“there is no light that does not come from the midst of darkness.” – Zohar, Tetzaveh, 184 This Shabbat is the third day of Hanukkah. In traditional practice, with each night of Hanukkah we add light, symbolizing thereby the sense that, each day that it continued to shine, the light was more and more astounding.Continue reading “Shabbat Miketz: Why Bother?”
Tag Archives: Pirke Avot
Shabbat Shoftim: If Not Now, When?
וְיִגַּ֥ל כַּמַּ֖יִם מִשְׁפָּ֑ט וּצְדָקָ֖ה כְּנַ֥חַל אֵיתָֽן׃ But let justice well up like water, Righteousness like a torrential river. (Amos 5.24) We are appropriately proud of our prophetic tradition and its insistence upon “just balances, just weights, a just efah, and a just hin” (Lev. 19.36) in our business dealings, as well as the social imperativeContinue reading “Shabbat Shoftim: If Not Now, When?”
Shabbat Nakhamu: Finding Consolation
Even as it is necessary to make space in our lives to grieve, so it is necessary to make space to feel joy. Our parashat hashavua, called Va’Etkhanan after a word specific enough to help us find our place in the unmarked wilderness of letters which is a Torah scroll, sets up the tension. וָאֶתְחַנַּ֖ןContinue reading “Shabbat Nakhamu: Finding Consolation”
This week the Torah begins with a passage that has become famous for its use in building campaigns throughout the Jewish world: וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם V’asu li mikdash v’shakhanti b’tokham Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them (Exodus 25.8) Our parashah is called Terumah, “gift.” The verse aboveContinue reading
Shabbat Shoftim: How To Be Judgemental
“Whoever studies the Torah for its own sake [l’shmah] merits many things…[among other things] it gives the individual sovereignty and dominion and the ability to judge.” – Pirke Avot 6.1 By an interesting coincidence, it was on this week of Shabbat Shoftim (“judges”) that our weekly Talmud study class contemplated this teaching. At first glance we are, perhaps, notContinue reading “Shabbat Shoftim: How To Be Judgemental”
Shabbat VaYekhi: Your New Day’s Resolution
Taking advantage of what is, interestingly enough after all, only an arbitrary way of calculating a turning point in the counting of our days (why not solstice?), this is the time of year when our society focuses upon the idea of making new year’s resolutions. Jews practice a variation of this idea on Yom Kippur,Continue reading “Shabbat VaYekhi: Your New Day’s Resolution”
Shabbat Shoftim: Yes, Be Judgmental – Justly
Parashat Shoftim begins with the description of the necessary supervision of an ideal community. First one must have judges, then those who carry out judgments. And of course, judgements must be just – as just as human beings can manage to be. Nuances of law, circumstances of context, and our own internal biases must allContinue reading “Shabbat Shoftim: Yes, Be Judgmental – Justly”
Shabbat Zakhor: Remember? then Do Something
This Shabbat, on which we read the first words of the book VaYikra, called Leviticus, is also called Zakhor, “remember”. For Jews, to remember is to do. This assumption – that the mental act prompts a physical one – is encoded in the ancient Hebrew: וַיְהִי בַיָּמִים הָרַבִּים הָהֵם, וַיָּמָת מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם, וַיֵּאָנְחוּ בְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל מִן-הָעֲבֹדָה, וַיִּזְעָקוּ;Continue reading “Shabbat Zakhor: Remember? then Do Something”
Shabbat Ekev: Seeing What Is Being Born
איזהו חכם? הרואה את הנולד – Ayzehu hakham? HaRo’eh et haNolad, “who is wise? One who sees what is being born.” (Pirke Avot 2.9) So few of us, then, can think of ourselves as wise. We try in so many ways to affect our future, would give anything to know our future, to affect it inContinue reading “Shabbat Ekev: Seeing What Is Being Born”
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 