Parshat Ki Tisa

by Rabbi Michael Pitkowsky

This week’s parashah, Ki Tisa, includes one of the most dramatic episodes in the entire Torah, the Golden Calf. The description found in the Torah has rebellion, passion, emotion, idolatry, and violence, all of the ingredients needed for a good story. I would like to focus on something that happened after the calf was constructed and Moses descended from Mount Sinai.

Moses saw that the people were out of control—since Aaron had let them get out of control—so that they were a menace to any who might oppose them. Moses stood up in the gate of the camp and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come here!” And all the Levites rallied to him. He said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Each of you put sword on thigh, go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay brother, neighbor, and kin.” Read More >

By ahsilver|2017-03-16T22:45:12-04:00March 16, 2017|

Parashat Tetzaveh-Shabbat Zachor-Purim

What It Means To Be Godfearing: Parashat Tetzaveh/Shabbat Zachor/Purim

Rabbi Jill Hammer

Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you left Egypt; how he happened upon you on the road and harassed you at the rear, all the stragglers that followed after you, when you were tired and weary, and he did not fear God. (Deut. 25:17-18)

The sages connect the Book of Esther to the story of Amalek, the tribe that attacked the Hebrews as they left Egypt. Deuteronomy identifies the people of Amalek with a particular kind of evil: attack on the vulnerable. Amalek does not attack the warriors of the Hebrews; he attacks weary, tired refugees from Egypt at the rear of the line: the infirm, the old, the parents with children who cannot walk quickly. Amalek demonstrates a complete lack of empathy for people who have suffered and have no strength to fight back, seeing in this situation Read More >

By Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD|2017-03-08T17:51:19-05:00March 8, 2017|

Parashat Terumah

Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler was a central 20th century figure associated with the musar school of Jewish thought. One of Rabbi Dessler’s most well known essays is Kuntres Ha-hesed, literally, the Booklet of Kindness. It was later published in his collected writings titled Mikhtav me-Eliyahu, a Letter from Eliyahu, and has been studied and taught by students and teachers throughout the Jewish world.

In this essay Rabbi Dessler addressed the relationship between giving and taking. What are the origins of giving and taking? What is the relationship between the two? Can people be described as “givers” or “takers”? If so, what does that say about them. What is the relationship between giving, taking, and love?

As to whether people can be described as “givers” or “takers,” Rabbi Dessler wrote the following:

These two powers—giving and taking—form the roots of all character traits and of all actions. And note: there is no middle way. Every Read More >

By ahsilver|2017-03-01T23:03:53-05:00March 1, 2017|

Parashat Mishpatim

From Sanctity to Social Justice: The Message of Mishpatim

By Len Levin

“And these are the judicial rules that you shall set before them.” (Exodus 21:1)

Last week, God’s majesty was revealed in thunder and smoke, proclaiming the cardinal rules that express universal human morality. The rabbis declared that they were broadcast in seventy languages (Midrash Tanhuma), and history corroborates that they have been disseminated to the ends of the earth.

This week, the focus shifts to the prosaic and the particular: What are the rules for a slave’s manumission after six years of labor? If my ox gores your ox, how much compensation is due? If you borrow my animal and it dies, who bears the loss?

Judaism is famously a religion with a great emphasis on law. The word halakhah (from the verb, to walk) could have been translated “the way” (the Jewish Tao, if you will), but it denotes the detailed prescription of the Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2017-02-22T17:36:46-05:00February 22, 2017|

Parashat Yitro

by Rabbi Michael Pitkowsky

The highlight of this week’s parashah is the reading of the Ten Commandments. While there are midrashic compilations on individual books of the Bible, the Ten Commandments merited having their own individual midrash, Midrash Aseret ha-Dibrot, the Midrash of the Ten Commandments. This midrash was edited during the Middle Ages and draws upon many sources, both Jewish and non-Jewish. It is not structured like a classical midrash, and Joel Rosenberg wrote that “[it] represents the transition in Jewish literature from interpretation of Scripture to pure fiction, in a more modern sense of the term.”

