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By Rabbi Michael G. Kohn As we look at this parashah, I would like us to think about the message the Torah is giving us as parents. I have always had a difficult time with this parashah, first, because it focuses on the death of the last of our patriarchs. The description of Jacob's "family" Read More >

Parashat Beha’alotekha By Barbara Rosenthal Birnbaum Until I learned the methods and strategies of feminist reading of the Bible, I would avoid rereading narratives such as the one about Miriam at the end of this week’s parashah -Beha’alotekha. This story (Numbers 12) is complex. It engenders many questions. It is fascinating.  But it always made Read More >

By Rabbi H. Raphael Goldtsein I did not have a clue as to what the Torah portion was about on the day of my Bar Mitzvah. I was shocked when Rabbi Joachim Prinz told me about a guy named Korah who rebelled against Moses. I had been a particularly troublesome Read More >

By Cantor Alan J. Brava God through Moses promises the Israelites a land flowing in “milk and honey”; a land which they will inhabit as a free nation after years of being enslaved in Egypt by Pharaoh. We have a slave nation wandering the desert with a leader who by the hand of God performs Read More >

By Rabbi/Cantor Bob Freedman “Naso et rosh, lift up the heads of the Kohatites of the tribe of Levi.” When we are in a state of lowness, of “small mind,” we don’t see the full picture of the community in which we are imbedded. Boundaries, set in place by ourselves or by others, block our Read More >

By Karen Levine Rabbi David Max Eichhorn, an American Army chaplain, stood on a makeshift podium in the middle of the vast roll call square. On a table behind Rabbi Eichhorn sat a simple wooden ark that held a rescued Torah scroll, donated to him as he traveled through France with the advancing American army. Read More >

By Simon Rosenbach My father left social work in early 1951 to sell life insurance in New Jersey for a wonderful (and now defunct) company called the New England Life Insurance Company. Eventually, my father was very successful, and the company permitted (or encouraged) him to start his own agency in Plainfield, New Jersey. Agencies were known Read More >

By Rabbi Danny Horwitz My wife wasn’t planning to marry me. She was back from kibbutz, saving up money in order to make aliyah. Although I had spent a year studying in Israel, as a newly ordained rabbi I was not a good candidate for aliyah and we both knew it. I loved Israel, but I Read More >

By Hayley Siegel This week’s parashah, Pinchas commences with a description of Pinchas’ reception of the unique brit shalom (a covenant of peace) and a priestly role from God. And yet, despite the fact that Pinchas receives these accolades and the entire parashah bears his name, we witness the momentous occasion when the tribe’s leadership Read More >

By Rabbi H. Rafael Goldstein In the middle of all the kvetching in the Book of the Wilderness, Bemidbar, we have a king who commissions a special curse for the people of Israel, and ends up paying to bless them. We have a talking donkey, working for a guy who is supposed to be a Read More >