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4 12, 2020

Parashat Vayishlah 5781

By Rabbi Michael Rothbaum|2022-07-29T11:24:23-04:00December 4, 2020|

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah

What Goes Around
A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayishlah
By Rabbi Michael Rothbaum (’06)

The aphorism “what goes around comes around” is so ingrained in the English language as to seem timeless. I’d always assumed it was from a Shakespearean sonnet, or maybe one of Aesop’s fables.

But a little Googling reveals it to be of a much more recent vintage. The earliest citation I found was from an African American newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, in 1952. Today it refers to getting one’s comeuppance — and not in a good way. But in what appears to be the first time the phrase appeared in print, columnist Nat D. Williams uses it to express a positive sentiment. Williams writes with pride of African American athletes finally getting their chance to prove their ability in the Olympics and in Major League Baseball, offering Black spectators “a surge of pride in seeing the keen minds Read More >

27 11, 2020

Parashat Vayeitzei 5781

By Rabbi Lizz Goldstein|2022-07-29T11:24:23-04:00November 27, 2020|

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah

Noticing the Good (and the Bad)
A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeitzei
By Rabbi Lizz Goldstein (’16)

I always feel a bit conflicted at this time of year, and in some ways this year’s necessary changes have alleviated some of my discomfort around celebrating Thanksgiving. I love this day for food and family, for gratitude and the opportunity to share all that we have, but sometimes it’s impossible to ignore that this holiday is based on a white-washed version of history that in reality led to genocide. It’s one thing to take the time out of our busy lives to just enjoy a pause for hakarat hatov – noticing the good. But is it necessary in a time of physical shut down and overwhelming flow of information of the good and bad in this country?

I recall some years ago, Read More >

19 11, 2020

Parashat Toledot 5781

By Rabbi Ariann Weitzman|2022-07-29T11:24:23-04:00November 19, 2020|

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah

A D’var Torah for Parashat Toledot
By Rabbi Ariann Weitzman (’11)

Parashat Toledot traces the arc of the patriarch Isaac’s life from the beginnings of his married life to his old age. Along the way, seemingly more energetic actors plot and scheme around him: his wife Rebecca, his sons Jacob and Esau, even his neighbors, the Philistines. Isaac’s primary virtue appears to be naivety.

Some readers find Isaac’s character to be one of extended adolescence, always traveling in his parents’ footsteps, repeating the steps of their lives, and never venturing forth on his own. One might say that he has a failure to launch. Instead of going out to find a wife, one is brought to him. Instead of leaving the land of Canaan in time of famine to improve his fate, he stays close to home. He moves Read More >

13 11, 2020

Parashat Hayei Sarah 5781

By Doug Alpert|2022-07-29T11:24:24-04:00November 13, 2020|

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah

A D’var Torah for Parashat Hayei Sarah
By Rabbi Doug Alpert (’12)For years I have worked with a number of organizations whose mission is centered around fighting racism. The Missouri branch of the NAACP, the Missouri coordinating committee for the Poor Peoples Campaign, the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity in my hometown of Kansas City. So it is with much anticipation that I will participate in this year’s AJR Fall Retreat (albeit virtually) focusing on race and racism.

Much of the work in fighting racism is to wrestle with a sense of our own identity and community. Who is in and who is out, or, to coin a cultural moniker of Jewish identity that came up on day one of the retreat; who is a “member of the tribe.” (This reference had always struck me as a relic of Read More >

30 10, 2020

Parashat Lekh Lekha 5781

By Rabbi Marc Rudolph|2022-07-29T11:24:24-04:00October 30, 2020|

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah

Like Terah or Abraham?
A D’var Torah for Parashat Lekh Lekha
By Rabbi Marc Rudolph (’04)

Today I am going to do something quite audacious. I am going to disagree with one of the greatest sages who ever lived! I am going to take issue with one of the greatest Jewish minds of the 20^th century — The Hafetz Hayyim!