Below is an edited version of a story included in this midrash about the commandment against adultery, a story that describes the trials and tribulations of a certain Rabbi Meir.

A tale is told of Rabbi Meir, that he used to go up to Jerusalem on each and every festival. And he would stay at the home Read More >

By ahsilver|2017-02-16T07:10:34-05:00February 16, 2017|

Parashat Beshalah

by Cantor Sandy Horowitz

The narrative of parashat Beshalah describes numerous dramatic events immediately following our ancestors’ liberation from slavery, in which the power of God plays a central role. God leads the people as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night; when the Israelites reach the Sea of Reeds and seem to have no way forward God instructs Moses to raise his rod and the sea splits, allowing them to cross to safety. There is the destruction of the Egyptians who chase after them; there is the shirat hayam, the song at the sea in praise of God. There is also complaining, and bitter waters made sweet by the rod of Moses at God’s commandment, and manna from heaven, the daily portion, again provided by God.

Then towards the end of this week’s story Amalek approaches, and Moses instructs Joshua to lead the battle against Read More >

By Cantor Sandy Horowitz|2017-02-08T23:19:13-05:00February 8, 2017|

Parashat Bo

by Rabbi David Almog

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

Liberation Starts With Listening to the Oppressed

Our traditional image of Moses is the faithful transmitter of the word of God, Torah, and Mitzvot. Therefore, it is a bit surprising that, in both chapters 12 and 13 of Exodus, in the very first commands given by God to Israel regarding the marking of liberation, the words of God and those of Moses seem to differ in Read More >

By ahsilver|2017-02-02T22:15:52-05:00February 2, 2017|

Parashat Vaeirah

by Michael Pitkowsky

“And the Lord spoke to Moses: Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your rod over the streams, over the rivers, over the ponds, and raise up (ve-ha’al) frogs upon (al) the land of Egypt. And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frog came up (va-ta’al) and covered the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 8:1-2)

When some people think about the plague of frogs in Egypt they have trouble seeing this plague on the same level as let’s say boils or pestilence. Frogs all over Egypt? OK, not something that any of us would want, but I’ll take that over the killing of the first born any day. Despite the possible comical vision of what this plague may have been like, it was treated with utmost seriousness by our sages.

One Talmudic interpretation recognized a grammatical anomaly in the text describing this plague.

“‘And the frog came Read More >

By ahsilver|2017-01-25T18:08:50-05:00January 25, 2017|

Parashat Shemot

by Rabbi Jill Hammer

“Just as they oppressed [the Hebrew people], so it increased and spread out…”

There is a fierce assertion at the beginning of the book of Exodus that the oppressed will not be stifled by oppression. In Exodus 1:12, we hear that as the Hebrews are forced into slave labor, they continue to increase. “Yirbeh,” the word for “it increased” refers to fertility: they bore children and became many. Yet I hear other echoes in “yirbeh.” In that word we find the word “rav,” master, and the implication of autonomy. “Yifrotz,” it spread out, can refer to the increase of a people, as when Avraham was told “ufaratzta,” you shall spread out. Yet “yifrotz” can also mean “it burst out,” as in Peretz, the child of Judah and Tamar, who “made a breach for himself” in coming out of Tamar’s womb. I hear in this verse the implication that long before Read More >

By Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD|2017-01-18T22:43:20-05:00January 18, 2017|

Parashat Vayehi

The Future — A Sealed Book?
By Rabbi Len Levin

If you were handed a sealed envelope that you had reason to believe contained an infallible prediction of the future course of your life—or of the world’s political history of the next twenty years—would you open it?

This week’s portion Vayehi is unique in its orthography of all portions in the Torah. Whereas the beginning of most portions is indicated by a clear paragraph break, with the words beginning on a new line or after a couple of inches of blank space, Vayehi begins after only a two-letter space separating it from the previous text. The rabbis of the third century interpreted this anomaly: “Jacob our patriarch sought to disclose the end of days, but it was sealed off from him.” (Genesis Rabbah 96:1)

Indeed, in the continuation of the portion, Jacob gathers his sons and tells them, “Come together that I Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2017-01-12T17:05:31-05:00January 12, 2017|

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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