Upcoming Events
- God Loves The Right And The Good January 27, 2019 at 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm Shiur/Study
- Hevra Kaddisha Day of Learning / Leave-Taking: The Paradox Of Parting February 3, 2019 at 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
- Act So That The Name Of Heaven May Be Blessed Because Of You March 31, 2019 at 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
- Where There Is No Mentsch Strive To Be A Mentsch! June 9, 2019 at 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
- Shabbaton In The Mountains August 8, 2019 at 4:00 pm – August 11, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Category Archives: Torah
Hesed Is The Prayer And The Answer
When Sarah died at the age of 127, Abraham’s family lost its hesed, the caring, steadfast acts that connect people and sustain the world. Sarah’s hesed was unfailing, even in difficult times. Let this be your hesed to me, Abraham … Continue reading
Posted in Blessing, Parshat HaShavuah, Poetry, Torah
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Heroes Who Limp
Jacob’s midnight assailant was surprised at his adversary’s great strength. He wondered if Jacob might be an angel like himself. Angels have no leg joints, the midrash teaches, so he touched Jacob at the hip to determine whether his opponent’s … Continue reading
Naming The Unimaginable
At the harrowing end, a ram replaced Yitzhak as the sacrifice; a narrow escape that came only after two divine interventions to divert father Abraham from his unimaginable mission. Generations of rabbinic storytellers imagined even narrower escapes for Yitzhak, placing … Continue reading
Posted in Midrash, Names, Parshat HaShavuah, Poetry, Torah
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Believe it—And Not
Noah was lacking in belief, taught the 3rd century teacher, Rabbi Yohanan. If not for the water reaching his ankles, he would not have entered the ark. Lacking in belief? Noah, who fulfilled the twin tasks of building the great … Continue reading
Posted in Midrash, Parshat HaShavuah, Torah
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Steps, Blessed Be They
God is steps, declared Yehuda Amichai. Such an outright assertion about God was unusual for the great Israeli poet. He was fond of similes that invited listeners closer to the mystery without violating the distance that mystery needs. Among his … Continue reading
How Deep? How High?
How much do I love you? I’ll tell you no lie. How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky? Irving Berlin wrote the song, How Deep Is the Ocean? in 1932. It consists mainly of rhetorical questions that point … Continue reading
Forgetting Reminds Me…
The national election created in me a deep sense that I wanted to meet and speak with more of my neighbors. In my busy-ness, it’s easy to walk past the community of the every-day. That seems wrong to me now. … Continue reading
Posted in Names, Parshat HaShavuah, Torah
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The Binding Of God
To my mind’s eye, Rabbi Berechiah appeared stoop-shouldered and mournful on Rosh Hashanah as he listened to the Torah reader recite Genesis 22, The Binding of Isaac. Berechiah, a 4th century sage of the land of Israel, was pained by … Continue reading
The Deepening And Expanding Torah
After Mount Sinai, the Mishnah says, height was no longer the measure of Torah; depth and breadth became Torah’s new and useful dimensions: Moses received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua who transmitted it to the elders; from … Continue reading
Posted in Mishnah, Poetry, Torah
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Where The House Once Was
It’s hard to imagine Torah scholars having such a furious argument that they ripped a Torah scroll. But… It happened, did it not, in the synagogue of Tiberias over the issue of a doorstop that had a knob on the … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry, Talmud, Torah
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