Teach Your Children Well A D’var Torah for Parashat Ki Tavo By Rabbi Greg Schindler From the moment she stepped into the home in Tuscumbia, Alabama on March 3, 1887, 21-year old Anne Sullivan faced a daunting challenge.  Not only was her new 6-year old pupil blind (like Anne), but she was also deaf, mute, and very unruly. Anne immediately began signing words into the child’s hand.  It took a month of constant repetition, but eventually the girl began to comprehend that the words drawn on her hand represented things in the world. Anne understood that teaching this child would best be achieved by focusing on touch, smell, and taste.  And so, many of their lessons took place outdoors where they could touch the animals, Read More >

A D’var Torah for Parashat Ki Teitzei By Hazzan Rabbi Luis Cattan As we enter the month of Elul, preparing for Rosh Hashanah, many of us begin to plan who will be seated at our festive tables — and realize also, who will not. For some, this season stirs joy. For others, it stirs old and new grief. Rabbi Naomi Levy, a contemporary liturgist, offers a powerful “Prayer When a Parent Dies” in her book Talking to God: “I miss you. You gave me my life. You were my protector, my teacher, my moral compass, my comfort. I feel so alone without you. No one worries about me the way you did. No one loves me the way you did… Please forgive me for the Read More >

One to Keep Before You… And One to Carry with You A D’var Torah for Parashat Shoftim By Rabbi Enid C. Lader As Moses continues his instructions to all the people of Israel as they [we] are preparing to enter the Promised Land, he says: “You shall be free to set a king over yourself, one chosen by the Eternal your God…  He shall not keep many horses… He shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray; nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess. When he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he is to write himself a Mishneh Torah – a copy of this Instruction – in a scroll, before the presence of Levitical priests. Let it remain with Read More >

The Torah of Vacation A D’var Torah for Parashat Re’eh By Rabbi Rob Scheinberg, PhD Here’s a good question to ask in August: What does the Torah teach us about how to go on vacation? Our initial answer might be: not so much. You would have a hard time coming up with references to vacation in the Torah. Perhaps one could refer to Shabbat as a weekly vacation, but that uses the word “vacation” very differently from how we tend to use it. There is a lot of discussion of travel in the Torah: Abraham moves to the land of Israel; the people of Israel go down to Egypt, and then take a long and scenic route for forty years back to the land of Israel. But Read More >