Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

Lag B’Omer has a special meaning this year. Lag B’Omer is the thirty third day of the Omer, that period of seven full weeks from the second night of Passover to Shavuot, literally the festival of weeks, the Bikurim Festival, when the first fruits were brought to the Temple in Jerusalem and the festival on which Jews commemorate the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. Read more...

Quick quiz: Who was the first Jew? Be honest – was the name that popped into your head “Abraham”? Read more...

I was only five years old when the State of Israel was established in 1948.  I was too young to recall any memories of that profound event in the Jewish people’s history—a centuries-old dream that had been realized at last. Despite my youth, the significance of this monumental event was never lost on me.  Growing up in the 1950s, my parents were deeply connected to Zionism. Read more...

No sooner have we finished Passover and Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, is upon us.  The juxtaposition is startling. Passover celebrates liberation, the passage from slavery onto freedom, from Egypt to the Promised Land.  And the Holocaust is the anti-Exodus, the passage from freedom – albeit not without discrimination and difficulty – to slavery and soon thereafter, to annihilation. Read more...

Today we celebrate the holiday of Purim. A time of prizes, noisemakers, costumes and treats, Purim invites us to celebrate the absurd and laugh at ourselves. As we read the story from the Purim Megillah (scroll), we drown out the name of Haman, the evil man of Sushan who sought to destroy the Jewish people. Dressing in costume, eating the three cornered hamentaschen cookies, making noise, and celebrating beyond comprehension all draw our attention to the fun and frivolity of the day. And, of all of our holidays, it is about Read more...