Dear Friends, Little did Judy and I know when we concluded last year’s seder with leshanah haba-ah birushalayim, “New Year in Jerusalem,” how much the Jewish world and life in Israel would have changed by the next Pesah. Indeed, we are spending Pesah 5784 in Yerushalayim, but not because of the arrival of the messianic redemption. Continue Reading »
The Thursday lunch-and-learn group started a new course last week–a look at the weekly haftarah. For the next year, I’ll use this space to share something that didn’t make it into our class discussion. The architectural details of the Torah reading, Pekudei can numb us to a moment of profound excitement in the Torah reading. On the Continue Reading »
The Thursday lunch-and-learn group started a new course last week–a look at the weekly haftarah. For the next year, I’ll use this space to share something that didn’t make it into our class discussion. Eliyahu took an enormous gamble when he arranged a contest on Mount Carmel. He, the solitary remaining prophet of God, faced Continue Reading »
The Thursday lunch-and-learn group started a new course last week–a look at the weekly haftarah. For the next year, I’ll use this space to share something that didn’t make it into our class discussion. For the second consecutive week, our Torah portion and haftarah focus on the minutiae of the mishkan and mikdash, the portable and stationary sanctuaries of ancient Continue Reading »
The Thursday lunch-and-learn group started a new course this week–a look at the weekly haftarah. For the next year, I’ll use this space to share something that didn’t make it into our class discussion. In Haftarat Terumah, we read of King Solomon’s project to build the Temple. There was something out-of-the-ordinary about the stones that were Continue Reading »
Jewish tradition has many metaphors to attempt to describe God. Look through the siddur or Humash and you’ll find no shortage of names that are descriptions of the roles we believe God can play. Sometimes, God is Ish Milhamah, “Man of War,” as last week’s Song at the Sea said. Every morning in our prayers, we refer to God as Tzur Continue Reading »
Not long after the Exodus, not long after the rescue at the Sea of Reeds, not long after the miraculous sweetening of water to quench their thirst, the Israelites have another crisis. This time, it’s about food. And their anxiety triggers memories of the good old days: “If only we had died by the hand Continue Reading »
If you ever think that putting up a mezuzah is challenging, consider the origins of the practice. God told Moshe and Aharon to command the Israelites to take a lamb and slaughter it at home. Next, “they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts (mezuzot) and the lintel of the houses Continue Reading »
And I wanted to begin this dvar Torah on the second book of the Torah by reminding us all that one must never begin a sentence with a conjunction. Let alone a paragraph. Let alone a book! But (oops, I did it again) that’s exactly how Sefer Shemot, the Book of Exodus, begins. “Ve-eleh shemot Bnei Yisrael–And these Continue Reading »
As we come to the end of Sefer Bereshit, the Book of Genesis, we read Ya’akov’s farewell to his sons. Famously, at the end of his life, he says: “Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come” (Genesis 49:1). And then, he proceeds to…say something very different to Continue Reading »
