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Miketz: Preparing For Life’s Journey
In Parashat Miketz, we encounter Joseph as a person growing in wisdom. For the third time in his life, he is moved to interpret a pair of dreams.
Naso, The Blessings of Living and Giving: Y’varechecha as a Guide
Naso, The Blessings of Living and Giving: Y’varechecha as a Guide Cantor Deborah Katchko Gray Hearing my father, Cantor Theodore Katchko of blessed memory, sing the Y'varechecha, the Priestly Blessing at the end of every Friday evening service, began my love affair...
The Final Chapter: What Moses can Teach Us about End of Life
Viewing myself at 70 however–a chaplain and researcher of isolation among older adults–I have become less enamored about the idea of dying alone. Thus, I support the initiative No One Dies Alone (NODA) that provides companionship to those bereft of family and friends. Yet, while administering pastoral care for the lonely, I am made shockingly aware that the Torah prescribes a solitary death for Moses, our Leader and greatest Teacher.
Ha’Azinu: Poetry, Prose and Passing Time
Governor Mario Cuomo of New York once quipped that “we campaign in poetry but govern in prose.” However, for Moses, that adage worked in reverse. How so? When he campaigned with God to allow him to cross over the Jordan with B’nai Israel, he resorted to straight-forward prose:“I pleaded with the Lord at that time saying ‘Oh Lord God, You who have let Your servant see the first works of Your greatness and Your mighty hand…
Ekev: Standing on their Shoulders
Ekev, the third reading in the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), is a continuation of Moses’ farewell address to the Israelite nation poised to enter the Promised Land. Over the course of this final book of the Torah, Moses recounts the people’s journey from Egypt until now; 40 years later.
VaEtchanan: Rav Lach, It Is Enough For You
“rav lach—it is enough for you.” These words encourage me to strive to make my days count and to treasure relationships and experiences and to have the wisdom to accept limitations and disappointments. They encourage me to balance the knowledge I do not have infinite time with gratitude for the time that I have.
Massei: The Journals of the Journeys
In 1960 I spent the summer at Camp Ramah in Canada. Advertised as a Hebrew-speaking camp, it was my first summer away from home. I decided to document my 8-week summer by keeping a diary which I still have to this day. Looking back, I am amazed at the amount of detail each day contained.
Parashat Beha’alotekha: Lessons from the Elders
Often, being older means having to strive to look and act younger; despite the inevitability of the aging process, we continue to be measured by our productivity. “He’s so active for his age!” “At her age she still looks great!” As I reflected on my own aging process, I wondered about this emphasis on productivity and accomplishment.
Shelach Lecha: Scouting Out Our Futures
Parashat Shelach Lecha begins at a moment of transition. The people have come to the edge of Canaan, the Promised Land. God tells Moses to send 12 leaders, “heads of the people of Israel,” “to scout out the land,”
Behar-Bekhukotai: Seven and Fifty
Behar and Bechukotai, often combined into a single reading, focuses on two big numbers: seven and 50. Seven is for the Sabbath, a reminder that the weekly cycle ends with a pause–a recharge–and then while the counting starts again, the opportunity to grow and retreat doesn’t reset; we have the opportunity to continue enriching it.
Ki Tissa: Aging and Reconciliation
So begins the first fundamental crisis in the Covenant between the people of Israel and God. This wasn’t like Abraham and Isaac; horrifying as that was, it was a family crisis. This one involved and affected what was now suddenly the nation of Israel, as it just began to come into existence.
Re’eh: See the Blessing
And what are we supposed to see? “I (Moses? God?) set before you today a blessing and a curse.” How are we supposed to see this? Is it related in any way to how we are supposed to hear, Sh’ma Yisrael, that God is One?
To see something with our own eyes is to perceive it. To hear something with our own ears is to understand it.
Yitro: Ink Blots On The Paper Of Life
Only Yitro was able to turn the crumpled blots of Moshe’s soul that age and experience had brought him. But that same aging had given Yitro the wisdom to find the key that made those depths available to Moshe.
Beshallach: A Journey Through The Sea And Life
Faith, emunah, the knowledge within ourselves that yes, we can return to a stable surface, enables us to survive the depths and still flourish.
Shemot: And God Said, “Hineni”
I believe in miracles, and I believe in God, but the accepted translations and interpretations of common scenes in the Torah had made it uncomfortable, if not impossible–for me, as a Jewish woman, to find much meaning from Torah in my life.
Latest Sermons
Mindfulness-Erev Rosh Hashanah 5784
A few months ago, a couple of my colleagues mentioned using an app called Ten Percent Happier, by former ABC news anchor Dan Harris, for meditation and mindfulness. No, he’s not paying me to talk about the app, or the benefits of meditation, and even though one of his...
Eikev: Mindfully Eating Our Fill
Photo credit: Rabbi Susan Elkodsi, 2021 One of my first classes in rabbinical school at AJR was “Contemplative Practice” with Rabbi Jill Hammer. One of the assignments had to do with “mindful eating,” where you take a small food item–perhaps a grape or raisin– look at...
Yom Kippur: Hope, Despair And A Shining Sun
Yom Kippur 5783 Like many of the quotes and poems that make their way into use, a poem attributed to an anonymous person in a concentration camp, or in hiding, became somewhat of an urban legend, and has often been taken out of context, as well as not accurately...
Latest Midrash HaZak
Pinchas: Women’s Wisdom and the Ripple Effect, Muriel Dance
Photo Credit: Sergiu Bacioiu from Romania, Wikimedia.org Pinchas: Women's Wisdom and the Ripple Effect by Muriel Dance Parshat Pinchas has been like a stone thrown into the pond of my being; it has rippled out over the decades: from the Rosh Hodesh portion that...
Balak: What The Donkey Sees And Says, Trisha Arlin
Photo Credit: flickr.com/photos/aguichard Balak, What the Donkey Sees and Says ©️2023 Trisha Arlin A man Named Bilam, A people-pleaser, and A freelance speaker of Curses and blessings, Had a donkey That he rode To his professional engagements. One day Bilam was...
Shofetim: Renewing and Focusing on Life
Photo Credit: flickr.com/photos/adamhinett Each morning at the start of the Shacharit prayers there is a passage in which we praise God for having “fashioned man in his wisdom” and “creating within him life-sustaining organs… If but one of these were to function...
Latest Personal Blogs
Ending Hanukkah, A Ritual
Photo Credit: Dr. Len Radin on Flickr The idea for this ritual came about when a comment was made that when a lit candle is used to light other candles, that first candle’s flame doesn’t diminish; rather each flame becomes whole unto itself. When we kindle lights, we...
Sukkah and the Olympics, How Does The Wind Blow?
For many people, reading Talmud is like Joan Rivers’ z”l comment about how calculus might have prepared her to be a housewife; “so I can calculate the size of the living room? It’s six inches shorter than the vacuum cleaner cord!” More than one person has questioned...