This week’s Torah portion, Shemini, wraps up the eight-day inauguration ceremony of the Tabernacle and its Kohanim, the priests.  On the eighth day of the inauguration, as a coda to the process, a calf was brought on the altar and a Divine fire emerged...

All of my writing teachers stress the importance of writing. “Duh,” you might think, but I don’t mean the significance of the writing itself—what I’m referring to is the importance of the starting, putting words onto paper. I have been staring...

The book of Exodus ends with two portions, Vayakheil and Pekudei, one of the seven possible double portions calculated to keep the alignment of the Jewish year.  Each of the five books in the Torah has several names.  In Hebrew, the Book of Exodus is...

It’s a theme that is familiar to all, whether as expressed in the cliché, “While the cat’s away, the mice will play,” or in the myriad of productions in which the adolescents, in the absence of their parents, do something wild and crazy — inviting...

This week, my alarm woke me at the following times in the morning, 9, 9:30, 8:50, 11 and 8:20. On Saturday I slept until 2:30 in the afternoon. Mondays I have class from 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m., but Thursdays I only go from 2:30-4 p.m. Wednesdays, I am away...

I like to be in control. There’s safety and security in feeling as if you have authority in your own life. I like to plan my days, I like my suggestions to be implemented, and I like to solve my own problems. I realize the irony in this claim after...

Over the past several years, we have called on professionals to remodel different parts of our home.  Every time we met with one of them, he or she would dazzle us with swatches and squares and plans and colors and fabrics and dimensions until my eyes...

After 61 chapters, 14 parashiyot, of dramatic, thought-provoking narrative, Exodus 12 transitions into law. At that point, the Israelite calendar, a mark of distinctiveness, is instituted and permanently inserted into the nascent nation’s rhythm.  ...

Reading the Torah portions every week has become an extremely humbling experience. When I originally pitched this “Matzah Ball Soup For the Soul” idea, I was sure I could find a way to take all my private-Jewish-day-school education and teach something...

We live in an age and a society which is skeptical of heavenly visions.  The prophet Isaiah, however, felt no such reticence.  In the Haftorah connected with this week’s parsha, he painted a vivid picture of God’s throne surrounded by angels, and...