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 Shoftim – 5785
August 26, 2025
Rabbi Enid C. Lader ('10)
One to Keep Before You… And One to Carry with You A D’var Torah for Parashat Shoftim By Rabbi Enid C. Lader As Moses continues his instructions to all the people of Israel as they are preparing to enter the Promised Land, he says: “You shall be free to set a king over yourself, one chosen by the Eternal your God… He shall not keep many horses… He shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray; nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess. When he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he is to write himself a Mishneh Torah – a copy of this Instruction – in a scroll, before the presence of Levitical priests. Let it remain with him and let him read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to revere the Eternal his God, to observe...
Parashat Re’eh – 5785
August 19, 2025
Rabbi Rob Scheinberg
The Torah of Vacation A D’var Torah for Parashat Re’eh By Rabbi Rob Scheinberg, PhD Here’s a good question to ask in August: What does the Torah teach us about how to go on vacation? Our initial answer might be: not so much. You would have a hard time coming up with references to vacation in the Torah. Perhaps one could refer to Shabbat as a weekly vacation, but that uses the word “vacation” very differently from how we tend to use it. There is a lot of discussion of travel in the Torah: Abraham moves to the land of Israel; the people of Israel go down to Egypt, and then take a long and scenic route for forty years back to the land of Israel. But most of this travel is desperate wandering and displacement, rather than the vacation travel that many experience today. Surprisingly, though, every summer we read a...
Parashat Eikev – 5785
August 11, 2025
Rabbi Greg Schindler (’09)
The Heart of the Matter1 A D’var Torah for Parashat Eikev by Rabbi Greg Schindler (2009) In this week’s D’var Torah, Rabbi Greg Schindler digs deep to see if there is a central lesson hidden in our Parashah. If you are a frequent reader of Divrei Torah, then you are probably familiar with some of the great Torah commentators: Rashi, Ramban, Ibn Ezra and many others have helped generations to better understand the weekly parashah. But what if I told you that there was a Torah commentator even more ancient than these great scholars, older even than the Talmud? And more “plugged in” than any of them. Well, there is such a commentator, and it has been hiding in plain sight for millennia. That commentator is the Torah itself2. No, this does not require any Torah “codes” or the use of gematria (ascribing numbers to letters). Rather, the Torah comments upon itself using certain literary techniques3. For example, the...
Parashat Vaethanan – 5785
August 5, 2025
Rabbi Marge Wise (AJR '21)
A D’var Torah for Parashat Vaethanan by Rabbi Marge Wise (AJR ‘21) Shalom Hevre, The haftarah following the Torah reading of Parashat Vaethanan opens with the words Nahamu nahamu ami, the quintessential recipe for comfort for b’nei yisrael following the saddest day of the year for our people, Tisha B’Av. I would like to discuss three themes which I believe are woven into the fabric of parashat Vaethanan: Our love for God, gratitude and the concept of comfort, itself. Tisha B’Av, for me, always brings to mind a significant memory. Curiously, this year for the first time I was able to reach some closure regarding that memory…. It was early in the afternoon of Tisha B’Av when, decades ago, my husband and I and our two children – both under two years old at the time! – headed out on the next leg of the cross-country trip which we took that summer. Long story very short, we were driving in Utah when we had a...
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...
