Parashat Ki Teitzei – 5782
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Parashat Shofetim 5782
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Idols of Our Own Making
A D’var Torah for Parashat Shofetim
By Rabbi Matthew Goldstone
Our parasha this week begins with a call to justice – we must establish reliable judges who will judge with integrity and we ourselves must actively pursue justice. Immediately following this charge, the portion switches to a prohibition against setting up idolatrous objects of wood or stone. The next chapter (Deut. 17) continues to interweave discussions of avoiding idolatry through the worship of celestial objects with legal justice – that capital punishment shall only be enacted on the basis of the testimony of multiple witness and that difficult cases should be brought to the appointed judges of the day. The extended connection between avoiding idolatry and the pursuit of justice reinforces their antipodal orientations. Idolatry leads us away from truth and justice.
But the nature and manifestations of Read More >
Parashat Re’eh 5782
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A D’var Torah for Parashat Re’eh
By Rabbi Enid Lader (’10)
Our Torah portion this week is Re’eh – Deut. 11:26-16:17. In chapter 15, Moses continues to speak to the people about what to expect as they come into the new land. “There shall be no needy among you – since the Eternal your God will bless you in the land that the Eternal your God is giving you as an inheritance – if only you will heed the Eternal your God and keep all this Instruction that I enjoin upon you this day.” (15:4-5) Here’s the thing… If you play by the rules, there will be plenty for all. That makes sense. We know that there certainly are ways we can treat each other and care for (and about) each other that Read More >
Parashat Eikev 5782
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Of Bread and Potential
A D’var Toraj for Parashat Eikev
By Rabbi Katy Allen (’05)
The grass dries out in the heat–
it’s brown now.
Flowering plants, and even shrubs,
are wilting,
their leaves dull and stiff,
the bright blue of the sky
day after day
broken only
by occasional fair-weather clouds,
as the temperatures soar
and relief doesn’t come.
Here in my yard,
the visible life and death question is
focused on plants,
and perhaps some pollinators
or creepy crawlers in the soil
(though the bunnies and woodchucks no longer graze outside my window,
and I’m wondering where and what they are munching instead).
Elsewhere, however,
earthlings
are dying.
Humans cannot live by bread alone, (Deuteronomy 8:3)
our Torah text tells us,
and some rabbis say this means
we actually can live on less–
although I find it impossible to imagine no need for water.
The text also says
that humans can live on anything the Lord decrees,
and thus the manna from heaven was Read More >
Parashat Va’ethanan 5782
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Studying Torah 101
A D’var Torah for Parashat Va’ethanan
By Rabbi Rob Scheinberg
I first began to study Talmud in 7th grade in the Jewish day school I attended as a child. Those first months of Talmud were intensely frustrating. The Talmud, as a work of law, is supposed to be logical. And much of the content of the Talmud is, in fact, a series of logical arguments about different rabbis’ statements on various matters in Jewish law. But there were also a number of statements in the Talmud that, to my classmates and to me, just didn’t seem to make any sense. These rabbinic statements purported to be logical but just didn’t seem logical to us. Being seventh graders, my classmates and I expressed this frustration in a typical seventh grade manner, opining “This is stupid,” or “This is a waste of time,” or in Read More >
Parashat Devarim 5782
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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 >
Parashat Mattot-Masei 5782
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Parashat Pinhas 5782
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Parashat Balak 5782
In this week's D'var Torah, Rabbi Matthew Goldstone encourages us to see deeper meaning behind Bilaam’s blessings.
Parashat Hukkat
In this week's D'var Torah, Rabbi Ariann Weitzman shows how Parashat Hukkat provides a recipe for communal care that is not a burden to individuals but is a shared obligation across the community.