Ever since Ora Prouser introduced us to his collection of weekly Torah Commentary, “Al HaTorah”, I have turned to this collection for study and inspiration. For this week’s Torah portion he focuses on this verse, “Abraham took his family and his possessions and went forth to go to the Land of Caanan – and he came to the land of Caanan” (Gen. 12:5). He compares this to a verse about Terah, Abraham’s father, that we read last week. There the Torah says, “Terah Read More >

23 10, 2020

Parashat Noah 5781

By Rabbi Enid C. Lader|2022-07-29T11:24:24-04:00October 23, 2020|

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah

A D’var Torah for Parashat Noah
By Rabbi Enid Lader (’10)

Our Torah opens with an organized story of creation – a place for everything and everything in its place. Each step of the way, the natural world is tov – good. And when it is filled with living creatures and human beings, it is tov me’od – very good. As we end chapter one and begin the second chapter of Bereishit, all seems right with the world. But “very good” or even “good” does not sustain us.

We have inquiring minds, and left to our own devices, we will seek out our own answers, rather than follow specific directions. Yet, unless there is some kind of structure in place, something that helps guide us in making good (or even very good) decisions, where will our own answers lead us – Read More >

16 10, 2020

Parashat Bereishit 5781

By Rabbi Jeffrey Segelman|2022-07-29T11:24:24-04:00October 16, 2020|

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah

A D’var Torah for Parashat Bereishit
By Rabbi Jeffrey Segelman

The story of creation. Though the Torah does not tell us, we might ask: Why did God create in the first place? Perhaps because God was lonely. Not ordinary loneliness – existential loneliness. God existed, but as long as nothing else did, God’s existence had no meaning. So God set out to create something – someone – with whom God could have a relationship – a relationship which later God will call love. God created in search of love.

With the most unusual holiday season behind us, and an extraordinarily stressful few months ahead of us, it might be wise to embrace some of the lessons of God’s search for love.

Our Kabbalistic tradition wisely points out that God’s first step in creating love was to make Godself smaller. On one level, that was a wink Read More >

10 01, 2020

Parashat Vayehi 5780

By Rabbi David Evan Markus|2022-07-29T11:24:30-04:00January 10, 2020|

A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayehi
By Rabbi David Markus

This last Torah portion of the Book of Genesis (Vayeḥi) concludes the drama of Jacob, Joseph and his brothers. The dramatic saga – their troubled family dynamics, power and power inversions, regret, guilt, fear, their very lives – it all finally reaches a settled tableau. Jacob is buried, hatchets are buried (maybe), and Joseph’s body is embalmed. With them, Torah’s first era of Jewish ancestry ends.

Of course, their deaths are Torah’s fertilizer for the future. Reflecting God’s promise to Abraham long before (Gen. 15:13), by design all of this week’s endings are mere prelude. The next chapter soon will open by recounting those generations (Ex. 1:1-6), and a new king of Egypt will rise to life who knows not Joseph (Ex. 1:8). Centuries of bondage will commingle death and life until only supernatural deaths – the Tenth Plague and the drowning Read More >

3 01, 2020

Parashat Vayigash 5780

By Rabbi Heidi Hoover|2022-07-29T11:24:30-04:00January 3, 2020|

A D’var Torah for Parashat Vayigash
By Rabbi Heidi Hoover

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash, Joseph reveals who he is to his brothers, in an awkward and fraught family reunion. It could hardly be otherwise. His brothers, when they were more powerful than Joseph due to age and numbers, sold him into slavery years ago and let their father believe his favorite son was dead. Now, he is the powerful one—the Egyptian official second only to Pharaoh—and they have come begging to buy food in the famine.

They never had much in common with each other, Joseph and his brothers, and they never got along. Joseph insulted his brothers and reported on their behavior to their father. They, of course, rejected him in the most extreme way, just short of murdering him.

Still, the bond of family remains. Times are hard now, during this great famine. Joseph forgives his brothers and helps them, because they Read More >

27 12, 2019

Parashat Miketz 5780

By Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD|2022-07-29T11:24:30-04:00December 27, 2019|

The Dreams of Pharaoh
A D’var Torah for Parashat Miketz
By Rabbi Jill Hammer

Often when we come to this parashah, we think of the drama of Yosef: his rediscovery of his brothers and his decision to trick them in order to see if their character has changed. But this year, I am finding myself curious about a different drama: the story of Pharaoh. Not the one with a hard heart, but the first Pharaoh, the one who dreams. It is this Pharaoh who elevates Joseph to high estate. It is also this Pharaoh who teaches us something about the qualities of leadership.

At the beginning of Genesis 41, the Pharaoh of Egypt has two dreams in a single night, dreams that disturb him. In the first dream, seven healthy cows come out of the Nile, and then seven emaciated cows come out and devour the seven healthy cows. In the second, Pharaoh sees a grain stalk with seven healthy 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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