Parashat Vayishlah 5779

The Oak of Weeping
A D’var Torah for Vayishlah
By Rabbi Jill Hammer

Devorah the wetnurse of Rivkah died and was buried under Beth El, under the oak. And he called it the Oak of Weeping (Alon Bahut). (Genesis 35:8)

Devorah, Rivkah’s nurse, died, and they buried her beneath the city under the oak of the river, and he called the name of the place “the river of Devorah” and he called the name of the oak “the oak of the mourning of Devorah.” (Jubilees 32:30)

Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman said: The word alon (oak) is Greek and means “another,” for as Yaakov was mourning for Devorah, the news came to him that his mother (Rivkah) had died. This is why it says: “God appeared to him and blessed him.” What was the blessing? The blessing to comfort mourners. (Genesis Rabbah 81:5)

Wedged among the many peaks of the literary landscape of Parashat Vayishlah is a small funeral Read More >

By Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD|2018-11-21T23:31:19-05:00November 21, 2018|

Parashat Vayeitze 5779

A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeitze
by Rabbi Heidi Hoover (AJR ’11)

At the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Jacob leaves home. He doesn’t leave by choice, though. He has to leave because his life is in danger–his brother wants to kill him. He runs away, ending up in the wilderness, alone, with nothing, it seems, except the clothes he is wearing. He sleeps with his head on a rock. He’s headed in the direction of Haran, where his mother’s family lives, but he has never met them. Jacob is not an immigrant. He is a refugee.

In that desolate night when he is so alone, Jacob has a dream of a ladder to heaven, with angels going up and down the ladder. God assures him that he will be protected and have countless descendants. It is an amazing experience for Jacob, who says after he awakens, “God was in this place, and I Read More >

By Rabbi Heidi Hoover|2018-11-15T23:07:47-05:00November 15, 2018|

Parashat Toledot – 5779

“Mom Always Liked You Best!”
A D’var Torah for Parashat Toledot
By Rabbi Irwin Huberman (’10)

During the late 1960s, one of the most popular comedy programs on television was the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

The team of Tom and Dick Smothers was a mainstay of CBS’s Sunday night programming, for two distinct reasons.

As public discourse over the Vietnam War heated, the brothers’ comedy would bring the anti-war protest directly into American homes, eventually leading to their cancellation by the network.

However, fifty years later, what endures most about the Smothers Brothers’ comedy was its ability to capture the subtleties of human relationships—in particular between two brothers.

Invariably, as the dialogue between these two siblings would deteriorate, it was Tommy Smothers—always portrayed as the dimmer of the two—who would attempt to trump his brother’s well-reasoned arguments with the accusation, “Well, Mom always liked you best!”

This week, as our Torah portion turns to the relationships within the family of Read More >

By Rabbi Irwin Huberman|2018-11-08T09:59:23-05:00November 8, 2018|

Parashat Hayyei Sarah – 5779

A D’var Torah for Parashat Hayyei Sarah
by Rabbi Bruce Alpert (’11)My Jewish upbringing was entirely cultural, not religious. Yiddish aphorisms did more to shape my identity than any biblical story. For a long time I missed the irony that, though raised an atheist, I was taught to believe that certain things were basheyrt – meant to be.

Certainly the Torah wants us to understand the marriage of Rebecca and Isaac as basheyrt. That seems to be the import of Rebecca’s birth providing the coda to the Akeida. That seems to be the sense we are to take from her anticipated appearance to Abraham’s servant. And that seems to be the feeling conveyed by the story of Rebecca’s and Isaac’s first meeting.

That story has a luminescent quality to me. It glows with the fading sunlight of a field at the end of day. The scene seems to be filled with humor – Rebecca falling from her Read More >

By Bruce Alpert|2018-11-01T09:25:20-04:00November 1, 2018|

Parashat Vayera – 5779

A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayera
by Cantor Sandy Horowitz (’14)

Our matriarch Sarah is held in high esteem. Her kindness in welcoming strangers is a trait she shares with Abraham, and it is said that on the day she gave birth to Isaac many other barren women similarly “were remembered” and also gave birth (Bereishit Rabbah 53:8). Yet the Torah places her in the background rather than at her husband’s side, even with events that directly affect her.Parashat Vayera begins as Abraham welcomes three strangers (messengers of God) who are passing by in the heat of mid-day. Abraham enlists Sarah’s help in preparing food for them, then she remains behind while he goes out to sit with the visitors. They ask him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” and Abraham replies that she is in the tent (Gen. 18:9). Then they tell him that at this time next year they will return and Read More >

