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A Book of Torah Commentaries with Variety of Torah Voices

Each Torah portion includes a line-by-line analysis, with Shoff sometimes bringing in multiple sources to provide insights.
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October 16, 2024

Rabbi Elchanan Shoff, the leader of Beis Knesses Los Angeles in Pico-Robertson and a local educator, is known for thinking outside the box when it comes to Torah learning.

Whether he is giving a drasha (lecture) to his congregants, teaching students at Beis Yaakov Machon or commenting on the Torah portion in Table for Five, he presents a wide variety of sources, including Haredi scholars, Sephardic voices and ancient and modern rabbis. Now, he’s brought that same spirit to his new work, an extensive book called “Rabbi Elchanan Shoff on the Parashah (Bereishis)” from Mosaica Press.

“The material inside is just really different – from eye opening material exploring how rationalist Maimonidean scholars have understood ‘demons,’ and what that means in terms of understanding mental health, to eyewitness stories of how R. Yitzchak Hutner conducted himself whilst kidnapped by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine after his airplane was hijacked,” Shoff told the Journal. “One cannot fail to be gripped with fascination when reading this book.”

Each Torah portion includes a line-by-line analysis, with Shoff sometimes bringing in multiple sources to provide insights. For the line, “In the beginning,” he provides commentary from the Rokeiach, the fourth Rebbe of the Belz Hasidic dynasty; the Talmud Yerushalmi; Rabbi Eliyahu Guttmacher, the rabbi of Greidetz; the Baal HaTurim, an influential Medieval rabbinic authority; and Mordechai HaKohen of Safed, a scholar who lived in Safed in the 1600s. 

“We quote from rationalists and kabbalists, Sephardic giants and Lithuanian geonim (leaders) and everything in between, including contemporary works, all the way back to the Talmud, spanning that last 2,500 years of scholarship and commentary,” Shoff said.

“Rabbi Elchanan Shoff on the Parashah (Bereishis)” is an English translation of a book published in Hebrew two years ago, “China V’chisda,” but with additional commentary and callouts of fascinating historical content related to the authors or topics covered. In the part on Rabbi Guttmacher, for instance, Shoff discusses how the rabbi was a miracle worker who used prayer to exorcise evil forces from a child. 

Another portion shares the story of King James IV of Scotland (1473-1513), who took two infants into seclusion before they heard any human language; he told a woman who was deaf and mute to raise them. When they were old enough to speak, he said they spoke to one another in perfect Hebrew. Insights from the Rambam back this up; he said that if one would not speak to a child for the first seven years of their life, they would then speak Hebrew, lashon hakodesh, naturally.

“The book is a collection of extremely interesting insights from an extremely wide variety of works that I had studied or found over the previous 20 years or so,” Shoff said.

The rabbi is a husband and father, as well as the founder of BKLA, along with his wife Rebbetzin Sara Shoff. Their shul was one of the first to be established outside of the immediate Pico-Robertson vicinity, though still within walking distance, since many members of the community started moving due to more affordable home prices in the Faircrest Heights area. Though Shoff, a Los Angeles native, leads a busy life, he always finds a way to further his learning and compile the most interesting commentaries he discovers.

“Making time to learn Torah is of utmost importance to me, and when I learn new things, whether in preparation for a drasha at shul, or a class, I find that when I do not write them down, I regret it endlessly, for sometimes it is just lost,” he said. “I try my hardest to write things up.”

Shoff sees the Torah as being our “very life’s blood. It is the story of the Jewish people and the story of every one of us. Judaism only passes along when there is passionate excitement for Torah study.”

He quoted the ancient blessing, “Please, Hashem our God, make the Torah sweet in our mouths, and in the mouths of all Jewish people. That way, we and our children and their children will all know Your name and study your Torah sincerely. Blessed are you Hashem, who teaches the Torah to your nation Israel.”

He quoted the ancient blessing, “Please, Hashem our God, make the Torah sweet in our mouths, and in the mouths of all Jewish people.”

The rabbi continued, “Jewish continuity depends on authentic passionate Torah study. Don’t miss an opportunity to learn, and may it always be approached with sweetness and joy, for nothing in the world compares to it.”

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