Parsha

SHORT ESSAY: My Father’s Torah on the Ger, the Immigrant (Parashat Mishpatim)

/ Mishpatim, מִּשְׁפָּטִים

My father spoke beautiful English with a heavy Polish/Yiddish/Russian/Israeli accent. He loved this country. He liked to say that this was the only country in the world where a poor immigrant-refugee like him could come and have his children educated in the highest institutions in the country. In 2007, almost exactly 10 years ago, he […]

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SHORT ESSAY: Our Enemies Are Our Angels (Parashat Vayishlach)

/ Vayishlach, וַיִּשְׁלַח

God takes different forms on this earth. When Avraham interacts with God’s messengers in the world, they are visitors, wandering strangers who are in need of hospitality. The face of God in the world for Avraham is the face of hospitality, of hesed, of people in need of help. For Yaakov, on the other hand, God’s

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SHORT ESSAY: On Places of Refuge (Parashat Va’etchanan)

/ Va'etchanan, וָאֶתְחַנַּן

Among many other remarkable parts of this week’s parsha (including the Shma and the second recounting of the Ten Commandments), the Torah reports that Moshe took the time to designate three Cities of Refuge on the eastern side of the Jordan. Moshe has just told the people that he begged to go into the land

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SHORT ESSAY: Hevruta: Where We can Still Hear God’s Voice (Parashat Terumah)

/ Terumah, תְּרוּמָה

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

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SHORT ESSAY: God is All Around Us (Parashat Beshalach)

/ Beshalach, בְּשַׁלַּח

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

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SHORT ESSAY: Are We Like Pharaoh? (Parashat Va’era)

/ Va'era, וָאֵרָא

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

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SHORT ESSAY: On Parenting and the Mother Bird (Parashat Ki Tetze)

/ Ki Teitzei, כִּי-תֵצֵא

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

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SHORT ESSAY: Aligning with the Divine (Parashat Vayishlach)

/ Vayishlach, וַיִּשְׁלַח

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

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SHORT ESSAY: The Blue that Binds Us (Parashat Mishpatim)

/ Mishpatim, מִּשְׁפָּטִים

“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

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SHORT ESSAY: God Dwells where We Turn Towards Each Other (Parashat Terumah)

/ Terumah, תְּרוּמָה

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

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