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2 09, 2025

Parashat Ki Teitzei – 5785

Marisa Amith2025-09-02T11:33:33-04:00

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 times I caused you pain, and for the times I took you for granted… I will always treasure the lessons you taught me. I will carry them with me all Read More >

Parashat Ki Teitzei – 5785Marisa Amith2025-09-02T11:33:33-04:00

26 08, 2025

Parashat Shoftim – 5785

Marisa Amith2025-08-26T13:32:16-04:00

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 him and let him read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to revere the Eternal his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching Read More >

Parashat Shoftim – 5785Marisa Amith2025-08-26T13:32:16-04:00

19 08, 2025

Parashat Re’eh – 5785

Marisa Amith2025-08-19T13:27:37-04:00

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 most of this travel is desperate wandering and displacement, rather Read More >

Parashat Re’eh – 5785Marisa Amith2025-08-19T13:27:37-04:00

11 08, 2025

Parashat Eikev – 5785

Marisa Amith2025-08-11T12:20:45-04:00

The Heart of the Matter¹

A D’var Torah for Parashat Eikev

by Rabbi Greg Schindler (2009)

In this week’s D’var Torah, Rabbi Greg Schindler digs deep to see if there is a central lesson hidden in our Parashah.

If you are a frequent reader of Divrei Torah, then you are probably familiar with some of the great Torah commentators: Rashi, Ramban, Ibn Ezra and many others have helped generations to better understand the weekly parashah.

But what if I told you that there was a Torah commentator even more ancient than these great scholars, older even than the Talmud? And more “plugged in” than any of them. Well, there is such a commentator, and it has been hiding in plain sight for millennia.

That commentator is the Torah itself².

No, this does not Read More >

Parashat Eikev – 5785Marisa Amith2025-08-11T12:20:45-04:00

5 08, 2025

Parashat Vaethanan – 5785

Marisa Amith2025-08-05T15:30:13-04:00

A D’var Torah for Parashat Vaethanan

by Rabbi Marge Wise (AJR ‘21)

Shalom Hevre,

The haftarah following the Torah reading of Parashat Vaethanan opens with the words Nahamu nahamu ami, the quintessential recipe for comfort for b’nei yisrael following the saddest day of the year for our people, Tisha B’Av. I would like to discuss three themes which I believe are woven into the fabric of parashat Vaethanan: Our love for God, gratitude and the concept of comfort, itself.

Tisha B’Av, for me, always brings to mind a significant memory. Curiously, this year for the first time I was able to reach some closure regarding that memory…. It was early in the afternoon of Tisha B’Av when, decades ago, my husband and I and our two children – both under two years old at the time! – headed out on the next leg of the cross-country trip which we took that summer.

Long story very short, we were Read More >

Parashat Vaethanan – 5785Marisa Amith2025-08-05T15:30:13-04:00

30 07, 2025

Parashat Devarim – 5785

Marisa Amith2025-07-30T12:17:09-04:00

Words of Questioning and Lamenting

A D’var Torah for Parashat Devarim

By Rabbi Susan Elkodsi (AJR ’15)

HaZaL, our Sages of Blessed Memory, knew exactly what they were doing when they manipulated the weekly Torah reading schedule to make sure that Parashat Devarim would be read on the Shabbat immediately preceding Tisha B’Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.

Tisha B’Av is a day of collective national mourning for a time, place, and way of life that no longer exist. Devarim, Moses’ final address to the Israelites during the last month of his life is similar; by looking back on what has transpired over 40 years, he is lamenting missed opportunities on an often frustrating journey and mourning the loss of a future he won’t be physically part of.

The connection between this reading and Eikha, the Book of Lamentations, is more than the fact that the two share the word, eikha, translated simply as “how?” or “Alas!”.

In Devarim 1:12

Parshiyot Mattot-Masei – 5785

Marisa Amith2025-07-23T07:07:29-04:00

Reuben, Gad, and the Tension Between Place and Purpose

A D’var Torah for Parshiyot Mattot-Masei

By Hazzan Rabbi Luis Cattan (AJR ’20)

When Natan Sharansky was Chairman of the Jewish Agency, I had the privilege of sitting with him and a small group of global Jewish leaders to discuss Jewish identity. In that conversation, he shared a metaphor that has stayed with me ever since.

He spoke of the pain of living under Soviet rule—of the repression, the fear, and the impossibility of making aliyah. But then he added, “More than the Iron Curtain once prevented Soviet Jews from making aliyah, today it is the Golden Curtain that prevents American Jews.”

In other words, it’s not external oppression that distances many Jews from Israel—it’s comfort. Affluence, freedom, and assimilation create a different kind of barrier. A quieter one. But perhaps no less potent.

Something similar is reflected in this week’s parashah. As the Israelites stand on the threshold of entering the Land Read More >

Parshiyot Mattot-Masei – 5785Marisa Amith2025-07-23T07:07:29-04:00

14 07, 2025

D’var Torah – Pinhas 5785

Linda Ripps2025-07-14T13:51:40-04:00

As the Children of Israel prepare to come to the final stages of their journey to the Promised Land, God instructs Moses to “Take a census of the whole Israelite community from the age of twenty years up, by their ancestral houses, all Israelites able to bear arms.” [Numbers 26:2]

D’var Torah – Pinhas 5785Linda Ripps2025-07-14T13:51:40-04:00

8 07, 2025

Parashat Balak – 5785

Marisa Amith2025-07-08T10:06:13-04:00

“Listening to the Whole Story”

A D’var Torah for Parashat Balak

By Rabbi Rob Scheinberg

“A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

When Simon and Garfunkel sang these words more than 50 years ago, it was not in a political context, but this concept seems so relevant to contemporary politics. Whether with regard to American issues, Israeli issues, internal Jewish communal issues, or any other topic, many of us are so wedded to our preexisting assumptions that we pay deep attention to anything that supports what we already believe, and dismiss even reputable information if it challenges what we already believe. I often see this tendency in myself; I try to resist it, and I sometimes succeed.

Balak, the king of the Moabites and the namesake of this week’s Torah portion, may be the Torah’s most outstanding exemplar of this tendency towards selective attention and confirmation bias.

The Torah portion of Balak is the only narrative Read More >

Parashat Balak – 5785Marisa Amith2025-07-08T10:06:13-04:00

30 06, 2025

Parashat Hukkat – 5785

Marisa Amith2025-06-30T13:49:38-04:00

A D’var Torah for Parashat Hukkat

By Rabbi Marge Wise (AJR ‘21)

As someone who has struggled with understanding the concept of s’khar v’onesh, reward and punishment in Judaism, I find in parashat Hukkat perhaps a partial answer. Volumes have been written about what Moshe may have done wrong in this parashah, why God reacted as He did, whether it was Divine punishment and if it was, what can we learn from it.

Although I’m tempted to discuss some other themes in this parashah – the parah ha-adumah, the red heifer, the effect on Moses of Miriam and Aaron’s death, the plague which killed 15,000 individuals and the copper serpent cure, I’m determined to remain faithful to the theme of Moses’ striking the rock – twice – and what follows, in the hope of gaining additional insights into the subject of reward and punishment.

I searched through many commentaries because I was unhappy with the focus on punishment for Moses’ act of Read More >

Parashat Hukkat – 5785Marisa Amith2025-06-30T13:49:38-04:00

All shall unite to do God's will with an open heart.

All shall unite to do God's will with an open heart.

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