“What if this is the darkness not of the tomb, but of the womb?” – Valarie Kaur, Revolutionary Love Project In our parashat hashavua a young Jacob is on the lam. He is escaping the rupture of his family relationships, with no clear sense of what he is running toward. He flees his brother’s wrath,Continue reading “Shabbat VaYetze: This is a holy place, and I didn’t know it!”
Tag Archives: mitzvah
The Most Important Mitzvah
It’s a Portland kind of question: What do you do for Passover when you’re gluten free? In order to answer this question it’s best to first consider a more fundamental question: What is the Most Important Mitzvah of Pesakh? There are several mitzvot that all might be considered primary: 1. have a Seder and tellContinue reading “The Most Important Mitzvah”
Shabbat Kedoshim: Neither Inaccessible Nor Absurd
Our parashat hashavua (“section of the week”, i.e. the part of the Torah assigned by ancient Jewish tradition for this week in the Jewish calendar) begins with the most inaccessible and ludicrous of demands: “Speak to the People Israel and say to them, ‘be holy [kadosh], as I ‘ה your G*d am holy [kadosh]’.” (Lev. 19.2) But when weContinue reading “Shabbat Kedoshim: Neither Inaccessible Nor Absurd”
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 