Parshah and the Moadim with Rabbi Aryeh Shulman

Episode Notes Notes go hereRabbi Shulman explores Rabbi Tzadok’s teaching that the three patriarchs embody Torah, divine service, and kindness, corresponding to the mind, heart, and bodily drives. Jacob’s distinctive achievement is spiritual wholeness: through Torah, he transforms the relationship with God from an exposed “field” into a protected, intimate “house.” This framework explains why prayer requires humility and restraint—not insistence that God fulfill our preferred plans, but recognition that only He knows what will truly benefit us. Outline: https://ateres-ami.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/kedushas-shabbos-1e-20261113-040926-outline-20261113-041212.pdf

Rabbi Shulman explores why Isaac prayed in an open field despite the Talmud’s criticism of praying in such a setting. Drawing on Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen, he explains the progression from the openness of a field to the boundaries of a house—a spiritual development culminating in Jacob. The contrast between Jacob and Esau teaches that prayer and religious life require humility, restraint, and commitment to a framework beyond one’s immediate desires. Outline: https://ateres-ami.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/toldos-field-vs-house-20261113-040403-outline-20261113-040501.pdf

Rabbi Shulman explores Rav Tzadok HaKohen’s understanding of three forms of spiritual toil: serving God through action, through prayer, and through Torah study. These correspond to the three pillars sustaining the world and to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, respectively. The central distinction is between action and prayer, which cultivate physical and inward life in this world, and Torah, which connects a person to eternal divine wisdom—a framework preparing for a fuller understanding of Shabbat. Outline: https://ateres-ami.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/kedushas-shabbos-1d-20261106-050544-outline-20261106-050753.pdf

Episode Notes Notes go hereRabbi Shulman explores the Midrash Tanchuma’s connection between “A Woman of Valor” and Sarah, focusing on its surprising attribution of the purchase of Machpelah to her. Drawing on Rav Tzadok and the Maharal, he explains that the cave’s “doubling” reflects Sarah’s achievement in both practical action and inward spiritual life. This becomes a lesson for Shabbat: our involvement in the physical world should express a deeper, inner relationship with Hashem. Outline: https://ateres-ami.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/20261106-040335-outline-20261106-040433.pdf

Rabbi Shulman explores Rav Tzadok’s explanation of the three visitors who came to Abraham after his circumcision: they represent both three angels and the spiritual qualities of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their missions reveal the interaction of kindness, judgment, and mercy, including the connection between Isaac’s impending birth and Sodom’s destruction. These qualities become the spiritual inheritance of the Jewish people, expressed through kindness, compassion, and a humble sense of awe before God. Outline: https://ateres-ami.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/vayeyra-three-men-20261030-033233-outline-20261030-033333.pdf

Rabbi Shulman explains that while this world is defined by *amal* (toil) and the next world by menuchah (rest), the deeper purpose of human labor is not mere survival but *tikkun ha’olam*—creating a stable, functional world in which avodat Hashem can flourish. He reframes the idea of *chasidei umot ha’olam* as earning Olam Haba specifically by facilitating the spiritual mission of *Klal Yisrael*, not simply by being “good people.” The dvar Torah culminates in Rav Tzadok’s teaching that Torah-learning is the highest form of “toil,” paralleling Hashem’s own act of creation through speech, and forming the greatest of the three pillars on which the world stands. Outline: https://ateres-ami.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/kedushas-shabbos-1b-20261023-145906-outline-20261023-145959.pdf

Rabbi Shulman explores the opening command to Avraham—“לך לך מארצך”—and explains, via Rabbi Tzadok, that the Torah is teaching not only self-transformation (“go to your true self”) but also where the כוח to change comes from: specifically, from one’s background and past rather than in spite of it. He then reframes “אל הארץ אשר אראך” as a hint that the destination is a place of deeper revelation of Hashem. Finally, Rabbi Shulman highlights Avraham’s two מזבחות as a blueprint for personal growth: Torah provides the clear revealed path, and תפילה protects and guides us through the unpredictable challenges that derail even good intentions. Outline: https://ateres-ami.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/lech-lecha-two-altars-20261023-145328-outline-20261023-145359.pdf

Rabbi Shulman introduces Rav Tzadok HaKohen’s *Sefer Kedushat Shabbat* and develops its core claim: the קדושה and ברכה of shabbat are drawn from a person’s avodah during the preceding six days, not from the formal onset of shabbat itself. He addresses an apparent textual anomaly where the Torah describes weekday work passively (“work will be done”), resolving it through the unique, divinely-assisted labor of the משכן. From there, Rabbi Shulman broadens the theme into a theology of human purpose: the world is intentionally unfinished so that human beings can be partners in creation—through mitzvot, through יראת שמים, and even (in earlier eras) through the civilizational “toil” of making the world inhabitable. Outline: https://ateres-ami.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/kedushas-shabbos-1a-20261016-040833-outline-20261016-040919.pdf

Rabbi Shulman explains that Parashat Noach really begins at the end of Bereishit: Noach is named for “comfort” because he revolutionized human life through agricultural innovation, relieving humanity from the curse of grueling labor. Yet that very liberation helped create the conditions for the דור המבול’s moral collapse—free time became indulgence rather than spiritual growth, and even Noach’s credibility could not move people to תשובה. Rabbi Shulman concludes by applying this pattern to today: as technology (especially AI) increasingly frees people from intellectual labor, the decisive question is whether society will fill that time with emptiness or with תורה—turning “waters of destruction” into “rain of blessing.” Outline: https://ateres-ami.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/noah-danger-of-freedom-20261016-040336-outline-20261016-040405.pdf