The yearly Torah-reading cycle is a beautiful thing. Every week, when I look at the parashah for the upcoming Shabbat, I see something I hadn’t noticed before. I also the same words year-after-year, but find different understandings of them, depending on what’s going...
This Shabbat we read parashat Behar, “on the mountain,” and from that mountain–Sinai–God gave Moses the commandments regarding Shmita and Yovel, the sabbatical and jubilee years, where the land was to lie fallow, not being planted or harvested. But wait, weren’t all...
birthday cake with 5-0 candles from zen imagery on Flickr, 7 candle from a package Behar-Bekhukotai: Seven and Fifty by Chaplain Barry E. Pitegoff, BCC Rabbi Elkodsi frames this book as “But Who’s Counting?” My professor of Gerontology taught that counting...
What does it mean to be kadosh, “holy,” or “sanctified”? I always used to think it meant “elevated,” or somehow, “better than” something or someone else. Dictionary.com would certainly have you believe that, but the Hebrew word, kadosh, means “to be set apart.” A...
Recent Comments