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וְיֵעָשׂוּ כֻלָּם אֲגֻדָּה אֶחָת לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹנְךָ בְּלֵבָב שָׁלֵם

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

וְיֵעָשׂוּ כֻלָּם אֲגֻדָּה אֶחָת לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹנְךָ בְּלֵבָב שָׁלֵם

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

Parashat Shoftim 5781

Parashat Shoftim 5781

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A D’var Torah for Parashat Shoftim
By Rabbi Jill Hackell (’13)

I’ve been studying a lot lately about trees. Dr. Suzanne Simard has spearheaded research showing that the trees of the forest communicate with each other through an elaborate system of fungi attached to their roots, which has been dubbed the “Wood-Wide Web”. Through it, trees of the same and different species can warn each other of danger, share resources back and forth according to need and circumstance, and bequeath carbon to their neighbors when they are dying. This understanding could change the way we harvest and replant forests for lumber, to maximize preservation of these networks.[1]

Our parashah this week also shows concern for trees:

“When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax Read More >

By |2022-07-29T11:24:18-04:00August 13, 2021|
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Parashat Re’eh 5781

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A D’var Torah for Parashat Re’eh
By Rabbi Marc Rudolph (’04)

Did you know that when we are awake, our brain generates 23 watts of energy, enough energy to light up a room? And that by simply opening our eyes, 75 percent of our brains’ energy is activated?

Perhaps that is why this week’s parasha opens with the Hebrew word “Re’eh,” which means “see”. The Torah wants us to really use our brains! Yet those of us who pride ourselves on our ability to see ahead might have a particularly difficult time with the approach the Torah takes this week with respect to worship in the Land of Israel.

We read numerous descriptions of the sacrifices and offerings that will be made when the Israelites reach the Promised Land, but strangely, we are not told where the holy place to offer those sacrifices will Read More >

By |2022-07-29T11:24:18-04:00August 6, 2021|
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Parashat Eikev 5781

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The Ties That Bind
A D’var Torah for Parashat Eikev
By Rabbi Enid Lader (’10)

In his book Be, Become, Bless: Jewish Spirituality between East and West (Maggid, 2019), Rabbi Dr. Yakov Nagen points out that the internet age is characterized by the unprecedented access to limitless information. However, all this information alone is not sufficient to generate change in our lives; true change comes about through deeply internalizing the knowledge. This requires a shift in consciousness; helping us to do and to be. (p. 286)

Eikev, our Torah portion this week, contains the fourth of as many passages from the Torah that mentions tefillin. These passages, written on parchment and placed in the boxes of the tefillin serve as a reminder of four basic principles in Judaism:

1.     Exodus 13:1-10 – Our obligation to remember the Exodus from Egypt

2.     Exodus 13:11-16 – Our obligation Read More >

By |2022-07-29T11:24:18-04:00July 29, 2021|
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Parashat Va’ethanan 5781

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For the Love of God
A D’var Torah for Parashat Va’ethanan
By Rabbi Jeffrey Segelman

It is in Parashat Va’ethanan that the Torah begins speaking about the love of God. Certainly the most famous of these verses follow immediately after the six words of the Shema.

Let’s quote them in full:

Deut. 6: (5)And you shall love Hashem, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all you might. (6)These words which I command you today shall be on your heart. (7)You shall impress them upon your children – speaking of them when you are staying at home or when you are moving along your way – when you lie down and when you rise up. (8)Bind them as a sign on your hand as a symbol between your eyes. (9)And write them on the doorposts of your homes and Read More >

By |2022-07-29T11:24:18-04:00July 22, 2021|
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Parashat Devarim 5781

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A D’var Torah for Parashat Devarim
By Rabbi Michael Rothbaum (’06)

There’s a profound meaning in the practice of Yiddishkayt, a beauty and depth that’s hard to describe if you haven’t lived it. That beauty explains why rabbis and cantors do what we do. In the words of the old saying, nothing worth doing is easy.

Or, as we say in Yiddish, Shver tsu zayn a Yid. It’s hard to be a Jew.

In a 1973 review of the Sholom Aleichem play that took its title from that Yiddish saying, Richard P. Shepard wrote that “ ‘It’s Hard to Be a Jew’ is a phrase that may not quite go back to Moses’ scaling of Mount Sinai, but it is venerable and often verifiable.”[1]

Recent events have only served to help that verification process. We’re still Jews, and it’s still hard.

The challenge of Jewish life starts, of course, Read More >

By |2022-07-29T11:24:19-04:00July 16, 2021|
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Parashiyot Mattot-Masei 5781

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A D’var Torah for Parashiyot Mattot-Masei
By Rabbi Lizz Goldstein (’16)

Hodesh Tov. The height of summer is upon us, and with it three weeks of mourning bookended by fasting during a season we most need to be drinking plenty of fluids. I have written elsewhere before about my ambivalence over Tisha B’Av and the Three Weeks, and this year is no different. This Shabbat, we read the second of three Haftarot of Affliction, along with Parashiyot Mattot-Masei. These Haftarot admonish the Israelites for their constant idol-worship and warns of the conquering army on its way to punish them. This cycle of community dissolution and rejection of HaShem, followed by destruction and diaspora, continued in the days of the Second Temple, and so we read them in the oppressive heat of summer to remember the fall of both Temples and Read More >

By |2022-07-29T11:24:19-04:00July 9, 2021|
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Parashat Pinhas 5781

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A D’var Torah for Parashat Pinhas
By Rabbi Ariann Weitzman (’11)

Parashat Pinhas’ eponymous lead character is an unusual one, with his very brief story spanning two parashiyot. Last week in parashat Balak, we read about Pinhas’ zealotry in killing two people, whose names are later revealed to be Cozbi and Zimri, who he believed to be part of a mass Israelite descent into Moabite idolatry and away from God, spurred on by sexually immoral behavior between Israelite men and Moabite and Midianite women. In response to his act, God abruptly ends a plague which had been terrorizing the Israelite encampment, purportedly as a punishment for this idolatry. Thus ends last week’s parasha. While perhaps we’re used to overzealous or even violent acts coming to good ends in Torah, the beginning of this week’s parasha might still surprise us.

Pinhas’ Read More >

By |2022-07-29T11:24:19-04:00July 2, 2021|
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