Parashat Mishpatim

by Rabbi Isaac Mann

One of my favorite derashot (homiletical interpretations) is one that is found in this week’s Torah portion in connection with the mitzvah of lending money to those in need.

The Torah writes (Ex. 22:24) — “If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, do not act toward them as a creditor; exact no interest from them.” To be sure, the wording of the Torah, using the conjunction im (im kesef talveh et ami…), which usually means “if,” suggests that lending money to the poor is optional and not a mitzvah (religious obligation) per se. But the Rabbis interpreted this im to mean “when” rather than “if” (see Mekhilta ad loc.; see also Rashi on this verse). Thus they read it as if it says, “When you lend money…do not act towards the recipient as a creditor who charges interest.” Besides not charging interest, a Biblical prohibition, Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2016-02-04T14:42:53-05:00February 4, 2016|

Parashat Yitro

Parashat Yitro: What Makes the Thunder?

I once heard physicist Karen Barad explain how lightning happens. She showed us how charged particles on the ground and oppositely charged particles in the sky find their way to one another, reacting to produce a flash of lightning. The method by which the particles find one another across such a distance cannot be explained completely by contemporary science. Lightning and thunder are still a mystery. So, too, the thunder and lightning in Parashat Yitro present a mystery.

The Torah is given in the wilderness in the context of a supernatural thunderstorm. The thunder on Mount Sinai is one of the most memorable elements of revelation:

On the third day, as dawn broke, there was thunder and lightning, and thick cloud upon the mountain…Now Mount Sinai was entirely smoke, for YHWH had come down upon it in fire. The smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln, and the Read More >

By Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD|2016-02-03T14:10:46-05:00February 3, 2016|

Parashat Beshalah

by Cantor Sandy Horowitz

There are many remarkable aspects of Shirat Hayam, the “Song of the Sea”, which occurs in parashat Beshalah (Exodus 15:1-18): the way it looks on the page of the Torah scroll, the musical traditions that accompany its recitation; but probably most remarkable of all is the first verse of the Song.

Shirat Hayam is a song of praise that is recited after the Israelites have safely crossed the parted waters of the Sea of Reeds in their escape from Egyptian slavery. It recounts the story of their escape and the subsequent destruction of the Egyptians who pursued them.

For anyone reading from or looking at the Torah scroll, the visual impact of Shirat Hayam is striking. We pause when we see it, we observe the symmetrical columns on each side, with words widely spaced out between the columns.

The auditory experience is equally unique. Special trope is used for those Read More >

By Cantor Sandy Horowitz|2016-01-21T11:34:58-05:00January 21, 2016|

Parashat Bo

A Community of Shared Narrative: Dvar Torah for Bo

by Rabbi Len Levin

“You shall tell your child on that day: This is because of what God did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.” (Exodus 13:8)

“In every generation, a person should regard him/herself as if s/he had personally gone out from Egypt.” (Mishnah Pesahim 10:5)

This week’s portion is the focal point of the narrative extending from the enslavement of the Israelites through the exodus to receiving God’s revelation at Sinai. We read in this portion of the culmination of the plagues, the exodus itself, and the injunction to memorialize the liberation through an elaborate communal ritual.

It is clear from other regulations of this celebration that participation in it was a central requirement for membership in the Israelite community (see Numbers 9:10-14). An alien who becomes a member of the community becomes eligible to participate in the ritual. Conversely, an Israelite who Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2016-01-14T22:18:38-05:00January 14, 2016|

Parashat Vaera

by Hazzan Marcia Lane

See, Hear.

In the office where I work we have an office dog, a tiny, ancient, tea-cup Yorkshire Terrier. Gracie has cataracts in both her eyes, but when she looks at you, you would swear she could see you. And, in a way, she does. When she hears her favorite people, she lights up like a thousand watts! And when she smells food she makes a bee-line for it! Clearly her other senses have compensated for the loss of vision. She navigates her worlds with the gps of memory, which is extremely sharp!

This week’s parashah introduces the first seven of the ten plagues which are to befall Egypt. From the very first sign of God’s power, the experience is visceral. The language seems to indicate experiences that overwhelm and confound all the senses. Walking sticks turn into snakes, which eat other Read More >

By ahsilver|2016-01-07T23:35:39-05:00January 7, 2016|

Parashat Shemot

by Rabbi Michael Pitkowsky

Parashat Shemot describes not only the development of the Israelites as a people in Egypt, but also that of their leader Moses. While the Torah does not describe in detail all of Moses’s earlier years, it does offer us a glimpse at some of the formative moments of his life. One of these moments was when Moses, floating on the Nile, was found by Pharoah’s daughter.

