In this week’s Torah portion, Hukkat, the Israelites are encamped at Kadesh, where the death of Miriam has just occurred. Though generally an oasis, at this time there is no water for the people to drink. They come to Moses and Aaron, not to console...
By Maharat Rori Picker Neiss
• Published June 10, 2015
It seems curious that after all of the promises God made to our ancestors – the covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the future foretold to Moses; the great miracles and wonder in which the Israelites were taken out of their slavery in Egypt; the...
Last year, I found myself in St Louis on Memorial Day making arrangements for our upcoming move to town. My hosts invited me to join them on their annual Memorial Day visit to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. This visit was one way they chose to...
Behar and Behukotai, the last parashiyot of the book of Leviticus, outline a series of agricultural and economic laws and conclude with a series of conditional blessings, if we remain faithful to the Covenant, and curses, if we do not.
These laws...
By Rabbi Josef Davidson
• Published April 29, 2015
My favorite professor in rabbinical school taught Semitic languages, and I took virtually every course that he taught in Aramaic, Syriac and Arabic. His own Ph. D. had been earned at the Sorbonne, and his thesis was the culmination of his study of what...
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov once told a story about a young prince. One day, he suddenly decided that he was no longer a human being but, rather, a turkey. As a turkey, he sat underneath the table, naked, and picked at bits of bread and bones. The king and...
Few words can describe the experience encapsulated in two simple words in this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Shemini. Upon hearing that his two older sons had been killed in a fire while attempting to perform service to God, Aaron is distraught. His...
Pesach is one of our most joyous festivals and, for many of us, a definite favorite. It can feel odd, then, to conclude the holiday with Yizkor, the memorial service. Yet the pairing of celebration and mourning is central to Judaism and seems perhaps...
By Rabbi Roxanne J.S. Shapiro
• Published April 1, 2015
On the eve of our Passover sederim, we will sit and read from our haggadot. We will participate in blessings and retell the story of our exodus from Egypt. We will taste foods and point out their symbolism. We will give thanks.During the course of the...
By Rabbi James Stone Goodman
• Published March 25, 2015
Leviticus was his favorite book. He had several shelves in the category of sifrei drush — books of interpretation — that when we packed up his library he paused to linger among them before assigning them to the inevitable give-away box. A shelf of...
BY RABBI DALE SCHREIBER
• Published March 18, 2015
The Book of Leviticus opens in the aftermath of Divine Revelation and the focused energies of the wandering Israelites for building a portable sanctuary. They are still carrying the weight of a learned history acquired during their long sojourn in Egyptian...
Rabbi Carnie Shalom Rose
• Published March 11, 2015
This coming Shabbat, Jews the world over will be blessed with a uniquely “thick” liturgical experience. In addition to a lengthy Torah reading spanning the two concluding sections of Sefer Shemot (Exodus) — the double portion of VaYakhel and...
