Special Parshiyot

By Simcha Raphael, PhD

Yizkor – Remembrance of Souls on the Eighth Day of Passover

On the eighth day of Passover we recite Yizkor prayers in memory of deceased family members. In our contemporary society, we think of Yizkor as an efficacious bereavement ritual honoring and remembering deceased loved ones. However, underlying the origins of Yizkor was a different worldview, one that assumed consciousness survives bodily death, and that through prayer and charity one could have a beneficent impact on the soul of the deceased. Understanding this view more fully, and exploring the historical evolution of Yizkor, can add a depth of meaning to our Yizkor prayers this year.

Earliest references to prayers for the dead date back to Hasmonean times. Judah Maccabee and cohorts offered prayers and sacrifices on behalf of fallen comrades “that they might be set free from their sins” (II Macc. 12:45). In Rabbinic teachings, the living Read More >

By Rabbi Heidi Hoover

More than a decade ago, shortly after my conversion to Judaism, I was working as a religious school tutor. One day at about this time of year, I was having a conversation with a colleague about Passover, specifically the part of the haggadah that instructs us to say, “God brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.” How, I asked, could I honestly say “us?” As a Jew by Choice, I am obviously not descended by blood from the Israelites who left Egypt in the Exodus. At the same time, as a Jew, it didn’t feel right to say, “God brought them out of Egypt.”

It was a number of years later that I found two answers to my question. One came from Maimonides, one of our great rabbis, who lived in the 1100’s in Spain, Morocco, and Egypt. Maimonides wrote a letter responding to Read More >