Parashat Pekudei

This week’s parashah continues the detailed description of the different components of the tabernacle, its vessels, and the priestly vestaments. An interesting theme within Jewish interpretation is the parallel drawn between the Tabernacle, the Holy Temple, and the universe. The following sources trace this idea over a period of a thousand years. They begin with Philo, who was born in the first century before the common era, and end with a Kabbalistic text from the Middle Ages. They all understand the Tabernacle or the Temple to correspond to something greater than their component parts, whether it is the celestial beings of the heavens or humanity itself.

Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE-50 CE):

The highest, and in the truest sense the holy, temple of God is, as we must believe, the whole universe, having for its sanctuary the most sacred part of all existence, (namely) heaven; for its offerings, the stars; for its priests, the Read More >

By ahsilver|2014-02-24T22:58:13-05:00February 24, 2014|

VaYakhel

Prayer, Shabbat and Halakha: The Portable Mishkan
A Dvar Torah for VaYakhel

In his essay “Halakha and Agada” the modern Hebrew poet Hayyim Nachman Bialik compares the structure of Jewish observance to a cathedral. “Halakha is a creative process. It is the supreme form of art — the art of life and of living. The creations of Halakha grow little by little, piece by piece, out of all the stream of human life and action, till in the end the fragments add up to a single total, and produce a single form. Halakha is the master-art that has shaped and trained a whole nation, and every line that it has graven on the nation’s soul has been inspired by a supreme wisdom which sees the end in the beginning.” (Bialik, Revealment and Concealment, Ibis Editions, 2000, 49–50)

I have earlier expressed in this forum how — in Abraham J. Heschel’s felicitous formulation — classical Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2014-02-16T16:21:40-05:00February 16, 2014|

Ki-Tissa

Parashat Ki-Tissa
Rabbi Michael Pitkowsky

“The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely.” (Exodus 32:7)

When the Children of Israel worshipped the Golden Calf, Moses was confronted with one of the greatest challenges to his role as leader of the people. God laid part of the blame on Moses’s shoulders. “Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely.” It is “your people” who have acted perversely, not “the people.” They didn’t just leave Egypt, you brought them out of Egypt. The following midrash addresses how a leader should react when he or she is faced with a crisis. According to this midrash, leaders should not remain aloof and above the people, rather, they must “go down” from their greatness. While it may be easier for a leader who is Read More >

By ahsilver|2014-02-13T12:08:17-05:00February 13, 2014|

Tetsaveh

Parashat Tetsaveh
Rabbi Isaac Mann

Thoughts on Parashat Tetzaveh

This week’s Torah reading, Parashat Tetzaveh, consists primarily of two parts – (1) a description of the priestly garments to be worn during the service in the Tabernacle and (2) detailed instructions to Moses on initiating Aaron and his sons into priestly service, involving mostly various sacrifices to be offered during a seven-day period. However, at the beginning of this parashah there is a two-verse instruction regarding the preparation of pure olive oil for the menorah that stood in the Tabernacle and its lighting by Aaron and his descendants, and at the end of the parashah we have instructions for the building of the altar made of gold that was to be used only for incense (mizbeah ha-ketoret) and that stood inside the Tabernacle.

The opening and ending both seem out of place, especially the initial verses regarding the olive oil preparation and menorah lighting. Indeed, Abravanel (a famous 15^th century Spanish Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2014-02-13T12:06:48-05:00February 13, 2014|

Terumah

Parashat Terumah
Rabbi Michael Pitkowsky

This week’s parashah begins with God saying to Moses that he should speak to the Children of Israel and to ask them to bring gifts, “Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him.” (Exodus 25:2) The formulation of God’s command to Moses in the original Hebrew is “va-yikhu li terumah.” In most of the instances in the Bible when there is a description of bringing terumah, the word “va-yikhu” is not used, rather, a different word such as “va-yarimu” is used.

