Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

My students rushed to write these words down as I uttered them, and I knew they had been touched with a moment that they will hold on to. For too many years and lifetimes we turn to our heritage, our tradition, our Teachers and Sages to supply us with Answers. Some Answers to ease a philosophical, spiritual or existential crises; some so that we know how to prepare our homes for Shabbat; some because we seek to belong, and perhaps looking back and being reminded where we come from may help us, even for a bit, to contextualize the present, suggesting a refuge. Read more...

All of five feet tall in his stiff new suit and shiny shoes, he can barely be seen over the bima. In a cracking adolescent voice, he announces, “Today I am Bar Mitzvah. Today I am a man!” Yes, you are. But what do you know about being a man? A Jewish man? What can we tell you?  Read more...

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This week we begin the fourth book of the Torah, Sefer Bamidbar. We turn away from Priestly responsibilities centered in the tabernacle, and return our focus to the narrative of the Children of Israel wandering in the desert, in Hebrew “Bamidbar.” There is a passage in this Parshah that always grabs my attention, “And these are the offspring of Aaron and Moses on the day that God spoke with Moses on Mt. Sinai. These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the firstborn was Nadav, and Avihua, Elazar and Ithamar. These were the names of the sons of Aaron…” (Num. Read more...

I hope that it is no spoiler by now to write here publicly that the first act of the smash musical “Hamilton” does not end where one might expect it to. The song “Yorktown” describes how (at no small cost) the revolutionaries of the American colonies win their war of independence, the British are defeated, the world is “turned upside down.” Why not drop the curtain right there? Read more...