Tagged: judaism

Vayechi: Spiritual Support For The Dying

Photo credit: D-Gernz on Flickr This week’s Torah reading, Vayechi, begins by telling us that our patriarch Jacob, “lived 17 years in the land of Egypt,” once he had been reunited with his beloved...

Vayetze: 50 Years Later

Mark Chagall, “Jacob’s Dream, 1966 This Shabbat marks 50 years since I read the haftarah for Vayetze at my Friday night bat mitzvah at Congregation B’nai Torah in Trumbull, CT. Where has the time...

Noah: Because God Had To Grow Up Too

For a variety of reasons, I’ve been thinking very differently about this week’s Torah reading, Noach. In the past, I’ve focused on how Noah was ish tazdik tamim hayah b’dorotav, “a righteous and whole-hearted...

Ki Tetze: A Divine Challenge

Parashat Ki Tetze is one of my favorites–not because of the litany of seemingly unrelated, and in some cases, harsh laws, but because it contains the first topic I studied in my “Intro to...

a labyrinth with sonnets and candles.

Mourning and Memory

Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, is a day of national and collective mourning for the Jewish people. On this date in 586 BCE and again in 70CE, Jerusalem,...

The Challenges of Leadership

A record (remember those?) I used to listen to was called “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish” by Bob Booker and George Foster. At about the 12-minute mark is a sketch called, “The Presidents.”...

Two people blindfolded and reaching out to each other across the sky.

Who Can You Trust?

I’ve never subscribed to the idea that illness and misfortune are Divine retribution for sins, and while our sacred texts–especially the Prophets–clearly relate bad things that happen to the people Israel’s sinful behavior, I...

Trouble for the Kohen with Trouble

  This Shabbat we read parashat Emor, which includes a discussion about certain physical conditions that disqualify a kohen from performing his sacrificial duties. Leviticus 21:17-23 list these conditions–blemishes, limps, a hunchback, a broken...