Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

This has been a difficult year to root for rabbis.  One rabbi in Israel made national news when accused by several women of sexual harassment and inappropriate exploitation of his position as counselor and teacher.  Another rabbi was filmed on national TV in what seemed like a highly inappropriate encounter.  A yeshivahteacher of many years has been accused by several (now) men of past abuse. Yet another rabbi was charged with inappropriate sexual and financial dealings.  Read more...

Living in North America today means, for the vast preponderance of Jews, not living in a ghetto. Each and every day, we mingle with a dazzling array of non-Jews from every corner of the globe. By choice, we live in the world as a part of the world. Most of us want our children to be exposed to a range of human cultures, to learn to treasure the beauty in the vast literatures and faith traditions of all humankind. Read more...

Ten years ago, when my children were now almost three years old, they had reached a stage in life in which they liked to be helpful to their mother and to me when we were busy with household chores. As we prepared a meal, they liked to help rip up the lettuce, or open a package, or mix the food in a bowl. As much as I appreciated their helpfulness, there was also a drawback to their voluntarism: they often didn’t finish the job they had begun. Read more...

This week on the Jewish calendar, we mark Tisha B’Av, (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av), a day of national mourning.  Commemorating the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and the scattering of our early ancestors into exile, Tisha B’Av has become the saddest day of the Jewish year.  Throughout the ages, Tisha B’av has also become a sponge, absorbing millennia of Jewish suffering and calamities.  Read more...

With more than seventy laws detailed (72 according to Maimonides; 74 by other counts), this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tetze, contains more laws than almost any other single portion of the Torah.  At first glance, the various laws read as a miscellany list of unconnected themes: marriage/divorce, personal property, employee-employer relations.  Read more...