Sefer Shemot Archives | Page 12 of 19 | Academy for Jewish Religion

13 02, 2014

Bo

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

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 >

13 02, 2014

Va-Eira

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

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 >

13 02, 2014

Shemot

By Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD|2014-02-13T11:51:52-05:00February 13, 2014|

Parashat Shemot
Rabbi Jill Hammer

Names: Five Meditations for Parashat Shemot

1.

The daughter of Pharaoh went down to wash in the Nile, and her maidens walked along the shore of the river. She saw the basket in the reeds and sent her handmaid, who fetched it. She opened it and saw the child-a boy, crying– and she had pity on him and said: “This is one of the Hebrew children.”

Think of a moment when you, like Moses, were in need of compassion from someone else. Remember or imagine receiving compassion in that moment. Now, think of a moment when you, like Pharaoh’s daughter, experienced deep compassion and love for someone else. Return to that moment and bring the heart-movement of hesed, of lovingkindness, to the present.

Name God El Rahum ve-Hanun, Divine Compassion and Graciousness.

2.

An angel of YHWH appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush; he looked, and lo, the bush was Read More >

8 03, 2013

Parashat Va-Yakhel-Pekudei Parashat Ha-Hodesh

By Rabbi Len Levin|2013-03-08T14:07:46-05:00March 8, 2013|

by Rabbi Len Levin

Sacred Space and Sacred Time:

This week we take out two Sifrei Torah. In the first we complete the book of Exodus, especially the long sequence of Chapters 25-40 which is devoted to the construction of the Tabernacle and all its appurtenances. In the second we begin the narrative of the Exodus from Egypt, which we will continue and conclude during the upcoming holiday of Passover. The one deals with sacred space, the other with sacred time.

In his book The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel said that whereas the ancient pagans glorified and sanctified space, Judaism sanctifies time. He exemplified this thesis by elaborating on how the Sabbath, that most distinctive creation of the Jewish spirit, creates a “palace in time,” in which we feel transported and uniquely close to God.

Heschel was only partly right. Yes, there is something distinctive about the Jewish relation to time, and much of what is uniquely Read More >

28 02, 2013

Parashat Ki Tissa – Shabbat Parah

By ahsilver|2013-02-28T10:39:36-05:00February 28, 2013|

By Rabbi Dorit Edut

Cows and Kashering for Pesah

Passover, or Pesah, marks a half-way point in our Jewish calendar. Though it comes in the first month of the Jewish year, Nissan, it is actually six months since Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. During this month before Passover, we mark almost each Shabbat with special preparations for this important holiday. For example, this week is Shabbat Parah when we read an additional portion about the very unusual ritual of the red heifer, the cow that the High Priest sacrificed and whose ashes were then used to purify those made impure via contact with a corpse. There have been efforts made to understand the deeper meaning of this ritual. For example, in Midrash Tanhuma (Hukat, 8) it says:

“A young woman’s child once dirtied the royal palace. The king said: ‘Let his mother come and clean up her child’s mess.’ By the same token, God says Read More >

6 02, 2013

Parashat Mishpatim

By ahsilver|2013-02-06T11:43:54-05:00February 6, 2013|

By Rabbi Judith Edelstein

In this week’s parashah, Mishpatim, “Laws,” we have plummeted from the terse, but exalted proclamation of the Ten Commandments in last week’s reading, Yitro, to the nitty gritty details of everyday life. This section, often referred to as the “Book of the Covenant,” although not exhaustive, as it does not cover every aspect of existence, prescribes rules for a vast range of moral, criminal and civil matters. They range from the treatment of slaves and their families, murder, theft and assault, to behavior towards the stranger and religious observance of the festivals.

What is amazing is that in the opening verse God instructs Moses to speak to all the people in an inclusive manner, “These are the rules that you shall set before them.” (Exodus 21:1) This sets us up with high expectations for what is to follow. None of the other law collections from the Ancient Near East begins Read More >

31 01, 2013

Parashat Yitro

By ahsilver|2013-01-31T10:29:38-05:00January 31, 2013|

By Rabbi Robert Freedman

The account in Exodus of the revelation at Sinai emphasizes physical boundaries. “YHVH said to Moses, ‘I will come to you in a thick cloud.'” (Exodus 19:9). “You shall set bounds for the people round about, saying, ‘Beware of going up the mountain or touching the border of it. Whoever touches the mountain will be put to death.'” (19:12) “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down, warn the people not to break through to the Lord to gaze, lest many of them perish.'” (19:21)

These boundaries are similar to those set up by the priesthood following the rebellion of Korah and the destruction of his followers. (Numbers 17:27-18:7) They kept all but the ordained priests from coming close to the holiest part of the sanctuary and prevented any non-anointed person from performing the rites of the temple cult. There, as here, the penalty for crossing the boundary was death. At Read More >

29 01, 2013

Parashat Beshalah and Tu Bish’vat

By Rabbi Len Levin|2013-01-29T10:46:24-05:00January 29, 2013|

By Rabbi Len Levin

David Ben Gurion said that whoever does not believe in miracles is not a realist. He may have had in mind the day in 1948 that the fate of Jerusalem depended on negotiation of a cease-fire before the supply of food and water would run out, or a thousand other improbable events on which the life of modern Israel depended.

“God enacted a condition with the Sea, at the time of creation, that it should split upon the arrival of the Israelites.” (Genesis Rabbah, 5:5) The author of this rabbinic saying was cognizant of the Stoic doctrine of natural law-a precursor of our modern scientific view of the orderliness of the physical world-and asserted that if miracles occur, they are part of the fabric of natural causality, not a deviation from it. God works through nature.

In the daily prayer Modim, we thank God for the miracles and wonders that are with us every Read More >

17 01, 2013

Parashat Bo

By ahsilver|2013-01-17T13:46:41-05:00January 17, 2013|

By Rabbi Dorit Edut

The recent tragedy of the cold-blooded shooting of twenty-six young children and four of their adult staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut shocked our entire nation. After ungluing ourselves from the media reports, some of us looked for spiritual and practical ways to express our sorrow and identification with the victims’ families – leading or attending worship services, sending items to help the survivors, signing petitions against gun violence and writing to our congressmen, etc. But I would venture to say that the most prevalent reaction was to contact our children, grandchildren, children of friends and neighbors to make sure they were safe, to offer them an extra hug or bit of loving advice, and probably to whisper a little prayer asking for God’s continued protection of these precious ones. Can we make sense of this and other such violent events that have left too many Read More >

17 01, 2013

Parashat Va’eira

By ahsilver|2013-01-17T11:46:00-05:00January 17, 2013|

By Rabbi Kaya Stern-Kaufman

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezek. 36:26)

In Parashat Va’eira the Torah presents Pharaoh’s response to the successive plagues meted out by God. Seven times we read the refrain that Pharaoh’s heart was either “strengthened” or “hardened” after each plague. At times the phrase “v’lo shama aleihem – and he did not listen to them” is added to the ‘stiffening of the heart’ phrase. Pharaoh is described repeatedly as one with an iron will, or as the Torah implies, an iron heart. He excels at shutting himself off from the suffering of others and the word of God. He appears to cultivate this skill to exquisite proportions despite the plagues, the suffering of his own people and the destruction of 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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