My ancestors were wanderers. Abraham left his homeland and all that he knew in exchange for the promise of greatness and blessing for our people. Generations later a severe drought in Canaan led Jacob and his household to journey to Egypt. The Torah...

“What’s in a name?That which we call a rose,By any other name would smell as sweet.”— William Shakespeare, “Romeo & Juliet”As is the case with all the books of our Holy Torah, the second book of Scripture, Sefer Shmot in Hebrew, derives...

The whole Torah is about journey. The journeys of Genesis bring the Israelites into Egypt as an honored people who become enslaved. The Book of Exodus, called Shemot (Names), narrates the journey of a new collective of slaves into a people called Israel. The...

“Stay woke!” The word “woke” has increasingly come to mean not only the past tense of “awake” but also to be socially aware, especially as related to issues of racial and social justice, according to Merriam-Webster. The term originated...

“Behind every great man is a great women.”Though we don’t often hear this phrase anymore, it was once  touted by the early feminist movement. Today, we might alter the phrase and utilize the words “next to or beside.” But regardless of the...

Parashat Vayechi brings tears to my eyes and joy to my heart. Every emotion is wrapped into the blessings, disappointments and challenges of saying goodbye to a loved one, and the consequential changing family dynamics that follow the burial of a family...

It is not often easy to speak truth to power, to approach one who is on a higher station in life, who is in public office or is otherwise perceived to be unapproachable. This is especially true when that person holds something over one. Often, I have...

On Hanukkah, one of the blessings we recite acknowledges the miracles performed for our ancestors “in those days, at this time.” Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, known by his work, Sefas Emes, taught that Hanukkah was the last miracle performed for...

In Vayeshev, our Torah portion this week, we meet Joseph. At this point in the story, Joseph is 17, brazen and clearly his father’s favorite. He also is a dreamer who has no qualms about sharing his dreams, which depict him as ruling over his parents...

Our portion for this week, Vayishlach, is the story of a wrestling match, a struggle between Jacob and another figure—we don’t know if this figure is another man, or an angel or if the figure is God or even Jacob struggling with himself.Jacob enters...

A man sees an attractive young woman and goes up to her and, without a word, kisses her. This sounds all too familiar in the midst of our national conversation about sexual assault and harassment of women. But the episode to which I am referring is not...

This week, I encounter the first use of one of the greatest words of Torah. Rebecca is in distress over the twins wrestling within her. She expresses a pure sentiment of agony and goes to lidrosh of God (Genesis 25:22). Let’s leave that word untranslated...