Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

But Abram said, "O Lord God, what can You give me, seeing that I shall die childless... Since You have granted me no offspring, my steward will be my heir." (Genesis 15:2-3)   Read more...

Here's the thing about transitions: Most of the time you don't know you are about to go through it until it has already happened. I teach a course for first year rabbinical students - it is a History of Jewish Philosophy - and one of the first things I tell them is that nobody ever knows the name of the period of time they are actually living through until someone decides that that period is over. The one thing they did not have in the biblical period was a Bible. Read more...

Dear Friends,  In just a few days we'll all stand together on Yom Kippur, physically distant from one another, but powerfully connected by the shared openness in our hearts - to deeply loving, intentionally living, and thoughtfully forgiving. Kol Yisra'el Aravin Zeh La-Zeh. All Jews - that were, that are, that will be - are inextricably bound together in service of God, Torah, and Israel. We feel much gratitude for being able to share in this journey together with you, imagining a present and future that is worthy of our rich past.  Read more...

"You stand this day all of you, (KOL), before the Lord your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Yisra'el" (Dvarim/Deuteronomy 29,9).   My irreverent mind engages my reverent mind when asking "Every word in the Torah has meaning so what does "all of you" ( KOL) mean?" How else does one show up? In pieces? At different times of the day? Read more...

It is a rabbinic dictum not to attempt to weigh the value of one mitzvah against the other. Rather than saying that this mitzvah is more important than another, we are to recognize that all mitzvot are grounded in our brit (covenant) with the Holy One and derive their authority out of our chosen response to God’s will. Read more...