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 »
The kind of unity they were engaged in was a unity of sameness. The kind that we strive for is a unity built out of love. (Click image to read more)
SHORT ESSAY: On Unity and Love (Parashat Noah) Read More »
Imagine the high the Israelites felt at the Red Sea – a joy born of overwhelming relief and a clarity of gratitude and faith in life, in God, in all that is good — such joy, washing over them like the waters of the Sea, rising up in them as waves of jubilant song. But
SHORT ESSAY: In the Aftermath of Song (Parashat Beshalach) Read More »