Passover 2006

You! Open Up for Them!
By Rabbi David Greenstein

One of the famous sections of the traditional Haggadah’the Passover discussion of the Exodus that takes place at the seder’is the description of the questions of the Four Children and the suggested responses to them. Roughly translated, the four children are: the wise one, the wicked one, the simple one and the one who does not know how to ask.

This section has had much attention devoted to it in the
voluminous literature that has developed around the themes of the Haggadah. Especially today, with our concerns for Jewish continuity and the multiplicity of ways that people have adopted as their own expressions of Jewish identity, there has been a lot of discussion around ways of understanding these ‘types.’ One problem has been to fruitfully use these constructs without falling into the trap of stereotyping people.

But even more particularly problematic is the image of the Read More >

By ahsilver|2006-05-04T11:29:52-04:00May 4, 2006|

Shemini

By Joan Lenowitz

The completion and certification of Seven World Trade Center, the building that stands in the place of the tower that was destroyed on 9/11, signals a new era in energy and environmental design. The building achieves preeminence as the first to receive ‘gold’ certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, an industry coalition which grades buildings on such features as energy and water consumption, indoor air quality and use of renewable materials. (New York Times, April 16, 2006)

Scientists, who have studied the effects of the kinds of changes being made in such buildings in the U.S., have concluded that in addition to the potential savings from reduced consumption of energy and raw materials in the construction and operation of the buildings, and the external conservational effects on the environment, there are also categories of expected savings from effects on the humans who occupy those buildings.

They estimate savings Read More >

By ahsilver|2006-05-04T10:01:16-04:00May 4, 2006|

Tzav

Making Your Guilty Conscience Holy

By Hayley Mica Einhorn

In this week’s parashah, Tzav, the Kohanim are commanded to make a burnt offering, a meal offering, a sin offering, a guilt offering, and a sacrifice of well-being to HaShem (God). The Torah tells us that, ‘The guilt offering is like the sin-offering. The same rule applies to both: it shall belong to the priest who makes expiation thereby.’ (VaYikra/Leviticus 7:7) Despite this, the Torah describes the guilt offering in a different way than the sin offering. While the parashah describes the various procedures that are performed by the priest during the sin offering, the Torah initially describes the guilt offering as kodesh kodashim or ‘most holy’ (Vayikra 7:2) and then goes on to elaborate the specific procedure of the priests.

This distinction immediately caused me to wonder, Why does the Torah describe the guilt korban (sacrificial offering) as ‘holier’ than a sin offering? Read More >

By ahsilver|2006-05-04T09:57:26-04:00May 4, 2006|

VaYikra

Saying I’m Sorry
By Michael G. Kohn

Spring has arrived in New York. Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote: ‘In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.’ And the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.’ How do we show our love of God? Well, while the Temple stood in Jerusalem, we showed our love through voluntary offerings at the Temple. And in this week’s portion, parashat Vayikra, the Torah enumerates five, the first three of which are the olah, or burnt offering, the minhah, or meal offering, and the zevah-sh’lamim, or peace offering.

Now, Erich Segal once wrote: ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry.’ However, for those who love God, but have transgressed one of God’s commandments, the Torah commands that they say they’re sorry. The final two offerings enumerated in Vayikra’hatat, or sin offering, and asham, or guilt Read More >

By ahsilver|2006-05-04T09:44:44-04:00May 4, 2006|

Va-yahkel-Pekudei

By Suri Krieger

So, it seems that God has appointed me, Betzalel, to be master craftsman of the Mishkan, the holy sanctuary! Oh my God, how daunting! May I be worthy of the task.

The Task’let’s see here, what specs do we have on the list: a Tent of meeting, cherub’embroidered curtains, a number of gold plated furniture items including an ark, an altar for sacrifice, an altar for incense, a wash basin, a menorah, designer clothing for Aaron and sons, anointing oil, exclusive incense; rings, rolls, skins and poles’everything from practical to cerebral!

Why, this kind of work presumes a pretty high level of skills’skills in everything from sewing to carpentry, not to mention metal work, gemology and tanning! Oholiav and I will have to do some major research to get this thing underway!

Curious that these sanctuary details come up over and over! Moses told me he was given this information Read More >

By ahsilver|2006-05-04T09:42:47-04:00May 4, 2006|

Vayehi

By Michael Kohn

Vayehi is the final parashah of Sefer Bereshit and brings to a close not only the lives of Jacob and Joseph but the narrative of the Patriarchs as well. It is a major transition point in the Torah narrative, inasmuch as the second chapter of Sefer Shemot begins with the birth of Moses. And as Prime Minister Sharon lies seriously ill in Hadassah Hospital, regardless of the outcome of his current condition, it is obvious that a major transition point, like that described in this parashah, is occurring today in Israel.

