• Learning from Moses and Yehoshua

    This past week we read in the Torah of Pinchus, someone who stands up to fulfill what is written in Pirkey Avot (The Ethics of Our Fathers), “In a place where there is no one, stand up and be someone”.  He is the classic zealot for God.  Several paragraphs latter when God tells Moses that…

  • Teshuvah Through Love: Transforming Faults into Merits

    The Talmud states that teshuvah done from fear renders one’s sins, even if they were done intentionally, as if they were committed unintentionally, but teshuvah from love actually transforms intentional sins into merits. How is this possible? I think the answer lies in the nature of love itself.  Love results in some degree of unity…

  • Embracing the Roles of Leadership in Community

    This week’s Torah portion begins with God speaking to Moshe but here God addresses Moshe in an uncommon way, with the words “V’Ata,”  “And You.”  One verse later, we have this opening again, and then a few verses later we have this phrase repeated a third time, after which it disappears as quickly as it…

  • Connecting the Temple’s Sacred Spaces

    In this week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh, Moses is told to command the Jewish people to take pure olive oil to light the menorah in the Temple.  The menorah was lit each day as one of the first services in the temple in Jerusalem.  The description of the actual fashioning of the gold menorah was already…

  • Purim and the Eternal Struggle: The War Between G-d and Amalek

    This week’s Torah portion, titzaveh, almost always falls during the week of the holiday of Purim which this year will be this Wednesday night, March 4th and Thursday, March 5th.  Purim was the day 2500 years ago in Persia that Haman tried to annihilate all the Jews and Queen Esther saved them.  Haman was a…

  • Beyond the Familiar: The Call to Expand Our Horizons

    In this past week’s parsha, Balak, the Torah surprises us.   The normal scene completely switches and focuses not on the Jewish people but instead on prophets of other nations who have a relationship with God but who have not heard of the Jewish people.  For these people, the Jewish people are but a curiosity…

  • Uncovering the Chanukah Connection in Yaakov’s Struggle

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, Yaakov leaves Lavan’s house and learns that Esav his brother who wanted to kill him is coming with 400 men.  He sends his family ahead and prepares them for war and then Yaakov crosses back over the river Yabbok alone in the night.  There he has the famous struggle…

  • Simchat Torah in Exile: Embracing Life and Possibility

    A well known verse in this Parsha states: “…I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse, -and you shall choose life,(u’vacharta b’chaim)-in order that you and your offspring shall live. (30:19)” Why do we need this verse?  Don’t we know we are supposed to choose the path of goodness and life?  Has…

  • Joseph, His Brothers, and the Thanksgiving Message

    In this week’s parsha, Vayeshev, we read the story of Joseph and his brothers which contains the tragic seeds of the Jewish peoples’ exile in Egypt. As the Talmud writes (Shabbat 10b): “Rava bar Meḥasseya said that Rav Ḥama bar Gurya said that Rav said: A person should never distinguish one of his sons from…

  • The Journey That Shaped a Nation

    In the second of this week’s Torah portions, Masei, the Torah writes, “These were the travels of the Israelites who came out of the land of Egypt, according to their hosts, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.  Moses wrote down the starting points of their various marches according to their travels, as directed by…

  • Vows, Leadership, and the Road to the Land

    In this week’s Parsha, Matos-Masei, the Jewish people stand on the bank of the Jordan river.  They have engaged in battle with the nations on the eastern side of that river, have survived the spiritual onslaught of the Moabites in last week’s parsha, and now they are poised to enter the land.   In these…

  • Joseph’s Early Mistake: The Path to Becoming a Tzadik

    This week’s Torah portion, Va’yeshev, begins by describing the relationship between Joseph and his brothers when Joseph was 17 years old. The Torah tells us that when Joseph was tending sheep with his brothers “…Joseph brought slander about them to his father. Israel loved Joseph more of all the brothers….and they (his brothers) were unable…

  • Nostalgia and the Value of Today

    This week’s second torah portion opens with Moshe reviewing all of the 42 stops that the Jewish people made in the desert over their 40 year trek from Egypt to Israel.  We know where they have been, why recount them?  Remembering the past is a familiar feeling to us.  It can come with regret or…

  • The Intersection of War, Community, and Personal Needs

    In the second of this week’s two Torah portions, Ma’asey, the Jewish people stand on the banks of the Jordan River poised to enter the Land of Israel.  They are commanded to make war with the people they will encounter there and to, “Drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy…

  • Balancing the Needs of the Community and the Individual

    In this week’s Torah portion, the Jewish people stand on the banks of the Jordan River poised to enter the Land of Israel.  They are commanded to make war with the people they will encounter there and to, “drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their molten images, and…

  • Neilah’s Call: Embracing the Heart of Prayer This Yom Kippur

    Rabbi Joseph Solovetchik explained that there are different forms of prayer. We fulfill an obligation to pray three times a day, we pray in order to take the place of sacrifices, we pray in times of great need. Maimonides says that an integral part of the process of teshuvah, of repentance and return, is prayer,…

  • A Call to Care for One Another in Times of Crisis

    This week’s parsha, Ki Tisa, speaks of counting the Jewish people by means of the half shekel.  The Torah states that this was done in order to avoid a plague that could result from the counting.  Indeed King David, against the better judgement of his advisors, insisted on counting the people and this did result…

  • Navigating the Slippery Slope

    In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, the Jewish people make and worship the golden calf after which Moshe comes down the mountain and breaks the tablets.   This parsha is bookended by God giving the instructions for making the Tabernacle to Moshe and Moshe telling the Jewish people how to build it. Rash”i reads…

  • The 13 Attributes of Mercy and the Role of Perspective

    This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, contains the famous 13 Attributes of Mercy. We say them on fast days, and  on Yom Kippur we say them over and over in an attempt to beseech God for mercy.  As the Talmud says in Rosh Hashanah, 17b, “God appeared to Moses and taught him the 13 Attributes,…

  • Shabbat, the Mishkan, and the Golden Calf

    In this week’s parsha, Ki Tisa, the Jewish people, just after hearing God at Mount Sinai, worship the golden calf.  This of course is a great sin for which Moshe appeals to God’s mercy and ultimately, gains forgiveness for the people. Aviva Zorenberg points out that if we look at the larger context of the…