The Torah portion for this week, Bo, is filled with plagues (three, to be exact), darkness, laws of Passover, the commandment to sanctify the new moon, borrowed items and pidyon ha-ben — redemption of the first-born son. This is a story about our liberation...

This week’s Torah reading describes the first seven of the 10 plagues that were intended to demonstrate how the power of the God of Israel surpasses that of Pharaoh and a host of lesser Egyptian gods and goddesses. At first, it appears that these...

After I graduated from college, I spent a year working for Facing History and Ourselves, an international organization whose mission is to use lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate.One of Facing History’s...

I write this message during a season of endings. The secular year is coming to its close, and this Shabbat we fittingly will read the concluding parashah of B’reyshit, the Book of Genesis. Our Torah Reading is Va-y’chi, Genesis 47:28-50:26, which...

There is an important principle in Jewish law, which states that all Jews are responsible for one another: Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh BaZeh. This idea was perhaps first demonstrated by Yehudah, who, as we read in last week’s parsha, told his father,...

How much attention do you pay to your dreams? Clearly, the Pharaoh of Egypt (and his courtiers, as we heard in last week’s Torah Portion!) took their (and the Pharaoh’s!) dreams very seriously.  And in this week’s Parashah of Miketz, the Torah...

In our book this week, father Jacob thought he was going to settle down, so he sent me after my brothers.I couldn’t find them but I go when called. I wouldn’t make so much of that I don’t have the energy to be anywhere else. My present is demanding...

In Parashat Vayishlach, Jacob receives a new name that becomes the name of the Jewish people: Israel.This moment in Genesis 32 is essential to every generation, especially in the fraught times in which we live. Jacob faces what he believes is an existential...

Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Charan. He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. He had a dream; a stairway was...

Here we are in the Jewish calendar with no holidays. The month of Cheshvan that just ended is at times referred to as Mar Cheshvan, or Bitter Cheshvan, by virtue of the absence of any holidays.  It is precisely during this time period that we have the...

Inter-generationality is the major theme of this week’s Torah reading, Chayei Sarah.  The narrative begins with the death and burial of our matriarch, Sarah.  It then continues highlighting the marriage of Isaac and Rebeccah, the inheritors of the...

When was the last time you had guests?  It’s been so long since we’ve had anyone over that I can’t even remember. And when someone does come into our house, even for a moment, we all suddenly put on masks: We all cover our faces, our noses, our...