In Vayehi, the Torah employs interesting juxtapositions of the third Patriarch’s two names’Jacob and Israel’perhaps as a way of illustrating the transition. For example, at the very outset, the Torah tells us: ‘Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; and the span of Jacob’s life was one hundred and forty-seven years. When the time for Israel Read More >

By ahsilver|2006-05-04T09:39:44-04:00May 4, 2006|

VaYâ€™hi

By Michael Kohn

Vayehi is the final parashah of Sefer Bereshit and brings to a close not only the lives of Jacob and Joseph but the narrative of the Patriarchs as well. It is a major transition point in the Torah narrative, inasmuch as the second chapter of Sefer Shemot begins with the birth of Moses. And as Prime Minister Sharon lies seriously ill in Hadassah Hospital, regardless of the outcome of his current condition, it is obvious that a major transition point, like that described in this parashah, is occurring today in Israel.

In Vayehi, the Torah employs interesting juxtapositions of the third Patriarch’s two names’Jacob and Israel’perhaps as a way of illustrating the transition. For example, at the very outset, the Torah tells us: ‘Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; and the span of Jacob’s life was one hundred and forty-seven years. When the time for Israel Read More >

By ahsilver|2006-05-04T09:39:44-04:00May 4, 2006|

Aharei Mot-Kedoshim

Parashat Aharei Mot/Kedoshim:
The Lingering Pain of Loss
By Eleanor Pearlman

The beginning of the parashah (Torah portion) of Aharei Mot/Kedoshim begins with the words, Vay’hi aharei mot (After the death) – in reference to Nadav and Avihu, two of the sons of Aaron. These deaths occurred in Parashat Shemini, three parshiot before our current parashah. The reason for their punishment is uncertain, as many varying explanations by the commentators mean there is no one reason for such a difficult death/punishment that is universally understood or accepted.

10:1 ‘. . . And they (Nadav and Avihu) offered before the Lord alien fire which He had not commanded them.
10:2 And fire came forth from the Lord and consumed them.’

While, at this time, Moshe offered some words of explanation, Aaron remained silent, ‘vayidom Aharon.’ (10:3) There was nothing for Aaron to say, for there are no words to express such a horrendous and sudden loss. There Read More >

By ahsilver|2006-05-02T21:02:22-04:00May 2, 2006|

Chayyei Sarah

What Was Missing in This Family

Parshat HaShavua, 22nd Heshvan 5765
By Dorit Edut

When
someone in our family or circle of friends dies, we are often left
feeling that there is a huge gap in our lives that can never be filled.
It is a time of reflecting about the qualities of this person and what
they meant to us’and then, in turn, what qualities we may lack or not
have developed sufficiently in ourselves.

This week’s parshah, ironically titled ‘The Life of Sarah’Chayyei Sarah,’
begins with the death of our first matriarch and what happens in the
aftermath. We see Avraham in deep mourning and having to negotiate for
a burial place for Sarah with his Hittite neighbors; Yitzhak is not
present until the end of the chapter when we see him in the fields,
meditating and praying Minha, according to the Talmud (Brachot 26a&b), perhaps saying some form of Kaddish and definitely missing his mother’s Read More >

By ahsilver|2006-04-01T21:18:54-05:00April 1, 2006|

Bereshit

On Endings, Beginnings and Tikkun ha-Olam:
A-HA Experience at AJR

By Peg Kershenbaum

Vayar Elohim et-kol-asher asah v’hinei-tov m’od; vay’hi-erev vay’hi-voqer yom hashishi
And God saw all that He had made. And behold: it was very good!
And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Gen. 1:31)

We begin anew the hora
of Torah, linking the end of the holy season with the start of the
term’s sacred studies. That it will be a year of challenges and yet of
great promise I hope to demonstrate in this, the first of our
community’s renewed series of divrei torah.

Each week as we recite Kiddush, we
join the ending of the verse above to the beginning of the next verse: vay’chulu hashamayim v’ha aretz vchol-tz’ va am.¹
Yet each day we affirm that ‘God renews daily the work of creation.’
Are the works of creation actually complete or not? Rashi was puzzled
by this, Read More >

By ahsilver|2006-04-01T20:56:29-05:00April 1, 2006|

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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Passover 2006

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