וְיֵעָשׂוּ כֻלָּם אֲגֻדָּה אֶחָת לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹנְךָ בְּלֵבָב שָׁלֵם
וְיֵעָשׂוּ כֻלָּם אֲגֻדָּה אֶחָת לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹנְךָ בְּלֵבָב שָׁלֵם
More than 30 years ago, the award-winning Israeli novelist David Grossman wrote a children’s book, איתמר פוגש ארנב Itamar pogesh arnav, “Itamar meets a rabbit.” It’s a story about a boy named Itamar who loves animals of all kinds, except that he is terrified of rabbits.
Parashat Vayeitzei was my bat mitzvah portion, and while I remember chanting the Haftarah on Friday night and reading a speech I wrote (with lots of my father’s help!) about it, it wasn’t until AJR’s retreat where we explored this parashah through song, dance, art, intensive study and more that I realized how special it was, and how it spoke to me personally.
“Stop making sense, stop making sense Stop making sense, making sense” -Talking Heads, Girlfriend is Better (1983)
The portion Hayei Sarah, the life of Sarah, reflects more on her death, and how her husband, Abraham, buys land in Canaan to bury her. In fact, Abraham’s purchase of the land, at an exorbitant price, is the first purchase of land in Canaan recorded in the Torah.
Rachel Edri served tea and Moroccan cookies to Hamas terrorists carrying grenades until police stormed her house in the south of Israel and rescued her on October 7, 2023. After an early-morning air raid siren, Rachel and her husband returned from a bomb shelter in her hometown of Ofakim to find a band of Hamas militants in her living room.
A major theme in parashat Lekh Lekha is the account of God’s covenant with Abraham and with the generations which will follow him.
It was morning in the Mount Scopus neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Hebrew University campus. Up early, I was preparing to make my first presentation as a university student participating in a course on Carl Jung. I was analyzing a Talmud passage in which Rabbi Yohanan is arguing with his disciple, Resh Lakish, about whether knives and swords are considered ritually unclean.
וַיִּקְרָ֛א יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶל־הָֽאָדָ֑ם וַיֹּ֥אמֶר ל֖וֹ אַיֶּֽכָּה׃ The ETERNAL God called to the human and said to him: Ayekha? (Gen. 3:9)
As we move from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, this week we read Parashat Ha’azinu, Moses’ farewell song. There are many fruitful portions of the parashah upon which to focus, but my attention immediately gravitates to the phrase וַיִּשְׁמַן יְשֻׁרוּן וַיִּבְעָט (“and Yeshurun grew fat and kicked”; Deut. 32:15).
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” -Inaugural Address of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt (March 4, 1933)
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