Hanukkah ends at sunset, but unlike the endings of Shabbat and festivals–when Havdalah marks the separation between the holy and the mundane–there’s no ritual to mark this ending, and I’d like to propose one. A chanukiah that uses candles has room for nine...
In this week’s Torah reading–Mikketz–Joseph is finally released from prison and brought to Pharaoh to interpret two dreams which none of Egypt’s magicians had been able to do. As I was reading the text this week, I realized that Pharaoh’s dreams were repeated;...
In honor of my bat mitzvah anniversary, and in memory of Stan Lee. When I began learning and studying Torah and other sacred Jewish texts as an adult, I had some trouble realizing and coming to terms with the fact that our biblical heroes were flawed, human...
This week we read the third portion in the book of Bereshit, Genesis, Lech L’cha, from the first sentence. Lech L’cha means, “go, go forth, go for–or to–yourself.” As Freud is famous for saying, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” and while from a...
The story of the Tower of Babel takes up just 10 verses in this week’s Torah reading, sandwiched in between two long genealogical lists; the descendants of Noah preceding, and those of Shem following. If your eyes glaze over when you read these lists, you’re not...
When I was young, “doing tashlich” meant walking down to the little brook in our front yard and throwing in bread crumbs. Whether or not that water was actually moving was unclear, but we performed the mitzvah the way we knew how. Over the years, I’ve “cast my wrongs...
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