“Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishk’notecha Yisrael.”  How lovely are your tents [people of] Jacob; your sanctuaries [people of] Israel. I often have used this prayer to teach my young students that when visiting a friend’s beautiful synagogue...

When was the last time that you experienced God in the world? I experience God on the face of a stranger, in the beauty of the snow, in the intricacies of a flower. I know that the way I experience God in the world is different from the way you do.  We...

When I was in elementary school, I had a classmate who wore a shirt and tie to school every day. Although I remember his distinctive wardrobe choice decades later, I never spent much time thinking about his motives. Looking back, it would seem this was...

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...

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...