This irregular use of the word “va-yikhu” stimulated the midrash to try and understand why this word was used. The answer was found in a connection between the word “va-yikhu” and the word “lekah” that has the identical root, a word that is sometimes understood to refer to Torah. The midrash below expands upon that connection and offers a profound explanation Read More >

By ahsilver|2014-02-13T12:04:39-05:00February 13, 2014|

Mishpatim

Parashat Mishpatim
Hazzan Marcia Lane

Not in Heaven

In the Talmud, Bava Metzia 58b-59b, there is a famous story of a discussion concerning the kashrut, the ritual purity, of an oven. The majority of rabbis rule in one direction, but Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus consistently rules in the other direction. He calls upon a carob tree, and on a stream, and even on the walls of the school, and they behave in supernatural ways in order to attest to the correctness of his ruling. Finally, Rabbi Eliezer calls for a heavenly voice to confirm his judgement, and when it does, albeit on behalf of the majority, Rabbi Yehoshua answers the voice by saying famously, “It is not in heaven!” That is, the adjudication of this dispute is not a matter for God to decide. People, fallible though we may be, have the final say in adjudicating on earthly matters.

It would seem reasonable to insist that concerning speed Read More >

By ahsilver|2014-02-13T12:03:01-05:00February 13, 2014|

Yitro

Parashat Yitro
Rabbi Jill Hammer

Revelations: Three Kavvanot for Parashat Yitro

1.

“Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, brought Moses’s sons and wife to him in the wilderness, where he was encamped at the mountain of God…When Moses’s father-in-law saw everything he was doing for the people, he said: “What is this that you are doing to the people?” Exodus 18:6

I am the old one

listen to me

before you break yourself against the evenings

before you throw yourself against the mornings

don’t listen to the voice that says

carry the mountain on your back

you will find truth

not in the strong hand

but in the outstretched arms of others

you will find peace

not in parting the sea

but in crossing the soul’s river

you will find love

not in greatness but in weakness

I have come a long way

through the years of your life

through the hours of your regret

through the songs of your kinfolk

through the nights of your liberation

to tell you

lay down the bones of the world

they were never yours

2.

“They came to the wilderness Read More >

By Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD|2014-02-13T12:01:18-05:00February 13, 2014|

Beshalah

Parashat Beshalah
Rabbi Len Levin

Miracles, Creation, Evolution

I am writing this on the eve of a vacation trip to the Galapagos. By the time you read this, I will have been there and be on my way back home.

I am in a feverish sense of anticipation. When Charles Darwin, as a young man, visited the Galapagos Islands in 1835, his observation of the variation of related species from one island to the next sparked his imagination to conceive of his theory of evolution of the species through natural selection. I hope to recapture some of his thrill of discovery, and pray that the encounter may lead me to some new insights of my own.

The rabbis of the Talmudic period were no strangers to the issues that science poses for religion. The Stoic philosophy that was popular among the educated classes of the Roman period postulated a regular natural order that Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2014-02-13T11:59:21-05:00February 13, 2014|

Bo

Parashat Bo
Rabbi Isaac Mann

This week’s Torah portion contains the description of the last three makkot (plagues) that struck Egypt before the Pharaoh finally relented and allowed the Jewish slaves to leave. With that the geulah (redemption) began.

I was always intrigued by the penultimate makkah – that of hoshekh (darkness). It does not seem to fit into the order or sequence established by the other plagues whereby they seem to get more and more severe as they progress from the first plague of blood to the last one – death of the firstborn. The early makkot, those of blood, frogs, and lice were more like nuisances, not really destructive of humans or property. The first two were even duplicated to some extent by the Egyptian magicians. But as the plagues continue they get more destructive culminating in barad (hail) and arbeh (locusts). The former was severe enough to kill animals, as well as humans, not brought indoors and to destroy crops and trees (Exodus 9:25). Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2014-02-13T11:56:50-05:00February 13, 2014|

Va-Eira

Parashat Va-Eira
Jerome Chanes

Parashat Va-Eira is one of the parashiyot that transition Sefer Bereishit to Sefer Shemot. The very last word in the Book of Genesis is “Mitzrayim,” Egypt, and the point is made, immediately, that the exile has begun. In order to understand Va-Eira, we need to return to Shemot, in which the nature of our exile is explored.

Sefer Shemot is a book whose narrative begins, “And these are the names . . .,” but there are no names! The unnamed couple who have an unnamed baby under the reign of the unnamed Pharaoh whose unnamed daughter pulls him out of the Nile and, at some point, names him. In fact, our hero has no name.

So in chapter two, which is where the narrative begins, we know all the characters-Yocheved and Miriam and Amram and Pharaoh’s daughter-but no one is named in the text. Very striking in our Humash, which is obsessed with names: the genealogies, the careful identification of ancestry. Names are important. But here, Read More >

By ahsilver|2014-02-13T11:54:19-05:00February 13, 2014|

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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