The Tanakh Podcast
Study Tanakh with Rav Alex Israel.
10 mins a day.
One chapter a day.
929 schedule.
- Update frequency
- every day
- Average duration
- 11 minutes
- Episodes
- 767
- Years Active
- 2022 - 2025
Tehillim. Psalm 101 - Integrity, or Dishonest Government?
What happens when we cannot trust the integrity of public officials?
In this chapter David expresses his desire to be surrounded by and to implement a public culture of "temimut" - honesty, rectitude…
Tehillim. Psalm 100 - Gratitude and Happiness
Does Judaism have a mitzva to be happy?
Is there a relationship between gratitude and happiness?
Tehillim. Psalm 99 - Holy! Holy! Holy!
Mizmor 99 gives us a window into the paradoxical and dialectical encounter with the Divine Presence.
Music. Naor Carmi - Longing
Tehillim. Psalm 98 - The Music of Redemption
The nations all burst into song when they appreciate God's salvation of the Jewish People
Tehillim. Psalm 97 - Joy and Trembling
God is coming to establish justice, order and decency in the world.
God's arrival i surrounded by clear delight along with melting and quaking mountains, fire, cloud and darkness - features that mirr…
Tehillim. Psalm 96 - The Pattern of 95-100
Today we identify a deliberate structure of Psalms 95-100 which form them into a self-contained unit.
Tehillim. Psalm 95 - Kabbalat Shabbat
This chapter is familiar to most of us as the opening of Kabbalat Shabbat. But there is a strange shift from the first segment to the second. Why does the chapter transition from joy to rebuke and wa…
Tehillim. Psalm 94 - Justice, Not Vengeance!
How does faith respond to suffering? - In a variety of ways.
This Mizmor gives us several vantage points on the experience of suffering - protest, rebuke, faith, a call to divine retribution and just…
Tehillim. Psalm 93 - Chaos and Order
God's Majesty! Crashing waves! We will read this Psalm as depicting a narrative of chaos and rupture in the face of an ordered and harmonious world.
Tehillim. Psalm 92 - Mizmor Shir L'Yom Ha-Shabbat
What is the connection between this Mizmor and Shabbat?
Tehillim. Psalm 91 - Song of Protection
This Mizmor expresses absolute protection in God.
In fact, it is a conversation between a teacher and a student about reliance on God's thorough protection. At the close of the Psalm, God Himself ad…
Tehillim. Psalm 90 - "Teach us to Count our Days"
"The span of our life is seventy years, or, given the strength, eighty years." This is a meditation about human mortality and making life joyous and worthwhile.
Tehillim. Psalm 89 - Breach of Covenant
This Mizmor contains a direct, audacious accusation of God - that he has betrayed his covenant with the Jewish People and with the House of David.
When was this Psalm composed? Under what circumstan…
Tehillim. Psalm 88 - The Living Dead
This Mizmor is the soliloquy of a person crying out in pain and suffering, feeling close to death. The Malbim says: "from start to finish, it offers no comfort, only the cry of brokenness and despair…
Tehillim. Psalm 87 - Every Jew is Born in Jerusalem!
A remarkable hymn to Jerusalem! - Yes - the city of God; but also, every Jew finds his or her roots in Jerusalem and can feel that it is the city in which they belong.
Tehillim. Psalm 86 - Attributes of Mercy
This is a cry for help, salvation and forgiveness. The Mizmor employs the language, the formula of the 13 Attributes of Mercy which originate in God's forgiveness after the Golden Calf. At the center…
Tehillim. Psalm 85 - Peace and Truth
Are we there yet?
The Mizmor opens with a feeling that the redemption is at hand, but very soon we realize there is much further to go.
Tehillim. Psalm 84 - Coming Home!
This is a Psalm yearning to visit the Temple, but essentially yearning to be close to God.
Tehillim. Psalm 83 - The Oldest Hatred
They say, “Let us wipe them out as a nation;
Israel’s name will be mentioned no more.” (v.5)
This is the oldest hatred. The attempt at a Final Solution. The genocidal ambitions of generations of enemi…
Tehillim ch.82 - God Judges the Judges
When the forces of law and justice become corrupt, then society falls apart.