You may very well be wrong in your first impression – Love, Tamar In the second year of the Triennial Cycle of Torah reading, we find that the focus of the parashat hashavua (“Torah reading of the week”) is the story of Tamar in Bereshit, also called Genesis, in chapter 38. After the strange silence imposed upon Dinah inContinue reading “Shabbat VaYeshev: Justice by the Light of the Hanukkah Menorah”
Tag Archives: Hanukkah
Shabbat VaYeshev: Minority Status
Hanukkah begins on Sunday December 2 at sundown. We always find it in proximity to the parashat hashavua which we study this week, VaYeshev. The word means “he returned” but we might also read it as “here we go again.” One month after the massacre of our fellow Jews joined in Shabbat prayer in Pittsburgh,Continue reading “Shabbat VaYeshev: Minority Status”
Shabbat Miketz: All of a Sudden, Change
You know where you stand, you know your path forward, you’ve spent time deciding what your future is going to look like. And then something happens, all of a sudden, and your plans….they get eaten up like the seven fat cows of Pharaoh’s dream. Every year we read parashat Miketz on a Shabbat that coincidesContinue reading “Shabbat Miketz: All of a Sudden, Change”
Shabbat VaYeshev: Return, O Light, and We will Return to You
This is as dark as it’s going to get. From here on out, the light of the sun returns to us, slowly, day by day. Darkness settles on us human beings like an oppressive cloak. Like Jacob and his sons in our parashat hashavua, we might even lose our grip on what’s real, and what’sContinue reading “Shabbat VaYeshev: Return, O Light, and We will Return to You”
Shabbat Miketz: Enough Already, Let’s Wake Up
This parashat hashavua (parashah of the week) is called Miketz, “at the end”. The word refers to a period of time, as the Torah specifies: “It was at the end of two years….” It describes the Egyptian Pharaoh in the grip of dreams that start out innocuously enough, but then turn into terrifying nightmares: happy, fat cows grazing on the lushContinue reading “Shabbat Miketz: Enough Already, Let’s Wake Up”
Shabbat Miketz: light is seen only in darkness
The Shabbat of Hanukkah is nearly always Shabbat Miketz. The word miketz means “at the end of”, and in this context it refers to the end of a period of time – a dark time, with Joseph missing from his family and his home. Joseph is imprisoned in a dungeon as we begin the parashah,Continue reading “Shabbat Miketz: light is seen only in darkness”
Shabbat VaYeshev: What Do You See in the Light?
One of my favorite English lines from an old siddur is from a Kaddish meditation: “in light we see; in light we are seen.” This kind of light is not only visible, of course; illumination can also be of the “aha” kind, when something suddenly clarifies in the mind. The universal illustration for that atContinue reading “Shabbat VaYeshev: What Do You See in the Light?”
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 