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Seeing Our Choices More Clearly By Rabbi Regina L. Sandler-Phillips "In the market, the blind cry out to the one-eyed as clear-sighted." (Genesis Rabbah 30:9) These are the words of Rabbi Yehudah in a rabbinic dispute concerning Genesis 6:9, which declares that "Noah was a righteous man, unblemished in his generations." Rabbi Yehudah is among Read More >

By Rabbi Robert Waxman The additional Torah reading for this Shabbat of Ha-Hodesh - "This month..." (Ex. 12:1-20), falls on Rosh Hodesh Nisan or the Shabbat preceding. The Shabbat has awesome responsibilities. It announces the new moon and the new month of Nisan which is the first of the months. Ha-Hodesh tells us to get Read More >

Towards a MacroCosmic View of Leviticus By Molly Karp "God called to Moshe and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying: Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them "When a person from among them would bring near (yakriv) an offering (korban) to Adonoi from the cattle, from the herd and Read More >

By Rabbi David Greenstein This Shabbat is Rosh Hodesh, the beginning of a new month. This is a time which the overwhelmingly male-centered tradition assigned for celebration of the place of Jewish women in the community. In the old days women would observe Rosh Hodesh as a quasi-festival, refraining from unnecessary work and household chores. Read More >

By Margaret Frisch Klein "What, you didn't call, you didn't write." We've all heard the stereotypical Jewish mother jokes. There is some truth in them. Mothers like to be called. I know. I am one. This year as we celebrate Mother's Day, I wish that I still had a mother to call. You may not Read More >

By Sanford Olshansky In the summer of 1970, when I was 20 years old, I rear-ended another car on one of the freeways in Detroit, where I grew up. There were no injuries and the police officer who came to the scene said there was no need for an accident report. A few weeks later Read More >

By Simon Rosenbach This week we sort of read, as we sort of read every year, the first version of the Tokhehah, a list of threats that God has Moses deliver to the children of Israel. These threats are so dire ("you will eat the flesh of your children" - Lev. 26:29) that they are Read More >

By Kaya Stern-Kaufman Chapter two of B 'midbar describes the arrangement and organization of the Israelite camp in the wilderness. The mishkan, God's tabernacle, is to reside in the center of the camp. It is surrounded by the tribe of Levites to guard and protect it. In the east, with the rising sun, the tribes Read More >

Standing at Sinai By Rabbi Michael G. Kohn For me, the festival of Shavuot is a riddle shrouded in mystery, wrapped in an enigma. Although it is fixed in our modern calendars as the sixth day of Sivan, no such date appears anywhere in the Torah. In parashat Pinhas, where the additional sacrifices for each Read More >

By Molly Karp Parashat Naso begins with the continuation of the counting of the Gershonites and the Merarites, the Levites who are responsible for transporting the hangings, poles, planks and hardware of the Tent of Meeting. Just as the Tabernacle would not be complete without all of its parts, so too, the Levitical family would Read More >