• Shabbat of Rebellion; Shabbat of Connection

    Why is this Shabbat, the Shabbat before Passover, called Shabbat HaGadol (the Great Shabbat), while no other festival has a special Shabbat preceding it? The Talmud (Shabbat 87b) tells us that in the year the Jews left Egypt, the 15th of Nisan—the day of the Exodus—was a Thursday. The 10th of the month, the day…

  • On the seventh day, change the self

    In this parsha, Moshe is transmitting to the Jewish people the precepts of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, which God gave him on Mount Sinai. But if you look closely, there are differences between God’s command and Moshe’s transmission. For instance, when God commands Moshe not to build the Mishkan on Shabbat, he says: “Six days…

  • Intimacy and Obligation

    Our parsha, Ki Tisa, is primarily about the sin of the Golden Calf, but it is bracketed on both sides by Shabbat and the laws of the Mishkan. In the Torah, Shabbat and the Mishkan are often juxtaposed, and in halacha they are inextricably tied. On Shabbat, one is not allowed to build the Mishkan.…

  • Permanence and Transience

    Last week, I watched my mother-in-law slowly pass from this world to the next. It seems that when one does not have the energy or capacity to do anything else, one can still sleep. I suppose this reflects the Talmud’s adage that sleep is one-sixtieth of death. It seems that each night, unconsciously, our ultimate…

  • Simcha shel mitzvah

    In this week’s Torah portion, Bo, Moshe and Aaron go to Pharaoh, who appears to acquiesce to letting them go to the desert to serve God. Pharaoh asks who is going and Moshe and Aaron reply that everyone must go since it is a festival to God. Pharaoh argues back that only the adult males…

  • Bal Tashchit and Tu Bishvat

    This Shabbat, we will bless the new month of Shevat. According to the Mishnah, the 15th of Shevat is the New Year of the Trees. We have several Jewish new years: for people, on Rosh Hashanah, the day we are judged; for Kings, by which to date documents; for animals; and for trees, to determine…

  • Name and Number

    Our parsha, Shemot, begins with names: “And these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt…” Why does this parsha, the parsha of the Egyptian exile, begin with the names of the Jewish people when the Torah already counted all 70 Israelites by name in last week’s parsha? Rashi is bothered…

  • Potential and Possibilities

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vayechi, Jacob blesses Joseph and gives him Shechem. The city of Shechem seems like a strange inheritance to leave to Joseph, since it was the place where he was thrown into a pit and sold by his brothers, a site of profound personal trauma. One might expect Shimon or Levi…

  • How can we understand antisemitism?

    In this week’s Torah portion, Miketz, Joseph becomes the second-in-command to Pharaoh and, utilizing his power, saves the Levant from famine. Pharaoh honors Joseph, promotes him to second-in-command, and things are wonderful in Egypt for the Children of Israel. But we, the readers of the Torah, know that two parshiot later a new king will…

  • Lessons from Shechem

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeshev, the sale of Joseph by his brothers takes place. However, selling him was not his brothers’ original intent. The Torah is very clear: they meant to kill their brother even though he came in peace, because they were jealous of him. “His (Joseph’s) brothers were jealous of him…His brothers…

  • Cultivation of Truth

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, Jacob fights with the angel of Esau in a prefiguring of future struggles between the Jews and their enemies. Esau is the grandfather of Amalek, the source of all antisemitism. Antisemitism is fueled not only by hatred of Jews but by the erasure of truth, enabling millennia-old falsehoods and…

  • Finding Light in the Darkness

    This week’s torah portion, Vayetzey, opens with Jacob running away from his brother Esaw who wants to kill him for taking his firstborn blessing.  Jacob is going to his uncle Laban’s ranch on the eastern side of the Jordan River in Haran.  The Torah writes: “Jacob left Beer-Sheva, and set out toward Haran. He bumped…

  • Prayer as Relationship

    This week’s Torah portion, Toldot, opens, “And Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rivka… And Isaac prayed to God opposite his wife because she was barren, and God responded to his prayer, and Rivka became pregnant.” The word for prayer here is not the normal word that is used, lehitpalel or lehitchanen, to pray or ask,…

  • The faiths of our foreparents

    This week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, literally “The life of Sarah,” begins with Sarah’s death, which follows the story of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, at the end of last week’s portion. Rashi is bothered by the strange juxtaposition of the almost slaughtering of Isaac by Abraham and the death of Sarah, and quoting…

  • Being Athens, Being Sparta

    The State of Israel has achieved something truly miraculous: the ability, in the words of Daniel Schueftan, Director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa, to be both Athens and Sparta. Athens was a center for culture, philosophy and democracy, known for its intellectual achievements. In contrast, Sparta was a militaristic…

  • Rain of Blessing

    In this week’s parsha, Noach, we read about the flood that destroys the world and about Noach the Righteous, who is saved along with his family and all the animals in the Ark. Rashi, known for his succinct style, in this instance repeats himself several times, all on the same theme. When God tells Noach…

  • Joy to Sadness to Joy

    At the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, Moshe tells the Children of Israel that when they enter the land and grow crops there they must bring the first fruits to the Temple. When the farmer brings this basket of first fruits he has to recite a four-line summary of the history of…

  • To merit long life

    In this week’s Torah portion, we are commanded to send away a mother bird before taking her young from the nest. The reward for this mitzvah is long life in the land which God has given us. There is one other mitzvah with this same reward, honoring one’s parents. Both are about parenthood and the…

  • Restraint in Destruction

    In this week’s Torah portion, Re’eh, the Torah writes: “You must destroy all the sites at which the nations you are to dispossess worshiped their gods, whether on lofty mountains or on hills or under any luxuriant tree. Tear down their altars, smash their pillars, put their sacred posts to the fire, and cut down the…

  • Speaking Up and Speaking Out

    This past week, Rabbi Yosef Blau, the longtime Mashgiach Ruchani (religious and spiritual guide) at Yeshiva University, wrote a public letter about the current war that Israel finds itself in and the need for us to “affirm that Judaism’s vision of justice and compassion extends to all human beings.” He asked Orthodox rabbis to sign…