This week’s parsha (Torah portion) was made for all the musicians in the audience. In it we find Miriam striking up the band as we sing the song of freedom after crossing through the Yam Soof (Sea of Reeds). However, I am getting a little ahead of myself. First, we’ve got to get there, and then we can sing, and then continue on our merry (?) journey to a date with the divine itself. Our parsha starts out by reminding … Continue reading
Shabbat is a funny thing. There is a great book by Abraham Joshua Heschel that does a great job of explaining shabbat. However, it talks about shabbat in an intellectual way, an abstract way. It does not talk about what shabbat feels like, or how I know I am in shabbat. The reason that this is important is because, without knowing, or grokking for those who know the term (it means knowing something in your bones, in your kishkas), what … Continue reading
Hello folks and welcome to the latest installment of ideas I have had or heard regarding the weekly torah portion… This week’s parsha (portion) jumps 38 years as we go into the last year of being in the wilderness. However, before we get there, we read about how the ashes of a red cow can make a not pure person pure while making a pure person not pure. Right after the details on how this process works, we read about … Continue reading
[Editor’s note: I originally wrote this in 2004, for an email list regarding the weekly Torah portion. I deliberately put it out after shabbat because, the energy of the parsha does not end with shabbat – it only starts to wane with the ending of shabbat. Think of the shabbat as the full moon for the parsha. It builds starting Wednesday until shabbat where it is at maximum strength. Then, after shabbat, the energy of the parsha wanes as the … Continue reading
This week’s parsha (weekly torah portion) is yet another double parsha, and it is a strange one. Nevertheless, it is one I like because it also gives us some hope and gives us some answers; it is a parsha for everybody. The beginning of the parsha is what I would show to anyone who thinks that the Torah is not pro-environment, for it talks about resting the land and it talks about human rights and welfare. For the people concerned … Continue reading
A number of years ago, a Jewish co-worker and I wanted to share a part of our tradition with our co-workers. Hanukah was approaching and we wanted to make latkes, or potato pancakes, for everyone at lunch time. For some reason, we went to the human resources people to get their ok. They told us that we could not do it because it is against the law to bring religion into the workplace. At the time we were bummed out … Continue reading
Last week I did not write anything on the parsha (weekly Torah portion) because the parsha was a special one for Pesach (Passover). Perhaps I should have written about Pesach instead, for that is what the parsha was about. I was very busy cleaning my house of chometz (leavening), and myself of ego. This is one of the traditions I learned while I was in Israel: chometz is created by yeast eating the sugar in the grains and producing CO2, … Continue reading
My friend Eliezer just got into town. He is just here through shabbat, a couple of days. I know him from my days in Jerusalem. And just as you do when a friend that you haven’t seen for a couple of years visits, you spend the first day catching up and the conversation goes all over the place. One of the places where our conversation went was shabbat guests. I have invited a few friends over and he asked me … Continue reading
Hi y’all, Today is the first day of the first month of the year. Yeah, I know Rosh haShanah (the Jewish new year – literally: head of the year) is the new year, but I am just telling you what it said in one of the two parshas (weekly Torah portions) that we read this week. For those who don’t know, the Jewish calender is lunar based and needs to add an extra month every other year or so to … Continue reading
This week’s parsha (Torah portion) is a very full parsha. It starts with the taking of a census and how to avoid a plague while doing it. Then it tells how important it is for Aharon and his sons to wash before serving in the tent of meeting, in order to keep from dying. Next we are told of the anointing oil and the incense, and then we read who the main builders of the mishcan (tabernacle) will be. Next … Continue reading