By Cantor Sandy Horowitz|2018-10-27T19:45:05-04:00October 27, 2018|

Parashat Lekh Lekha – 5779

The Encounter of Abraham and Melchizedek
A D’var Torah for Parashat Lekh Lekha
by Rabbi Lenny Levin

“And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High (El Elyon). He blessed him, saying, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth…” (Gen. 14:18–19)

“Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I swear to the Lord (YH-VH), God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth…” (Gen. 14:22)

Whenever Jews pray the Amidah, the Prayer par excellence, they invoke the name El Elyon, “God Most High” (and the Friday night liturgy adds: “Creator of heaven and earth”). But it is one of the rarer names for God in the Hebrew Bible. The more common names for God in the Bible are the Tetragrammaton (the four-letter personal name of God, represented in Hebrew by yod, hei, vav, hei, usually pronounced Adonai or Hashem Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2018-10-18T14:24:05-04:00October 18, 2018|

Parashat Noah – 5779

A D’var Torah for Noah
By Rabbi Isaac Mann

Much has been written by the Bible commentators on the sins that caused God to bring on the Great Flood in the time of Noah. But little ink has been spilled (or keys pressed) in regard to what motivated the Supreme Being to ensure that there will never be a flood again to destroy the world (see Gen. 8:21, 9:8-17).

Surely if the corruption of humankind, and possibly the animal kingdom as well, brought on God’s anger (see Gen. 6:5-7, 11-13) and justified the destruction of all beings (except for Noah and those with him in the Ark), then what would happen if there would be a replay of this selfsame corruption? God’s hands, so to speak, would be tied by the oath He took not to put an end to all life. But then does that imply that He was wrong Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2018-10-12T09:02:41-04:00October 12, 2018|

Parashat Bereshit 5779

Genesis (En)gendered: An Angelic View from Eden’s Way
A D’var Torah for Parashat Bereshit
by Rabbi David Markus

This momentous #metoo #ibelieveyou moment urges us to see old stories with new eyes. Reading sacred texts with ever renewing eyes is one of many ways that theology teaches us how to see and think – to reach beyond ourselves, to not become calcified and thus brittle, to strengthen our capacity to hold multiplicity and nuance without falling into hopeless relativism or nihilism.

Let’s start at the very beginning (“a very good place to start“). What might this moment of societal gender and sexual reckoning mean for how we read Torah’s sacred story of Creation, ostensibly the most familiar narrative in the Jewish canon?

That we can ask this question about Torah’s most familiar narrative itself says something important – and something hopeful – about the theological project of renewing our eyes and expanding what we see and how we see. (Pirkei Avot Read More >

By Rabbi David Evan Markus|2018-10-04T22:51:12-04:00October 4, 2018|

Parashat Nitzavim 5778

A D’var Torah for Parashat Nitzavim
by Rabbi Heidi Hoover (AJR ’11)

Week after week we wrestle with the Torah, often trying to figure out where the women are, how to deal with this God who seems often punishing and violent, and how to think about a hierarchical system of worship involving sacrifice of animals that is really alien to the way we worship now. For me, this week’s Torah portion, Nitzavim, is easier to approach than many others. It is both inclusive and equitable. There is still talk of punishment by God, but there is also reassurance of reconciliation with God.

The inclusivity of this Torah portion is right at the beginning, when Moses, who is now nearing the end of his final instructions to the Israelites, lists the various groups who are present, who are receiving the instruction. Those with authority are there: tribal heads, elders, and officials; and the men Read More >

By Rabbi Heidi Hoover|2018-09-06T12:04:29-04:00September 6, 2018|

Parashat Ki Tavo 5778

A D’var Torah for Parashat Ki Tavo
by Rabbi Bruce Alpert (’11)

One of the sublime joys of studying at AJR is experiencing tefillah in its community – especially at Retreat. Being in a room with 70 or 80 people, each of whom is, in some way, expert at Jewish prayer, is wondrous. And with a leader who is seeking – through her choice of prayers, songs, and niggunim – to impress upon her congregants a particular insight or perspective on our liturgy, you have an experience that can meet the high expectations for kavanah, for the intentionality that our rabbis have set for us as our goal in communicating with the Holy One.

I came to AJR with a very limited and narrow perspective on prayer. AJR broadened that perspective to my horizons, and then beyond them. It did so by fulfilling the words of Psalm 100: “Serve the Lord in gladness; come into His presence with Read More >

By Bruce Alpert|2018-08-30T16:42:30-04:00August 30, 2018|

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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