Standing on the precipice, the entire community gathers. Our weekly Torah portion, Nitzavim, mirrors much of our High Holy Day…
Two Minutes of Torah
Blessings and Curses. So much of the theology embedded within our text wants us to believe in a binary existence…
Remembering and Forgetting In this week’s parasha, Ki Teitzei, Moses offers the Israelites a number of instructions, including the instruction…
Love in Elul This Shabbat, we enter the month of Elul, the full month of preparation necessary to make the…
How do we pass our values onto our children? In Parshat Eikev Moses outlines the imperative for the Israelites to…
Parshat Va’etchanan is packed with good stuff. We read both the words of the Shema and the Ten Commandments. In…
Last week’s parasha ends with a quite gruesome event. Pinchas, who is of the priestly family, sees an Israelite man…
Turning curses into blessings Parashat Balak, this week’s parasha, contains an infamous biblical story. The king of Moab, Balak, feared…
When do we challenge authority and with what intent? Our parsha this week includes not one, but two rebellions against Moses and Aaron: one over Aaron‘s priestly authority and the other about Moses‘ civic leadership. Some scholars argue that there are two conflicting narratives woven into one here, and the message is essentially the same: the power-hungry will never prevail. Korach levels a claim against Aaron & Moses, citing the holiness of every…
The start of the Book of Numbers, Bamidbar, contains a census of the Israelite people. This enumeration of individuals functions…