Parashat Ki Tetze is one of my favorites–not because of the litany of seemingly unrelated, and in some cases, harsh laws, but because it contains the first topic I studied in my “Intro to Mishnah” class in rabbinical school. Through that, I learned about...
Re-eh, anokhi notayn lifnaykhem hayom b’rakha u-k’lalah “Re-eh, I am placing before you today blessing and curse” This week’s Torah portion is all about vision; the open word, re-eh, can mean “See!” or “Look!” Some commentators translate it as “Behold!” or “Pay...
I love studying Talmud, and one of the reasons is because it allows me to get into the hearts, lives and minds of our rabbinic sages, the people who struggled to make our sacred texts accessible, and who created the Judaism we know today. The destruction of Jerusalem...
In “To Life, L’Chaim” from “Fiddler On The Roof,” the villagers of Anatevka sing, “God would like us to be joyful even when our hearts lie panting on the floor.” And as we head into Shabbat and Tisha B’Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, these lyrics certainly...
Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, is a day of national and collective mourning for the Jewish people. On this date in 586 BCE and again in 70CE, Jerusalem, and her Holy Temples, were destroyed and the people exiled; first to Babylonia and then...
A record (remember those?) I used to listen to was called “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish” by Bob Booker and George Foster. At about the 12-minute mark is a sketch called, “The Presidents.” LBJ welcomes “the President of Israel” who acknowledges that Johnson is president...
Recent Comments