Parsha with Rabbi David Bibi

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Join as we explore the weekly parasha from a Kabbalistic perspective and attempt to simplify the secrets of the Torah

  1. 9H AGO

    The Gold, which was Refused and How Women Built the MISHKAN - Terumah

    Parashat Terumah is not just about donations. It’s about what you refuse to build. Right after the Torah commands the Mishkan, we meet the Golden Calf — the same gold, two opposite outcomes. Chazal say the women would not give their jewelry for the Egel, but when it came time to build a home for the Shechinah, the women came first. That contrast isn’t a nice vort. It’s a diagnostic: when fear takes over, people grab for something visible and immediate — and that is exactly how idols are born. From there we go back to Har Sinai and the pasuk most people read right past: “כֹּה תֹאמַר לְבֵית יַעֲקֹב” — speak first to the women. Rashi and Chazal explain why: because if the women are in, Torah lives in the next generation; if not, it doesn’t. This is a class about the architecture of Jewish continuity — built quietly, stubbornly, and faithfully, through the emunah and middot of nashim tzidkaniyot.

    52 min

  2. 1D AGO

    The Joy Beneath the Surface — Living the Hidden Mazal of Adar - Rosh Ḥodesh Adar and the Hidden Joy of ה–ה–י–ו

    **The Joy Beneath the Surface — Living the Hidden Mazal of Adar** *Rosh Ḥodesh Adar and the Hidden Joy of ה–ה–י–ו* When Chazal teach, “מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אֲדָר מַרְבִּין בְּשִׂמְחָה” (Taanit 29a), they are not instructing us to manufacture cheerfulness or drown reality in noise. Adar’s mazal is דַּגִּים — fish — life that moves beneath the surface, protected from the evil eye, growing quietly under the water. Purim itself unfolds this way: no open miracles, no explicit Divine Name, only the steady unfolding of a hidden script. The joy of Adar is not naïveté; it is the confidence that even when events appear chaotic, a deeper current is carrying the story exactly where it must go. This episode explores the spiritual architecture of the month — from Yosef’s blessing of “וְיִדְגּוּ לָרֹב,” to Esther’s world of “הַסְתֵּר אַסְתִּיר,” to the mysterious tziruf ה–ה–י–ו drawn from Ya‘aqov’s berakhah in Book of Genesis. We examine how Adar teaches us to rejoice before the reversal, to recognize birth hidden within apparent endings, and to plant emunah even when fruit is not yet visible. This is not the joy of denial. It is the discipline of seeing beneath the surface — and trusting the turn before it arrives.

    19 min

  3. 1D AGO

    Before a relationship with Heaven - Must Come a relationship with men - Terumah

    Parsha with Rabbi David Bibi

    10 min

  4. FEB 11

    Standing in Someone Else’s Shoes - Mishpatim

    How quickly do we judge—our children, our students, our neighbors—without ever truly standing in their place? In this morning’s class on Parashat Mishpatim, we explored the Torah’s demand that cuts against our instincts: אַל תָּדִין אֶת חֲבֵרְךָ עַד שֶׁתַּגִּיעַ לִמְקוֹמוֹ—don’t judge another until you reach his place. But what if we can never really get there? Drawing on Pirkei Avot, the story of Ḥannah and Eli HaKohen, and the Torah’s repeated warning not to oppress the ger, this class challenges the easy assumptions we make when we look only at the outside and ignore the unseen storm within. The Torah does not deny struggle—it redefines how we respond to it. “Because you were strangers in Egypt” is not a license to toughen others up; it is a command to soften. Through powerful stories and Chazal’s piercing insights, this class confronts a dangerous trap: turning our own suffering into a measuring stick for others. If you’ve ever thought, “I had it harder—so why can’t they handle this?” this shiur asks you to pause, rethink, and transform your past pain into empathy rather than judgment. This is not a feel-good message—it’s a demanding one. And it may change how you look at the people closest to you.

