Parashat Shelah 5782
In this week's D'var Torah, Rabbi Katy Allen says that Caleb and Joshua teach us not to catastrophize but to seek out the best and maintain a positive outlook even when the future feels fearful.
Parashat Beha’alotekha 5782
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A D’var Torah for Parashat Beha’alotekha
By Rabbi Enid Lader (’10)
On the day that the Mishkan [portable Tabernacle/Temple] was set up, the cloud covered the Mishkan, the Tent of the Pact; and in the evening it rested over the Mishkan in the likeness of fire until morning. It was always so: the cloud covered it, appearing as fire by night… At a command of the Eternal, the Israelites broke camp, and at a command of the Eternal, they made camp… (Numbers 9:15-16, 18)
In his commentary on this week’s Torah portion, Beha’alotekha, Netivot Shalom (Rabbi Shalom Noah Berezovsky, 1911-2000, better known as Netivot Shalom or The Slominer, after his book and the Hasidic sect he led) invites us to understand the building of the Mishkan on a personal level. When the Eternal said, “Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may Read More >
Parashat Naso 5782
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What’s Your “Work Work”?
A D’var Torah for Parashat Naso
By Rabbi Rob Scheinberg
The original sacred ritual space of the Jewish people, the Mishkan, was portable. Whenever the Israelites moved from place to place in the wilderness, the Mishkan would be disassembled and transported to its next location. The Levites were the ones in charge of its porterage, and the different families of the Levites each had different holy objects to carry whenever the Mishkan would travel with the people from place to place.
This is the context for one of the more unusual verses in the Torah, a verse in the beginning of the book of Numbers (Parashat Naso), that describes the Levites’ roles. After specifying that the Levites were to work from age 30 to age 50, the Torah (Numbers 4:47) divides the labors of the Levites into two categories, referred to Read More >
Parashat Bemidbar 5782
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The Torah is for Everyone
A D’var Torah for Parashat Bemidbar
By Rabbi Marc Rudolph (’04)
Before the Sinai Desert was returned to Egypt in the Peace Treaty of 1978, it was possible to take a bus directly from Tel Aviv to the tip of the Sinai Peninsula, Sharm el Sheik. I boarded that bus alone on my Spring Break of 1973 when I spent a year in Israel. I intended to camp out on the beach and snorkel on the reefs of the Red Sea off Sharm El Sheik. There were only a few of us on that bus, including a Bedouin man. We traveled for hours through seemingly interminable and vast expanses of wilderness. When we think of “wilderness” in North America, we imagine tracts of virgin forests with wild rivers flowing through them untouched by human hands. We think of nature “untamed” by humankind. Read More >
Parashat Behukotai 5782
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A D’var Torah for Parashat Behukotai
By Rabbi Doug Alpert (’12)
Amongst our many struggles in interpreting Torah and apprehending G-d’s will is in how we view theodicy – how we reconcile the evil that permeates our world vis-à-vis our G-d of mercy and compassion. Arguably a close cousin in this struggle is how we view G-d who metes out blessing and curse, reward and punishment as a response to our conduct. Central to this week’s Torah portion – Parashat Behukotai is how G-d rewards us with blessing for fealty to the Mitzvot and imposes curse or punishment for violating G-d’s statutes and commandments.
While I characterize this struggle as ours, this may really be my own struggle. I shared this struggle with my interfaith clergy Torah study group. We have been meeting most weeks for about seven or so years now. We study Parashat Hashavua, sharing Read More >
Parashat Behar 5782
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A D’var Torah for Parashat Behar
By Rabbi Matthew Goldstone
This week in Parashat Behar we learn about the laws of Shemitta, the sabbatical year. For six years we work the land and then in the seventh year the land is granted a Shabbat, a rest. Just as we are entitled to a rest on the seventh day of our week, so too the land deserves a period of rest to reset. But what exactly is our relationship to the land and our responsibility for allowing it to rest?
In Genesis God blesses the first humans with the imperative to conquer (וְכִבְשֻׁהָ) the earth and to subdue (רְדוּ) its creatures (Gen. 1:28). Yet, we are also told that humanity is brought to the Garden of Eden to work it and to guard it (Gen. 2:15). There Read More >
Parashat Emor 5782
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A D’var Torah for Parashat Emor
By Rabbi Cantor Sam Levine (’19)
You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy (Lev. 19:2)
This is the thesis statement of what Bible scholars call “the Holiness Code” (Lev. 17-26). It is also, arguably, the thesis statement of the Book of Leviticus, and, one might further argue, of the entire Torah.
Of course the statement begs the question, what does it mean to be holy?
We may find a clue in a pair of verses from this week’s sedra.
An ox or a sheep or a goat, when it is born, shall remain seven days under its mother, and from the eighth day and forward it will be accepted as a near-offering, as a fire-offering to YHWH. And an ox or a sheep—it and its young you are not to slaughter Read More >
Parashat Kedoshim 5782
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A Stumbling Block Before the Blind
A D’var Torah for Parashat Kedoshim
By Rabbi Jill Hackell (’13)
Parashat Kedoshim contains many laws that outline a path toward leading a holy life. Although some of these are mystifying (e.g. the laws of shatnez – a prohibition against wearing clothing made from a mixture of wool and linen), the preponderance of these laws deal with the way one treats our fellow human beings. “Love your fellow as yourself” [Leviticus 19:18] can be seen as a summary of all these laws. If we can picture ourselves in the place of our fellow and treat her as we would want to be treated, then we will be living as we are meant to live.
One law tells us, “You shall not insult the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind” [ Read More >
Parashat Aharei Mot 5782
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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 >
D’var Torah – Shabbat Shemini d’Pesah 5782
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A D’var Torah for Shabbat, the seventh day of Pesah
By Rabbi Cantor Sam Levine (’19)
One of the key passages of the Passover Haggadah comes at the end of the maggid section: b’khol dor vador hayyav adam lir’ot et atzmo ke’ilu hu yatza miMitzrayim – “In every generation, a person is obligated to see themselves as though they personally had come out of Egypt…” This is a call to memory – to a national memory that has, to a large degree, been constructed for us. We are enjoined to “regard ourselves” as though we had personally come out of Egypt based on the information that we have been given, or at least based on a version of the story that has been passed down to us.
We are the people of memory. The Hebrew root z-kh-r (meaning “memory” or “remembering”) appears 228 times in the Hebrew Bible, and the Read More >
