Our parashat hashavua is Tetzaveh, from the same root as mitzvah, that is, obligation. The parashah’s name is generic: every week we are presented with mitzvot, which we are to carry out. No matter what the occasion or occurrence, there’s always a mitzvah to fulfill; this is the framework that structures Jewish life. The mitzvotContinue reading “Shabbat Tetzaveh: For Want of a Tent Peg”
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Shabbat Zakhor: Remember to Forget
The parashat hashavua is Terumah, which begins with the insistence that if we would know the holy – know peace, serenity, friendship and love – we must build a holy place in which to focus our intention: Let Them make Me a sanctuary where I can be among them (Exodus 25.8) We cannot truly understandContinue reading “Shabbat Zakhor: Remember to Forget”
Shabbat Mishpatim: The Necessary Subversiveness of Delight
Be Happy, It’s Adar! How is it possible that we can be commanded to be happy on a given day? That on the first of Adar, two weeks from Purim, we should somehow manage to be joyful? The more we know of life, the more we are saddened. Global communication brings news of a friend’sContinue reading “Shabbat Mishpatim: The Necessary Subversiveness of Delight”
Shabbat Yitro: Seeing Requires Silence
On this Shabbat our parashat hashavua recounts the moment when our ancestors stood at the foot of Mt Sinai and underwent a transformative moment. Many have asked what exactly we saw and heard in that moment, when the earth shook and the shofar sounded and fire lit up the mountain. On this erev Shabbat IContinue reading “Shabbat Yitro: Seeing Requires Silence”
Shabbat BeShalakh: Freedom to be Joyful, or Not
Finally, after 400 years of dreaming about a future that is not yet within our grasp, the time is now. All that seemed to be obstacles has fallen away; the door that leads away from enslavement to now is beckoning toward the commitment to what will be. Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. Trust, HaShem tells Moshe, notContinue reading “Shabbat BeShalakh: Freedom to be Joyful, or Not”
Shabbat Bo: Come, O Spring
Parashat Bo arrives at a moment that feels like the return of spring. The timing for the parashah in which we read of our redemption from slavery in Egypt, coinciding with a week in which we saw the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration, seems singularly appropriate since Tu B’Shevat, our annual celebration of spring’s firstContinue reading “Shabbat Bo: Come, O Spring”
Shabbat Va’Era: Time to Grow Up
The words of HaShem came to Moshe: “I am The Source of That Which Was, Will Be, Is – your ancestors knew me as a Sheltering Mother; they did not come to this Awareness which is now Yours.” Exodus 6.2-3____________________________________________________ This period of time, the week that was and the one that will be, areContinue reading “Shabbat Va’Era: Time to Grow Up”
Shabbat Shemot: Listen and See that All Is One
we have met the enemy and they are us – cartoonist Walt Kellly in the comic strip Pogo What is the cause of uprisings? the seed of violence? what did we see on Wednesday in Washington D.C., and all spring and summer in Portland? Others will turn to political scientists and sociologists; to these sourcesContinue reading “Shabbat Shemot: Listen and See that All Is One”
The Face of Evil at the U.S. Capitol
The foolish do not knowthe ignorant to not understand thisthough evil seems to flourish like weedsspringing up, vigorous, in every cornerit will not lastGod is above all; God is what lasts.That which hates truth and light will fallall that is the enemy of goodnesswill perish, and crumble away into dust.– Psalm 92 Shalom Shir TikvahContinue reading “The Face of Evil at the U.S. Capitol”
Shabbat VaYehi: Update Your Priors
“One should always be as soft as a reed, and not as hard as a cedar.” Ta’anit 20a-b Parashat VaYekhi is the final parashah of the first book of our Torah, the book of beginnings called in Hebrew Bereshit, “with beginning”(in English, “Genesis”). It’s appropriate that it falls on this Shabbat as we end theContinue reading “Shabbat VaYehi: Update Your Priors”
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 