By Rabbi Jessica Shafrin
• Published July 22, 2024
“A person is given three names: one that their parents call them, one their fellows call them, and one that they acquire with their deeds.” (Midrash Tanhuma, Va-yakhel)
The naming process is unique to each individual and culture, yet names...
Would you hire Bilaam to work at your Jewish organization?
Let’s check out his resume. Bilaam’s previous job titles include dream interpreter, magician, and most recently, prophet via ruach hakodesh, the holy spirit. His most recent employer...
RABBI AMY FEDER, CONGREGATION TEMPLE ISRAEL
• Published July 3, 2024
In the Tanakh, one can often tell quite a bit about who people are just by the meaning of their names. Eve comes from the word life, Abraham means father of multitudes, David is beloved. So when you learn that Korach, the titular character in this week’s...
Despite the miraculous journey on which the people had been traveling, when faced with deciding on whether to continue going forward, the people were afraid.
They looked back on the halcyon days when a strong authority figure determined the...
By Rabbi James Stone Goodman
• Published June 13, 2024
It was Shabbat Naso, the longest parashah in the Torah, read in proximity to Shavuot, the great wedding celebrating the enduring wisdom given to us on a mountain top. We had prepared.
Was it a complete gift, this wisdom, or did we turn ourselves...
Though it has been many decades since I was an incoming freshman in college, I remember well many of the experiences of that year as well as the three others that followed.
One was the experience of rushing a fraternity and then participating on the...
By Rabbi Mark L. Shook, Rabbi Emeritus, Congregation Temple Israel
• Published May 2, 2024
This week’s parasha is acharei mot, and is found in chapters 16-18 of Leviticus - Sefer Vayikra. Following upon the sudden death of Aaron’s two sons, a detailed account of the proper procedures for the purification of the Mishkan is given. The wilderness...
By Rabbi James Stone Goodman, Central Reform Congregation
• Published April 18, 2024
He was accustomed to the close reading of texts, but on that day he sat with eyes that had never seen before and watched words on the page before him grow legs and dance, legs became wings, and words flew off the page like pigeons off of cobblestones.
On...
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...
