Rosner’s Torah Talk: Parshat Vaetchanan with Rabbi David Kasher

[additional-authors]

Shmuel Rosner

August 15, 2019

David Kasher serves as an Associate Rabbi, at IKAR, a non-denominational spiritual community in Los Angeles. He received his BA in Political Science at Wesleyan University, holds a J.S.D. from Berkeley Law, and received his Rabbinic Ordination at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. After college, he studied in yeshivot in Israel before rabbinical school. He returned to Northern California and became the Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel. He was part of the founding team at Kevah. He has served on the faculty of Berkeley Law, the Wexner Heritage Program, Reboot, and BINA: The Secular Yeshiva, and taught for Pardes, SVARA, The Hartman Institute and Dorot.

Rabbi Kasher is a teacher of nearly all forms of classical Jewish literature, but his greatest passion is Torah commentary, and he spent the last five years producing the weekly ParshaNut.com blog and podcast, which he is now developing into a book, due to be released this fall.

This Week’s Torah Portion- Parashat Va’etchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11)- continues to present Moses’ review of the Torah. He recounts the story of the Exodus from Egypt, declaring it an unprecedented event in human history. He predicts how in the future the people of Israel will sin, worship other gods, get exiled, and return to obey the lord outside the Promised Land. The portion includes a repetition of the Ten Commandments and of the verses of the Shema.