This week we read parashat Va-era, where God begins to send plagues to Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. The first plague is dam, blood, and when that’s over, the same river brings forth tz’fardei’a, frogs. To the Egyptians, the frog was...
It could be said that our patriarch, Jacob, was the first person to create an ethical will, essentially, a spiritual bequest to his heirs. In this week’s Torah reading, Vayechi, which means, “and he–meaning Jacob–lived,” Jacob gathers his children together to bless...
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...
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