Rabbi Heschel Greenberg

In brief

Rabbi Heschel Greenberg is a Judaic scholar, teacher and author who has taught Torah in Buffalo, New York, for more than fifty years. He is the founder and director of the Jewish Discovery Center in Williamsville, NY, and a shliach (emissary) of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Buffalo. He should not be confused with Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg or with other rabbis named Greenberg.

Fifty years in Buffalo

In 1972 Rabbi Greenberg and his wife, Mrs. Lea Greenberg, set out to bring the wisdom and warmth of Judaism to Buffalo. Half a century later, the Jewish Discovery Center counts him as the longest-serving rabbi in the city’s history. COLlive, the news site of the Chabad-Lubavitch community, calls him “a shliach of the Rebbe in Buffalo NY,” and notes that over those fifty years he has taught thousands of classes on every part of Jewish knowledge.

In 2023 the Buffalo Day of Jewish Learning, run by the Buffalo Jewish Federation with Hillel of Buffalo and the University at Buffalo, created the Rabbi Heschel Greenberg Lecture, to be given each year in honor of his contribution to Jewish Buffalo. He gave the first one himself, marking his fifty years in the city, on “The Rational Mystery of Mashiach.”

The Jewish Discovery Center

The Jewish Discovery Center, at 831 Maple Rd. in Williamsville, is the home for Jewish life that the Greenbergs built together. Its mission is to welcome every Jew, whatever their background or beliefs, and to give each person a Jewish experience of their own. What began with two people is now a full week of Jewish life: adult classes, children’s programs, a shul with no membership dues, Shabbat food for the homebound and those in need, and visits to seniors and hospital patients.

Mrs. Lea Greenberg, a Judaic scholar and mother of eleven, is the Center’s co-founder. Rabbi Greenberg is also a senior lecturer at the Center’s Institute for Jewish Studies, its flagship program of adult Jewish education.

What he teaches

Rabbi Greenberg teaches the whole range of Jewish learning — the weekly Torah portion, Talmud, the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, Jewish law, Kabbalah and Chassidic philosophy — to beginners and advanced students alike.

• The weekly parsha. Each week he writes E-Lights, an essay on the Torah portion, and teaches a weekly parsha class. His classes and essays for every portion are gathered on the parsha pages.
• Rambam In-Depth. Short classes on one law of the Mishneh Torah at a time and the reasoning behind it. He began the series in answer to the Rebbe’s call to study at least one halacha in depth, and COLlive publishes the classes.
• Chassidus. He has translated and annotated discourses (ma’amarim) of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, writes essays on Chassidus, and leads farbrengens that COLlive has streamed live from the Jewish Discovery Center.
• Safe Kabbalah. His three-part book Safe Kabbalah is a guided introduction to the inner, mystical dimension of the Torah, and explains why its study was always approached with care.
• Talmud and the basics. His long-running classes also include an advanced Talmud class and The Basics of Judaism. The Jewish Discovery Center keeps the current schedule of weekly classes, in person and on Zoom.

Books and writing

Rabbi Greenberg has written dozens of works on Bible, Talmud, Maimonides, Jewish law, Kabbalah, Chassidic philosophy and the Jewish holidays, including several volumes of commentary on the Mishneh Torah. His Hebrew series, Maaseh Yisrael, includes volumes on the Rambam’s Sefer HaMada and on Sanhedrin. He has also written more than fifty scholarly papers in rabbinic journals and hundreds of popular articles.

His English books, published by the Jewish Discovery Center, can be read free on this site, chapter by chapter:

• Light from the Future — essays on every weekly Torah portion and the Jewish holidays, collected from more than twenty years of E-Lights
• Safe Kabbalah, in three parts
• Essays on Pirkei Avos (Ethics of the Fathers), adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
• Ma’amarim of the Rebbe, translated with introductions and notes
• Tefillin — Judaism’s Crown, available in print

See all of Rabbi Greenberg’s books.

On television and online

For decades his weekly television program, Let My People Know, brought Jewish knowledge and Jewish values into homes across Western New York. Episodes recorded in the 1990s can be watched here in the Let My People Know series.

Today his classes reach students everywhere: new classes each week on his YouTube channel, often streamed live; The Rabbi Greenberg Show podcast; and the essays on this site. He has lectured across the United States, Canada, Australia and South Africa, and has been a guest speaker at gatherings in Crown Heights, among them a Hakhel gathering at 770 Eastern Parkway in 2023.

His work has never stayed in the classroom: in 1992 a phone call he made to a colleague in Australia reunited a Buffalo woman with her brother, whom she had not seen in fifty years.

His aim has always been to bring the highest ideas to the broadest audiences — elevating the way people live and feel by elevating the way they think.

Learn with Rabbi Greenberg

• This week’s Torah portion: the parsha pages
• Video classes: watch, or browse all series
• Podcast and essays: listen or read
• Questions or speaking invitations: contact Rabbi Greenberg

Other teachers at the Jewish Discovery Center share the Greenberg name, among them Rabbi Yehoshua Greenberg, its education director. This is the official site of Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, the Center’s founder.