    14 min

  5. FEB 9

    Justice That Heals - Mishpatim and the Torah’s Alternative to Prison

    Parashat Mishpatim opens with a surprise. The Torah’s first case of civil law is not murder or assault, but a thief who cannot repay what he stole — an eved Ivri, placed by Beit Din not into a cell, but into a Jewish home. In a country where nearly two million people sit behind bars and recidivism remains stubbornly high, the Torah offers a radically different model of justice. Instead of warehousing criminals, Mishpatim asks a far more demanding question: what does it take to actually repair a broken human being? In this mornings class, we contrast the modern prison system — built around deterrence and incapacitation — with the Torah’s deeply counterintuitive approach to rehabilitation. Drawing on Chazal, Ramban, and a penetrating insight from Rav Frand, we explore how dignity, responsibility, emotional attachment, and even carefully measured pain are used not to crush the sinner, but to awaken conscience and restore sensitivity. Mishpatim becomes a laboratory for moral repair, challenging us to rethink punishment, ownership, and what it truly means to take something that belongs to another person.

    17 min

  6. FEB 8

    Unfinished Business - Parashat Mishpatim, Gilgul, and the Accounts We Don’t Close

    Parashat Mishpatim is where the Torah moves from revelation to responsibility. After the thunder of Sinai, the Torah turns to contracts, damages, accountability, and justice — not as social convenience, but as spiritual necessity. According to the Zohar, these laws are the mechanisms through which balance is restored in the world, and through which souls repair what was left unfinished. Mishpatim is not only about how people live together; it is about why souls sometimes must return again. This morning’s class weaves the Zohar’s teachings on gilgul neshamot together with a powerful true story from the world of Telz and London, as told by Rabbi Hanoch Teller. It is a story of misunderstandings carried for decades, of grievances left unresolved, and of how Heaven orchestrates encounters so that accounts can finally be closed. The message is both sobering and hopeful: what we fail to repair may follow us — but what we choose to repair now can change everything.

    19 min

  7. FEB 6

    From The Phone Line to Har Sinai

    Judaism cannot be lived from a distance. It is not a religion of spectators, summaries, or spiritual drive-bys. In this morning’s Breakfast and a Class on Parashat Yitro, we explored why Torah only truly takes root when it is lived immersively—through consistency, community, and presence. Drawing on a powerful teaching of the Kotzker Rebbe, we reframed the warning at Har Sinai—“do not touch the edge of the mountain”—as a challenge to avoid superficial engagement and instead climb fully, wholeheartedly, into avodat HaShem. The class weaves together classical sources, a vivid Hasidic story about Rav Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, and a living contemporary example: a group of women who have been learning Torah together every morning for six straight years, culminating in a recent siyum. At its heart, this episode is about the courage to show up daily, the role of simcha in sustaining spiritual growth, and the quiet power of being “all in.” Not touching the edge—but climbing the mountain.

    15 min

  8. FEB 4

    Kayin Returns to Sinai_ Yitro and the Long Road to Techiyat HaMetim

    Kayin Returns to Sinai: Yitro and the Long Road to Techiyat HaMetim is not a historical class—it is an exploration of why revelation itself had to wait. Why does the parashah of Matan Torah bear the name of Yitro? What does reincarnation, brotherhood, gratitude, and resurrection have to do with standing at Sinai? Drawing on Chazal, the Arizal, the Zera Shimshon, and classic mefarshim, this class traces the long spiritual journey from the first murder in history to the moment Torah could finally descend. Through Yitro’s arrival, the repair of Kayin and Hevel begins, emunah finds its final home after the splitting of the sea, and techiyat ha-metim emerges not only as an end-of-days belief, but as a way a Jew is meant to live every morning. This is a class about hearing and moving, healing old fractures, and living with gratitude for life returned. Join us for a thoughtful, source-based journey that reframes Sinai—and our own lives—through the lens of repair, humility, and resurrection.

    1 hr
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Join as we explore the weekly parasha from a Kabbalistic perspective and attempt to simplify the secrets of the Torah

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