דִּבֵּֽר If you are willing and obey, you will eat the best of the land. But if you refuse and disobey, you will be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of G-d spoke. (Isaiah 1:19-20) This is just not true. It’s hard to imagine, frankly, that it was ever true. But in the decades after the Holocaust, it seems especially impossible to believe. Worse, it’s offensive. Because the argument for it to be true would...
Parashat Devarim 5782
August 5, 2022
Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah Do You Believe In Miracles? A D’var Torah for Parashat Devarim By Rabbi Marc Rudolph (’04) In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses assembles the Israelites on the plains of Moab, poised to enter the Land promised to our ancestors. In a series of three speeches, Moses recounts the history of the past forty years, reviews old laws and imparts new ones, exhorts the people to follow the commandments and castigates them for their failure to do so in the past. He recalls the miracles of the plagues in Egypt and the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea. He reminds the Israelites how God cared for them in the wilderness, “as a man carries his son, all the way that you traveled until you came to this place” (Deuteronomy 1:31). God even personally guides the Jewish people on their journey, going before them...
Parashat Devarim 5781
July 16, 2021
Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah A D’var Torah for Parashat Devarim By Rabbi Michael Rothbaum (’06) There’s a profound meaning in the practice of Yiddishkayt, a beauty and depth that’s hard to describe if you haven’t lived it. That beauty explains why rabbis and cantors do what we do. In the words of the old saying, nothing worth doing is easy. Or, as we say in Yiddish, Shver tsu zayn a Yid. It’s hard to be a Jew. In a 1973 review of the Sholom Aleichem play that took its title from that Yiddish saying, Richard P. Shepard wrote that “ ‘It’s Hard to Be a Jew’ is a phrase that may not quite go back to Moses’ scaling of Mount Sinai, but it is venerable and often verifiable.” Recent events have only served to help that verification process. We’re still Jews, and it’s still hard. The challenge of...
