Parashiyot Nitzavim-Vayeilekh 5783
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” -Inaugural Address of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt (March 4, 1933)
6
09, 2023
28
08, 2023
Parashat Ki Tavo – 5783
A couple weeks ago, I had the privilege of talking with someone interested in converting to Judaism. Since the pandemic, I have noticed an uptick in people interested in converting with me. In the conversation, I asked them more about themselves, their story, and their interest in casting their lot with the Jewish people. And although I’ve heard several answers now to this question of “Why do you want to convert?”, I had never heard this one before.
22
08, 2023
Parashat Ki Teitzei – 5783
I recently visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and managed to have timed my visit to be able to view the exhibit “Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina”. It was beautiful, and it was painful. Beautiful, because the pottery was subtly exquisite. Painful, because each piece was made by an enslaved human being, subjected to horrors we cannot begin to imagine. In the South in the mid-1800s, the phrase “buy local” had a whole different connotation. “Buy local” meant support the slave industry with your economic decisions. Don’t buy from the North – goods made by free people. The paradoxical mix of beauty and pain found in the Old Edgefield pottery is not so uncommon. We find it frequently in the Torah. The beauty is in the fact that the words are part of our ancient and sacred tradition. The pain is in what those words say.
14
08, 2023
Parashat Shoftim 5783
When I officiate at a wedding, I typically encourage the parents to bestow blessings upon their children. In addition to the Priestly Blessing, often the parents read a blessing in English that I provide to them, including the lines: “When you speak with your beloved, may you always know the joy of companionship. When you see each other, may your eyes be filled with wonder at the miracle of your love. When you disagree, may you always think of compromise.” I began to be curious about the etymology of the word “compromise,” noting that it has the word “promise” in it, and I wondered if it originally meant something like “promise together.” I looked it up and discovered that the original meaning of the word “compromise” is a promise that is made by two disputants, at the same time, that they will abide by the decision of someone else who is acting as the arbiter of their dispute.
10
08, 2023
Parashat Re’eh 5783
It’s been said that one person’s religion is another person’s superstition. So when in this week’s parasha, Re’eh, the Israelites are told to build an altar on one of the Canaanite mountains upon their entrance into the Promised Land, but not before they are told to “utterly destroy” [Deut. 12.2] the altars that are already there, well—why am I not surprised? Both the Israelites and the Canaanites have a long relationship with mountains. And often they’re the same mountains! But the Canaanites were there first. Sacred ancient Israelite shrines were often conveniently located on the same hilltops as former (and sometimes destroyed) ancient Canaanite shrines. So, which religion is legit and which is simply superstition?
24
05, 2023
A D’var Torah for Shavuot – 5783
Forty is the number of transformation in the Torah. And there are even too many examples to list! It rained for 40 days and 40 nights to transform the antediluvian world to our post-flood world. The 12 spies scouted the Land for 40 days and then the Children of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years – to transform the people once bound by a slavery mindset to a people who could operate with a freedom mindset. Moses and G-d had a 40-day and 40-night havruta on top of Mount Sinai – to transform the Jewish people from pre-Torah to having received the Torah. Indeed, from Rosh Hodesh Elul to Yom Kippur is a 40-day period, marking our annual journeys with our own process of heshbon hanefesh and teshuvah.
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, in his book Waters of Eden, delved into the meaning of mikvah and the significances of the number 40. The mikvah is the paradigmatic Jewish ritual of transformation. We are, Read More >
16
05, 2023
Parashat Bemidbar 5783
“The straight line belongs to men, the curved one to God”
In case we missed it, we begin this book of the Torah with a reminder: we’re BaMidbar—in the desert.
Still.
But why? What are the Israelites still doing in the desert? After one year and one month, couldn’t they make it through the desert any faster? It really shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to get from Egypt to Israel, even you are traveling on foot with hundreds of thousands of people and a lot of livestock.
But not to worry; at the beginning of Parashat BeMidbar, we seem to be at an inflection point. The Israelites must surely be thinking that their travels are coming to an end. As they ceremoniously take stock of the able-bodied men from among their tribes who will form an army to battle any peoples who might try to stop them (Numbers 1:1-4), Read More >
8
05, 2023
Parashiyot Behar-Behukotai 5783
The second of this week’s parashiyot, Behukotai, lists the various blessings in store for those who observe all of God’s commandments and enumerates the multitude of curses awaiting those who ignore or disobey. While the underlying theology, that our actions are the immediate catalyst for the good and bad we see in the world, may not resonate for some of us, I would like to focus on a different dimension of the correlation between our actions and a divine response.
“And if these things fail to discipline you for Me, and you remain hostile to Me, I too will remain hostile to you…” (Lev. 26:23-24).
God’s response to human hostility (קֶרִי) is divine hostility (קֶרִי). The quoted passage suggests, in rabbinic parlance, מידה כנגד מידה, “a measure for measure” response. The sense of commensurateness between deed, on the one hand, and reward or punishment, on the other, undergirds many approaches to Read More >
5
08, 2022
Parashat Devarim 5782
Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah
Do You Believe In Miracles?
A D’var Torah for Parashat Devarim
By Rabbi Marc Rudolph (’04)
In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses assembles the Israelites on the plains of Moab, poised to enter the Land promised to our ancestors. In a series of three speeches, Moses recounts the history of the past forty years, reviews old laws and imparts new ones, exhorts the people to follow the commandments and castigates them for their failure to do so in the past. He recalls the miracles of the plagues in Egypt and the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea. He reminds the Israelites how God cared for them in the wilderness, “as a man carries his son, all the way that you traveled until you came to this place” (Deuteronomy 1:31). God even personally guides the Jewish people on their Read More >
29
04, 2022
Parashat Aharei Mot 5782
Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah
A D’var Torah for Parashat Aharei Mot
By Rabbi Michael Rothbaum (’06)
In an instantly-classic scene from Fiddler, Tevye the dairyman comes to an agreement to marry off his daughter Tzeitl to the butcher Lazar Wolf. The two men celebrate by singing the rousing anthem L’Hayim — “To Life!” The lyrics report that:
Life has a way of confusing us,
Blessing and bruising us.
Drink, l’chaim, to life!
This modern Jewish sacred text reflects an elemental hasidishe teaching — namely, that that even when the material conditions of existence are meager, we raise up the sparks of holiness that surround us. Even in the most difficult of circumstances, we can lift a glass of shnapps “to life.”
The toast l’hayim stretches much farther back than Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics, of course, no matter how much we revere them. Some scholars trace the custom all the way back to Talmudic times, as illustrated in this text Read More >
