SmallTalk: Drawing from the Depths of the Parshiyos (with Rabbi Moshe Kramer)

In the new book Drawing from the Depths of the Parshiyos, Rabbi Moshe Kramer sets out to do something specific: teach readers how to approach Chumash, not just hand them a collection of cute vortlach. The book, a translation of his Hebrew Mima’amakim, runs over 600 pages and contains at least three essays per parshah. But the real engine behind it is a single, formative relationship.

The Rabbi Who Shaped the Book

Rabbi Kramer grew up davening in a shul where Rabbi Avigdor Miller was the rav. He sat on Rabbi Miller’s lap as a child and stood next to him between Leining and Musaf, listening to his talks for years. “It changed my whole cook, my whole look on life, my attitude, my hashkafos,” Kramer says. When Rabbi Miller was niftar, Kramer was eighteen. He has been digesting those teachings for the past twenty-five years.

The result is a sefer that does not always quote Rabbi Miller by name, but where his influence is unmistakable. “Anyone who has any connection to Rav Miller would see right away, you’ll see Rav Miller throughout the whole book,” Kramer explains. The positivity, the straightforwardness, the hashkafic framing — all of it comes from that well. The book is, in a real sense, a transmission of a derech.

What Makes an Essay, Not a Vort