In this week’s parsha, we read about the mishkan, the building of a dwelling place for God on this earth. And we feel a twinge of envy – they had access to God; God dwelled in their midst; we are left alone to wander the world, searching for His Presence. But certain features of the mishkan give me […]
SHORT ESSAY: Hevruta: Where We can Still Hear God’s Voice (Parashat Terumah) Read More »
God is all around us. To our right, to our left, behind, before and above. In this week’s parsha, God stations Himself, in the form of a pillar of cloud/fire, before us to lead us, and then behind us, to protect us. Then, as we walk through the split waters of the Red Sea, the
SHORT ESSAY: God is All Around Us (Parashat Beshalach) Read More »
In what ways are we like Pharaoh? There is some truth out there that keeps knocking at our door – plague after plague, sign after sign– and we stubbornly refuse to hear it. And this stubbornness, this refusal to change, to shift our views and actions based on experience, this refusal to “let them go,” to
SHORT ESSAY: Are We Like Pharaoh? (Parashat Va’era) Read More »
The Torah commands us, if we wish to take for ourselves some eggs or young chicks, to first send away the mother bird. In this command to send away the mother bird, what the Torah is acknowledging is the deep pain a parent experiences in witnessing the suffering of her children. The pain the children
SHORT ESSAY: On Parenting and the Mother Bird (Parashat Ki Tetze) Read More »
I noticed the other day, as I was making a personal petition to God, that what I was praying for was that God should help me accomplish my goals. Suddenly such prayer seemed very wrong, almost idolatrous, as if instead of worshipping God, I was worshipping my own ambitions/desires, and subordinating God, too, to this
SHORT ESSAY: Aligning with the Divine (Parashat Vayishlach) Read More »
“Under His feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity” (24:10). This description of a vision of God appears in this week’s parsha, alongside its many laws. “A pavement of sapphire” in Hebrew reads, livnat hasapir. Rashi, quoting the midrash, says that this levaynah, “pavement” or “brick,” was at
SHORT ESSAY: The Blue that Binds Us (Parashat Mishpatim) Read More »
This week’s parsha details the creation of a mishkan, a holy space for God to dwell on this earth. Ve’asu li mikdash veshahanti betokham. They should make for Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst. How can we draw down God’s Presence to this earth? In the Mishkan God’s voice would come from between
SHORT ESSAY: God Dwells where We Turn Towards Each Other (Parashat Terumah) Read More »
What is the difference between being “heavy (or hard) of heart,” kevad lev, as Pharaoh is, and being “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue,” kevad peh vekevad lashon, as Moshe is? Both heavy, one in a harmful way, one in a successful way – what’s the difference? My son Medad says that the heart has to
SHORT ESSAY: Different Kinds of heaviness (Parashat Bo) Read More »
The two parshiyyot in the book of Breishit whose topic is death are both called by names that indicate life: Hayei Sarah, in which Sarah, Avraham and Ishmael die, and this week’s parsha, Vayehi, in which Yaakov dies. At the very moment that we acknowledge that these ancestors died, we also proclaim something about their lives, something
SHORT ESSAY: Gifts From Our Parents (Parashat Vayechi) Read More »
Et Ahai Anokhi Mevakesh. “It is my brothers that I am seeking,” says Yosef to the mysterious “man” who helps him along his way when he is sent out by his father to check on his brothers. This statement seems a deep truth about the Yosef story as a whole. The seeking of brotherhood drives
SHORT ESSAY: On Seeking Brotherhood (Parashat Vayeshev) Read More »