This week’s Torah portion is infamous for being perhaps the grossest and least relatable portion in the entire Torah. And it’s one of my very favorites.
Tazria focuses on a skin disease known as tzara’at, which is commonly translated as leprosy...
For the last two years in which I was enrolled in rabbinical school, I served a small congregation every month located in the heart of Cajun Country: Lafayette, La.
Located as it was near the Gulf of Mexico, the residents of Lafayette ate a lot...
By Rabbi Dale Schreiber
• Published March 28, 2024
For an estimated 13 centuries, sacrificial offerings were the way of Jewish worship. The protocols for such practices are recorded in the third book of Torah, Leviticus, or Vayikra in Hebrew.
The rabbis often referred to books of Torah with names reflecting...
Basketball fans are still debating Jordan vs. Lebron—which was the GOAT (the Greatest of All Time). New Yorkers of a certain age used to argue passionately about the relative merits of Mantle, Mays and Snider, who were contemporaneous and competing...
By Cantor and Rabbi Ron Eichaker United hebrew Congreegation
• Published March 21, 2024
At times, our purpose or direction in life may be less clear than others. There can be many influences that can cast a pall over our existence, taking us to murky places we may not choose to go.
When clouds of uncertainty cause us to remain stationary,...
By Rabbi James Bennett, Congreegation Shaare Emeth
• Published March 6, 2024
For most of my life I have inclined towards a philosophy of universalism. From my earliest years, I understood our Jewish tradition as teaching that each human being is created B’tselem Elohim, in the Divine image, and that all human beings are equally...
By Rabbi Elizabeth Hersh
• Published February 29, 2024
Ki Tissa opens with God telling Moses to take a census of the Israelite people. Each shall contribute a half shekel. The wealthy should not pay more nor the less fortunate less. We read about details involving the priests as well as the commandment to...
Rabbi Josef Davidson
• Published February 21, 2024
Name tags: one either loves them or hates them; there is no in-between. Everyone, however, is in agreement that they serve a worthy purpose. Wearing a name tag alleviates the awkwardness that comes with recognizing the face but not the name. Name tags...
Rabbi James Stone Goodman
• Published February 15, 2024
In the portion Terumah, we encounter the first objectification of the spirit: The Sanctuary as it will house what was previously the unencumbered Spirit.
God says, build the place out of Me: Make [of] Me a Mikdash/holy place, and I will dwell [Shakhanti/Shekhinah]...
By Rabbi Andrea Goldstein
• Published February 8, 2024
This Shabbat, many congregations in St. Louis and across the country will be celebrating Repro Shabbat, a Shabbat dedicated to lifting up the Jewish values of reproductive freedom and justice.
Repro Shabbat occurs annually when Jews around the world...
How often do you mention God in your everyday speech? Maybe more often than you might think. God shows up frequently in our rote phrases.
“God bless you,” after we sneeze.
“Baruch HaShem,” “Blessed is the Name,” as an answer to “How...
By Rabbi Josef Davidson
• Published January 10, 2024
In this week’s Torah portion, Va’era, Moses is revisited by God after Moses’ message is rejected by the enslaved Israelites. When God instructs him to go a second time to deliver his message to Pharaoh as well, Moses complains, “The Israelites...
