Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

For twenty-fours this past Sunday and Monday, I had the privilege to help staff (as the faculty advisor for the Ziegler School), at the annual "InterSem" retreat, a program in which students training for the rabbinate and cantorate, ministry, priesthood, and other forms of religious leadership at schools around the greater Los Angeles area gather for inter-religious dialogue and relationship building. As part of our time together, each of the three broad faith traditions (Judaism, Catholicism, Protestant, and Christianity) holds a worship service, attended by all participants. Read more...

"In my middle" is Fynn’s answer to himself, when he asks "Where is Anna?" (p.180) after she crosses-over (my preferred term for ‘death’). Fynn learned this from Anna, for whom he was a guardian, when she asked, where is the place where she and "Mr. God" meet? "Mr. God goes through my middle and I go through Mr. God’s middle" (p.50), the seven year old theologian explained [Mr. God, this is Anna / Fynn]. It is ‘in the middle’ that our parashah also seemingly begins. Sometimes, as I have found many times in life, the beginning is in somewhere "in the middle." Read more...

As a people, we pride ourselves on education and place great value in continuing to grow and learn throughout all the stages of our lives. We take delight in the number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners and there are endless jokes about our children becoming doctors, lawyers, and accountants. Read more...

This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Mishpatim, marks a shift from readings characterized by rich and compelling stories, to a section entirely composed of concrete rules and regulations. Among the fifty plus laws we shall read this week, is a deceptively simple commandment that insists, “When you see the donkey of someone you hate crouching under its burden, would you refrain from helping him? – You will surely help him,” (Exodus 23:15). Read more...

One common way in which Jews think about the differences between Judaism and Christianity is that Christianity requires one to affirm beliefs while Judaism requires us to act in specific ways. Both of these are, of course, exaggerations, for Evangelical Christians, for example, know that when they think about how to act, they are supposed to ask WWJD – What would Jesus do? Furthermore, based on sayings of Jesus, Christians commonly presume that they are bound by the Torah’s commandments included in the Decalogue and in the commandments to love God and love your neighbor. Read more...