Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

We live in an age awash in nostalgia for the good old days that never were. In speeches, movies, paintings, and stories, we invent a time in which there was no crime, no violence, in which men were chivalrous and women were modest. In that fantasy world, father knew best and mother was the happy homemaker. Children, of course, were seen but not heard. Read more...

We live in an age of radical autonomy.  Each individual zealously guards his or her own independence from everybody else.  We resent when someone presumes to tell us what is right or wrong, seeks to impose external limitations to our discretion or our behavior.  In the words of a popular song, we assert, "It's my prerogative!"   Read more...

This week, I traveled to Tucson, not knowing anyone other than the woman who had scheduled my speaking engagement.  As I walked into the synagogue, I began meeting the members of the congregation, and immediately the connections were made.  One couple was the parents of a rabbinic colleague.  Another man knew a family whom my family had known during my childhood in San Antonio, Texas. Read more...

You can imagine the fear of the former slaves as they fled toward the wilderness, toward the desert of Sinai.  Risking what little they had in Egypt, facing a precarious and dangerous future, these brave men, women, and children were driven by desperation, by a faith in God, and by a passionate rejection of human domination.  Determined to meet their destiny with dignity, they packed their belongings and proceeded to flee from Egypt. Read more...

Each of us is a greater theologian than we can possibly know.  In the ways we treat each other, in the ways parents raise children, in the way that lovers protect their beloved, we transmit profound and intangible lessons about the reality of the world.  Take, for example, the baby who wakes up screaming.  The parent who gets up in the dark to cradle the child teaches—without words—that when we cry out, there will be someone to cradle us.  Most children have the luxury of parents and relatives who can offer them comfort.  But who is there to comfort the adults?&nbsp Read more...