Parashat Terumah Make [of] Me a Mikdash/holy placeand I will dwellwithin them- Exodus 25:8 The Zohar understands the Sanctuary as a place where two worlds are unified. It is built out of terumah, which is read by many from a Hebrew root which means to...

"Oh rabbi, I may not follow everything in the Torah, but I do believe in the Ten Commandments. That should count for something." Indeed. I wish I had a dime for every time I heard that approach to the observance or rather non-observance of biblical laws....

Last week when I took a walk with my 2½ year old to the park where we have had a small community garden plot for the last year, I did not expect to see resilient winter edibles, lettuces, kale, broccoli; forgotten foodstuff that I thought had surely...

Many of the most memorable experiences of my life, and I suspect of many others' lives, have music associated with them. Whenever I listen to those melodies, the experience associated with each of them is replayed in my mind as well. For example, many...

The political season has arrived!  There is buzz all around as to who is truly electable and who will best represent our country and the desires of the voters.  And, certainly with every election year, at least for me, comes the internal struggle with...

Our deepest relationships are not defined by strength, but by vulnerability. Our parsha begins with Judah approaching Joseph from a position of weakness. He offers his own life in exchange for his younger brother, Binyamin. In his plea, his vulnerability...

I noticed something peculiar in the story of our ancestor Jacob's young adult life. "And G!d went up from him." (Gen. 35:13) It looked almost as if God "lifted off" from him. Could it really be, I wondered, that with the ending of Jacob's conflicts with...

Hanukkah is often referred to as the Festival of Lights. We add one candle to the Hanukkah menorah each of the eight nights of Hanukkah to commemorate the miraculous victory of the Macabees as well as the miracle of the small cruse of oil that lasted...

A "ketonet passim" (ornamented tunic/striped tunic/robe of many colors) caused all this mess? Joseph was hated for this?It was not the tunic itself...but rather what it represented. Why should Joseph be blamed? He could not help that his father loved...

Less than a week before the start of the Jewish New Year, Erev Rosh Hashanah, our family was blessed with a new baby. Amid the joy of this fall, as we have entered him into the Covenant of Abraham and formally named him after beloved family members we...

As the Torah portion Vayetzei (Gen. 28:10 - 32:3) opens, our spiritual ancestor, Jacob, is running from his brother, Esau's, wrath after obtaining his brother's birthright blessing by trickery. Jacob makes camp, and has an amazing dream: angels are going...

Isaac entreats God, and God is entreated. Same verb, different structure. It is one of the words we encounter in Torah that is considered prayer.The same root, transitive and reflexive. Isaac entreats God, and God is entreated. We cannot actually translate...