A D’var Torah for Parashat Noah By Rabbi Inna Serebro-Litvak   A few years ago, when my daughter Emily graduated from high school, we went on a mother-daughter trip to Spain. That was the first time I learned, with Emily’s help, how to easily use Google Translate from text or words, adding it to my toolbar. This was quite a revelation for me! I couldn’t believe the convenience of this technological feature (remember this was four years before AI took over our lives). But at the same time, I felt cheated. I really wanted to be able to speak Spanish, as well as Italian, French, Mandarin - and perhaps other languages fluently. I did eventually add French to my repertoire, along with Russian, English and Read More >

A D’var Torah for Parashat Bereisheet By Rabbi Michael Kohn (AJR 2009) There are numerous cycles embedded within a Jewish year – the daily cycle of prayer, the weekly cycle of ordinary days and Shabbat, the monthly cycle of new moons, and the annual cycle of holidays and festivals. This week we experience another yearly cycle, as we start to read the Torah once more from the beginning. Making our way through the first six days of Creation, we learn that the word “tov”, usually translated as “good”, appears seven times. The light on the first day was tov (Gen 1:4). The land and the seas were tov (Gen 1:10), as were the seed-bearing plants and trees of every kind bearing fruit (Gen 1:12). The Read More >

A D’var Torah for Parashat Ha’azinu By Rabbi Dr. Matthew Goldstone Prayer fills the season of repentance and it is at this point in the calendar when we read Moses’ final prayer, the last song before his demise: Ha’azinu. It is fitting that Ha’azinu aligns with this season as it includes praise for God, but also recognition of people’s mistakes – some of the main themes of the high holidays. One verse in particular calls out to us at this moment (Deut. 32:20): וַיֹּאמֶר אַסְתִּירָה פָנַי מֵהֶם אֶרְאֶה מָה אַחֲרִיתָם (I will hide My countenance from them, And see how they fare in the end…). Ibn Ezra points out two dramatically opposed ways of reading this verse. One way to understand this verse is that Read More >

Caring and Compassion A D’var Torah for Parshiyot Nitzavim-Vayeilekh By Cantor Sandy Horowitz For verse after verse Moses has been speaking to the Israelites in the form of commandments and exhortations, the threat of curse and the promise of blessing. Parashat Vayeilekh brings a different tone, somewhat softer, as we near the end of our annual Torah reading cycle.  (Spoiler alert – there will be more exhortations after this! But for now, let’s take a pause.) For forty years Moses has led the Israelites on their journey towards the promised land. He has reached the age of 120, and his life, like our Torah cycle, is coming to an end.  As the people prepare to cross the river Jordan, Moses has been told by God Read More >