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8 11, 2006

Hayei Sarah

By ahsilver|2006-11-08T09:51:10-05:00November 8, 2006|

By Kathy Novick

This week we read Parashat Hayei Sarah ‘ The Life of Sarah. Many think of the irony of this title since the parashah begins with the death of Sarah and its impact upon Avraham. We read of Avraham mourning then rising and ACTING. We learned from social workers, chaplains and clergy who worked after 9-11 at Ground Zero that giving people tasks, no matter how insignificant, helped them to move from a state of numbness to reconnecting with life, however painful that might have been. Avraham’s action was very significant to him and to us. Avraham was very careful in choosing the field and the cave at Machpelah. He was also very insistent about his choice. It was to be a place to remember his Sarah. Permanency was key in their long relationship. Throughout the difficulties of their lives from moving away Read More >

30 10, 2006

Parashat Vayera

By ahsilver|2006-10-30T07:20:50-05:00October 30, 2006|

By Jaron Matlow

In this week’s parashah, we find myriad fascinating events which are very difficult to understand. One example is the story of Sarah, Abraham, Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac (21:9-13). The peak of this event (21:10) is that Sarah tells Abraham to drive out the slave woman (Hagar) and her son (Ishmael), because the son of this slave woman will not inherit with my son, with Isaac. This results in the very common thread in Sefer Bereishit (Genesis) – that the younger son is selected to carry on the line and the older son is somehow set aside. It is also important to remember that in Sefer Bereishit, it is often the wives who take the actions that ensure the younger son is selected.
The text tells (21:9) us that Ishmael did something to Isaac (metzaheik) which could mean various things from teasing or mocking to much worse actions. Read More >

18 10, 2006

Parashat Lekh L’kha

By ahsilver|2006-10-18T15:39:27-04:00October 18, 2006|

By Eleanor B. Pearlman

What motivates a person to go on a journey? I think of the push/pull theory of immigration: one leaves to escape intolerable discomfort and anticipates a better life somewhere else. Such departures involve pain in the present and hope for the future. At a certain point in life one may leave the familiar to seek adventure or knowledge. One may leave to learn about one’s self and one’s place in the universe. One may leave to establish one’s identity. Is it the timing, the task, or the divine directive that motivated Abram’s journey in Parashat Lekh L’kha, our weekly parashah? There seem to be both covert and overt reasons for his departure.

The placement of Parashat Lekh L’kha after Parshiyot B’reshit and Noah permits one interpretation. On one level, Abram’s journey seems to reflect the stage of individuation in human development. Read More >

18 10, 2006

Parashat Noah

By Rabbi Enid C. Lader|2006-10-18T15:35:29-04:00October 18, 2006|

By Enid C. Lader

This past September marked the fifth year of remembering the tragic events of 9/11 and the thousands who lost their lives. As the television cameras panned the site of the World Trade Center and politicians pledged renewed effort to build towers even taller to replace the ones lost and pundits decried the amount of time that has passed without our rebuilding, I could not help but be reminded of the story of the Tower of Babel.

In this week’s Torah portion we read that:
‘Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words’ They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and burn them hard.” And they said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves”’ (Gen. 11:1, 3, 4)

God becomes very angry with these people, destroys their tower, Read More >

18 10, 2006

Parashat B’reishit

By ahsilver|2006-10-18T14:44:35-04:00October 18, 2006|

By Linda Shriner-Cahn

The holidays have come and gone, and we begin anew, back at the beginning, with an opportunity to come to the Torah with fresh eyes, ready to wrestle new meaning and deeper understandings from the text.

Rabbi Marc Gellman wrote a midrash for children that provides us with the opportunity to do just that. . . .

This midrash on creation begins with God, the Angels, and rocks and waters. Out of this stuff, this mess ‘ this tohu vavohu ‘ creation begins.

As creation begins, the separation of waters, the Angels ask, ‘Is it finished?’ and God responds, ‘Not yet.’

Throughout the process, step-by-step, the Angels ask, ‘Is it finished,’ and God responds, ‘Not yet.’

Finally, yes, finally, God creates man and woman, God is ready to rest and asks man and woman to finish the process of creation. However, man and woman find this process daunting. After all, they do not Read More >

17 08, 2006

Parashat Miketz

By ahsilver|2006-08-17T20:10:51-04:00August 17, 2006|

By Yechiel Buchband

I have long loved the saga of Yosef in Sefer B’reshit. For me, the most beloved person in the story is Yehuda. I love his story of personal development, growth and redemption, which serves as a beautiful counterpoint to the story of Yosef. Early on he took a leading role in the sale of Yosef and denied Tamar the right of Yibbum to which she was entitled. By the end of the story, he is clearly the leader of the brothers, another late-born yet preeminent son (like Yitzhak and Ya’akov).

To my mind, Yehudah’s defining moment is not the famed address before Yosef (which is certainly moving and memorable), which opens Parshat VaYigash, but rather the earlier, far shorter text (Gen. 43:8-9) in which he convinces his father Yisrael to allow him and his brothers to take Binyamin with them in order Read More >

4 05, 2006

Vayehi

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

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 >

1 04, 2006

Chayyei Sarah

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

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 >

1 04, 2006

Bereshit

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

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 >

23 03, 2006

Vayehi

By ahsilver|2006-03-23T08:06:13-05:00March 23, 2006|

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 to die drew Read More >

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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