Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

A good deal of debate goes into the nature of the truth of Torah. Is the Torah’s truth to be found on the level of chronology ­ is it true the way a reliable history book is true? Or is the Torah’s truth to be found on the level of information is it true the way a comprehensive science textbook is true? Or, perhaps, there is a third way, on the level of meaning and purpose, that the truth of Torah is to be found? As we begin this year’s cycle of Torah readings, perhaps it is fitting to return to beginnings, to re-examine the import of what the Torah seeks to convey.   Read more...

Sukkot is a festival of striking beauty and contrasts. For one week each year, we abandon the stolid permanence of our homes and live, instead, in the fragile, temporary structure of sukkot (booths). These booths remind us that we do not truly own our possessions. Things that we hoard and accumulate we will one day pass on to others. They can be lost, or broken, or stolen. The only true possessions we own are deeds of care and service, mitzvot. In that light, this Festival presents an ideal opportunity to reflect on the life of service embodied by the Festival and offered through Torah. Read more...

Last Thanksgiving, my nephew celebrated his Bar Mitzvah.  The morning after, I sat in the hotel suite with my sister doing a quick post mortem, reliving each moment and marveling at just how quickly the weekend had passed.  After months of planning – well, agonizing, over who was coming, what the service would look like, where to have Thanksgiving dinner, what hotel we should all stay in, where to have Shabbat dinner, how to manage serving kiddush lunch in the same room as the service when it would be filled more than to capacity, and all the other details - in a quick flash, it w Read more...

Tzibbur:  Building Community  I want us to think together about what it means to build community, and about how one's personal identity is tied up with being part of that community. The two poles between which human identity swings are that of solitude, of being by one's self, and that of refreshing that sense of self by coming together with other people. Read more...

At the very core of what the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah (the ten days of repentance, between Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur) and Shabbat Shuvah is all about is the notion of teshuvah, which in Hebrew, translates more or less to “repentance.”  Indeed, the actual root of the word “שוּב”means to turn or to return.  Let’s return to a few different aspects of teshuvah, of what it means to turn. Read more...