Parashat Toledot 5781
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19
11, 2020
13
11, 2020
Parashat Hayei Sarah 5781
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30
10, 2020
Parashat Lekh Lekha 5781
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23
10, 2020
Parashat Noah 5781
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16
10, 2020
Parashat Bereishit 5781
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10
01, 2020
Parashat Vayehi 5780
A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayehi
By Rabbi David Markus
This last Torah portion of the Book of Genesis (Vayeḥi) concludes the drama of Jacob, Joseph and his brothers. The dramatic saga – their troubled family dynamics, power and power inversions, regret, guilt, fear, their very lives – it all finally reaches a settled tableau. Jacob is buried, hatchets are buried (maybe), and Joseph’s body is embalmed. With them, Torah’s first era of Jewish ancestry ends.
Of course, their deaths are Torah’s fertilizer for the future. Reflecting God’s promise to Abraham long before (Gen. 15:13), by design all of this week’s endings are mere prelude. The next chapter soon will open by recounting those generations (Ex. 1:1-6), and a new king of Egypt will rise to life who knows not Joseph (Ex. 1:8). Centuries of bondage will commingle death and life until only supernatural deaths – the Tenth Plague and the drowning Read More >
3
01, 2020
Parashat Vayigash 5780
A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayigash
By Rabbi Heidi Hoover
In this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash, Joseph reveals who he is to his brothers, in an awkward and fraught family reunion. It could hardly be otherwise. His brothers, when they were more powerful than Joseph due to age and numbers, sold him into slavery years ago and let their father believe his favorite son was dead. Now, he is the powerful one—the Egyptian official second only to Pharaoh—and they have come begging to buy food in the famine.
They never had much in common with each other, Joseph and his brothers, and they never got along. Joseph insulted his brothers and reported on their behavior to their father. They, of course, rejected him in the most extreme way, just short of murdering him.
Still, the bond of family remains. Times are hard now, during this great famine. Joseph forgives his brothers and helps them, because they Read More >
27
12, 2019
Parashat Miketz 5780
The Dreams of Pharaoh
A D’var Torah for Parashat Miketz
By Rabbi Jill Hammer
Often when we come to this parashah, we think of the drama of Yosef: his rediscovery of his brothers and his decision to trick them in order to see if their character has changed. But this year, I am finding myself curious about a different drama: the story of Pharaoh. Not the one with a hard heart, but the first Pharaoh, the one who dreams. It is this Pharaoh who elevates Joseph to high estate. It is also this Pharaoh who teaches us something about the qualities of leadership.
At the beginning of Genesis 41, the Pharaoh of Egypt has two dreams in a single night, dreams that disturb him. In the first dream, seven healthy cows come out of the Nile, and then seven emaciated cows come out and devour the seven healthy cows. In the second, Pharaoh sees a grain stalk with seven healthy Read More >
19
12, 2019
Parashat Vayeshev 5780
Thomas Mann’s Portrayal of Tamar—A Self-Reflection?
A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeshev
By Rabbi Len Levin
I first encountered Thomas Mann’s portrayal of the biblical heroine Tamar (from Joseph and His Brothers, pp. 1016–42) as a high school student; it was assigned reading in our Jewish day school. I have never been able to see her otherwise since.
Thomas Mann was arguably the greatest German writer of his age. He worked on his massive fictional rendition of the Joseph saga from 1924 to 1942, years of turbulence and tragedy for Germany and Jewry. He modeled his portrayal of Rachel on his wife Katia, who came from an assimilated German Jewish family. Seeking a leading female character for the fourth part of his tetralogy, he chose Tamar, daughter-in-law of Judah who became the progenitress of the two leading clans of the Judah tribe, Peretz and Zerah, and ancestress of the Davidic dynasty.
Mann masterfully reworks the bare bones Read More >
19
12, 2019
Parashat Vayeishev 5780
Thomas Mann’s Portrayal of Tamar—A Self-Reflection?
A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeshev
By Rabbi Len Levin
I first encountered Thomas Mann’s portrayal of the biblical heroine Tamar (from Joseph and His Brothers, pp. 1016–42) as a high school student; it was assigned reading in our Jewish day school. I have never been able to see her otherwise since.
Thomas Mann was arguably the greatest German writer of his age. He worked on his massive fictional rendition of the Joseph saga from 1924 to 1942, years of turbulence and tragedy for Germany and Jewry. He modeled his portrayal of Rachel on his wife Katia, who came from an assimilated German Jewish family. Seeking a leading female character for the fourth part of his tetralogy, he chose Tamar, daughter-in-law of Judah who became the progenitress of the two leading clans of the Judah tribe, Peretz and Zerah, and ancestress of the Davidic dynasty.
Mann masterfully reworks the bare bones Read More >
