This week we cannot assert that the Jewish lifelines of Torah study and prayer are irrelevant for our day. This week it is almost unnerving how much the Torah and our Jewish tradition have to say to us to guide our thoughts and decisions. The haftarah for this Shabbat asserts: The coastlands look on inContinue reading “Shabbat Lekh L’kha: Go Forth, in Jewish”
Tag Archives: Torah
Shabbat Bereshit: Get Naked
This week, as we begin again to encounter Torah, we are back at the beginning. The first chapters encompass so much: The world is created: human beings exist, and interact with all other forms of life on earth as well as with each other. And there, of course, is where it gets complicated. Here’s where we start:Continue reading “Shabbat Bereshit: Get Naked”
Shabbat Shemot 5776: what do you see in that bush?
One of the useful things about Torah is that every word of the sacred document has been pored over for so many generations, by so many devoted readers, that the commentaries are legion, and a well-worn path of interpretation lies before us as we in our own day consider what insights our Torah might divulge.Continue reading “Shabbat Shemot 5776: what do you see in that bush?”
Shabbat Bereshit: We’ll Keep the Light On
The earth was formless and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep (Bereshit 1:2) First comes darkness, then light. (Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 77b) At the beginning, there is darkness. This is not only true of the account of Creation as we find it in the Book we call Bereshit, known in English as “Genesis”.Continue reading “Shabbat Bereshit: We’ll Keep the Light On”
Shabbat BaMidbar, erev Shavuot: What Is This Torah That We Receive?
The very first lines of Pirke Avot, a famous collection of Rabbinic 1st-century ethical “sayings of the ancestors”, goes like this: Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Assembly. –Continue reading “Shabbat BaMidbar, erev Shavuot: What Is This Torah That We Receive?”
Shabbat Hayye Sarah: Is the Torah Misogynistic?
This week’s parashah is called Hayye Sarah, “Life of Sarah”. The name is derived from the first verse of the parashah: וַיִּהְיוּ חַיֵּי שָׂרָה, מֵאָה שָׁנָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וְשֶׁבַע שָׁנִים–שְׁנֵי, חַיֵּי שָׂרָה. “Sarah’s life was 127 years; these were the years of Sarah’s life.” (Gen. 23.1) This, however, is the beginning of what weContinue reading “Shabbat Hayye Sarah: Is the Torah Misogynistic?”
Shabbat Bereshit: Beginning Again, But Not at the Beginning
Here we go again with the beginning! This week we begin once again to read the Torah. Our parashah is Bereshit, “in [the process of] beginning”. We all know how it begins, and we all know what happens in the story: creation of the world, then of plants, animals and human beings, and then theContinue reading “Shabbat Bereshit: Beginning Again, But Not at the Beginning”
Shabbat Nitzavim-VaYelekh: Where Do You Stand?
Where do you stand as a Jew? On this Shabbat we are called upon to focus upon this question. Nitzavim means “to stand firm” and in these days, as we count down the final hours until Rosh HaShanah, this Shabbat is a moment of welcome quiet. Even as the students among us have just begunContinue reading “Shabbat Nitzavim-VaYelekh: Where Do You Stand?”
Shabbat Hazon: A Vision To Hold On To
This week we begin to read the final book of the Torah, called devarim, “words”. The entire book consists of Moshe’s parting words. The Israelites will soon cross the Jordan River, under the leadership of Joshua. Before the crossing, a moment of reflection: Moshe is reminding the Israelites of where they came from, and howContinue reading “Shabbat Hazon: A Vision To Hold On To”
Shabbat BeHa’alot’kha: G-d is my GPS
In this third parashah of the Book BaMidbar, we are finally on the move; after over a year camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai, after receiving the Torah, constructing the Mishkan, organizing the priestly sacrificial system, and learning a lot of halakhah on how to maintain the appropriate atmosphere for the Mishkan in ourContinue reading “Shabbat BeHa’alot’kha: G-d is my GPS”
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 