When she opened it, she saw that it was a child (yeled), a boy (na’ar) crying. She took pity on it and said, “This must be a Hebrew child (mei-yaldei ha-ivri’im zeh). (Exodus 2:6)

The ambiguity of how Moses is described has drawn the attention of many commentators. Was he a “child” (yeled) or a “boy” (na’ar)? We find the following comment in the Talmud (Sotah 12b).

A boy (na’ar) crying”–he is called a ‘child’ (yeled) and then a ‘boy’ (na’ar)! — A Tanna taught: He Read More >

By ahsilver|2016-01-07T23:33:45-05:00January 7, 2016|

Parashat Vayehi

by Rabbi Isaac Mann

Did Jacob ever find out that Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and that they deceived him into thinking that he was killed by a wild animal?

The Torah never directly addresses this issue, but according to one popular interpretation of the “blessing” that Jacob gave Simeon and Levi, it would appear that he did know that the brothers, in particular those two, were instrumental in Joseph’s kidnapping. Thus, his parting words to them — “Let my soul not come into their council; unto their assembly let my glory not be united; for in their anger they slew men, and in their self-will they hamstrung oxen” (Gen. 49:6). The last phrase of this verse reads “u-virtzonam ikru shor,” which can be translated, as does the Midrash, “willingly they uprooted (in the sense of harmed) the ox.” Who is the “ox” that the two brothers uprooted or intended to Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2015-12-25T04:41:33-05:00December 25, 2015|

Parashat Vayigash

by Rabbi Jill Hammer

“Your servant my father said to us: As you know, my wife bore me two sons…”
Genesis 45:27

Every year when Parashat Vayigash arrives, my breath is taken away by the same small moment. Judah approaches Joseph’s throne and makes the speech that convinces Joseph that it is safe to reveal himself to his brothers. It seems that it is the sight of Judah pleading on behalf of one of Rachel’s sons–Benjamin–that opens Joseph’s heart. Yet there’s another moment that shows the power of role reversal to create empathy–the moment where Judah quotes his father Jacob and thereby erases himself.

“My wife bore me two sons,” Judah quotes his father. In this statement, Jacob erases his other three wives and their total of eleven children, focusing solely on his wife Rachel and the two sons he and Rachel had together. This is surely the core of the rage the brothers have felt Read More >

By Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD|2015-12-17T11:38:54-05:00December 17, 2015|

Parashat Miketz

by Cantor Sandy Horowitz

In a recent conversation with a young student, we were discussing the events leading up to this week’s Torah portion. I asked the student, in the story that results in Joseph being sold and taken to Egypt, who was the real culprit: was it his father Jacob, for showing blatant favoritism? Was it the brothers, whose collective jealousy led them to such hateful acts? Was it perhaps Joseph himself, whose arrogance provoked the brothers? The student’s thoughtful response was that it probably started with their grandmother Rebecca, who had played favorites with Jacob and acted deceitfully on his behalf.

Without realizing it, the student had given voice to the later biblical promise — threat, actually — that God will “visit the guilt of the fathers onto the children of the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me.” Rebecca, Jacob, Joseph’s brothers — three generations of sin.

This phrase occurs Read More >

By Cantor Sandy Horowitz|2015-12-10T23:05:52-05:00December 10, 2015|

Parashat Vayeishev-Hanukkah

Joseph and Judah as Paradigms
by Rabbi Len Levin

Everyone loves Joseph. But my mentor Maurice Samuel did not. In Certain People of the Book (1955), he relates how Joseph’s taunting his brothers and later manipulating his awesome power to scare the living daylights out of them reminded him of experiences of being taunted and bullied. Samuel tells the story of Joseph and the brothers from the brothers’ point of view.

Samuel also made a broader, more serious analysis of the historic role that Joseph played, according to the biblical narrative. Joseph was the first in a line of Jews (including Samuel Hanagid of 11th century Spain, Benjamin Disraeli, and most recently Henry Kissinger) who rose to positions of power in the non-Jewish political world. Though occasionally using their position to benefit their people of origin, their primary allegiance was to their gentile patrons. The brothers’ not recognizing Joseph is perhaps symptomatic of an ambiguity Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2015-12-03T11:35:46-05:00December 3, 2015|

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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