Parashat Ha’azinu (Deuteronomy 32:1-52) By Leah Carnow | September 22, 2020 I am in a field in a small park in Wellesley, Massachusetts on a mild spring day. My partner and I are alone, seemingly the only people there on a weekday afternoon during a pandemic. I hesitate for a moment, and then, channeling Julie Andrews in the opening number of The Sound of Music, I run across the grass. I shout “ahhhhhhhhh,” as if I could fill the whole world with the… Read more
September 17, 2020
“One Thing I Ask of YHWH”: Humility & the Spiritual Search
September 17, 2020 By Hebrew College
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Rosh Hashanah By Rabbi Or N. Rose | Sep 17, 2020 It is customary to begin reciting Psalm 27 on the first day of Elul, one month before Rosh Hashanah, continuing through Sukkot (Feast of Booths). Like the sounding of the shofar (ram’s horn), this twice-daily practice—morning and night—is intended to help us reflect on our beliefs, questions, hopes, and fears as we prepare for a new year. When I revisit the psalm this year, I find myself drawn to verse… Read more
September 9, 2020
Taste and Know
September 9, 2020 By Hebrew College
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Parashat Nitzavim-Vayelech (Deuteronomy 29:9 – 31:30) By Rabbi Minna Bromberg A bougainvillea flower. The corner of his big sister’s latest artwork. A bit of cracker lost last week and now found. The foil wrapping from the top of a wine bottle. These are just some of the things that my suddenly-crawling-everywhere eight-month-old has managed to pick up from the floor and put in his mouth in the last few days. As terrifying and guilt-inducing as it can sometimes be… Read more
September 2, 2020
Butter, Wizards, and Hope
September 2, 2020 By Hebrew College
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Parashat Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8) By Joey Glick | Sep 02, 2020 A few weeks ago, I came across a song written in quarantine by my friend Adah Hetko: My world is my block my apartment’s my country my state is my bedroom my bed is my body My country’s full of frying butter of frying butter, my country’s full Hearing Adah’s song was a revelation. I have struggled to connect with much of the art and writing created in the COVID… Read more
August 26, 2020
Coming Down from the Rooftop
August 26, 2020 By Hebrew College
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Parashat Ki Tetzei (Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19) By Tyler Dratch | August 26, 2020 Much can change in only one year. When we read Parasha Ki Teitzei last year, I had just, days earlier, stood under the chuppah (wedding canopy) and married my wife. It was the happiest day of my life; it was a moment overflowing with possibility. That week, a hurricane had been projected to travel up the East Coast, and yet New England was experiencing the clearest, sunniest day of… Read more
August 20, 2020
Seeking Solace in the Face of Ambiguous Loss
August 20, 2020 By Hebrew College
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Parashat Shoftim (Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9) By Rachel Adelman | August 21, 2020 “I, Indeed I am the One Who Comforts You.” (Isaiah 51:12) It has been months since the onset of the global pandemic, and we are still reeling from the seismic consequences. The psychologist, Paula Boss, in an interview with Krista Tippett, has given us conceptual language to name what we are all going through: “ambiguous loss,” a term she coined to characterize mourning that has no closure. A person may experience ambiguous… Read more
August 12, 2020
Awash in Prophecy
August 12, 2020 By Hebrew College
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Parashat Re’eh (Deuteronomy 11:26 – 16:17) By Frankie Sandmel | Aug 15, 2020 Re’eh—perceive, see, consider—I set before you blessing and curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and the curse if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God Our parashah opens with a powerful entreaty from God—you have a choice: follow my ways and be blessed, stray from my ways and be… Read more
August 5, 2020
Leaving Egypt, Over and Over Again
August 5, 2020 By Hebrew College
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Parashat Eikev (Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25) By Rabbi Daniel Klein | Aug 7, 2020 The central drama of much of the Torah is the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt and forming a new way of life according to God. This week’s parashah, Eikev, highlights a question that has been a persistent fear throughout this saga: can we ever really leave Egypt? In an evocative passage in this week’s parashah, the Torah describes Egypt as a place where “you plant your seeds, and water them by your… Read more
July 29, 2020
Redefining Our Story Through Imagination
July 29, 2020 By Hebrew College
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Parashat Vaetchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11) By Yael Werber | July 30, 2020 This week’s parashah begins with the word, “va-etchanan,” meaning, “I pleaded,” and Moses’s plea to be allowed to enter the land of Israel. When Moses recounts that the answer is “no,” that instead it will be Joshua who will lead the Israelites forward, and that Moses’s job to instruct him, we can practically hear Moshe’s inner despair. This is the changing of the guard in real time; the heartbreaking realization that… Read more
July 21, 2020
The Persistence of Sinat Hinam (Baseless Hatred)
July 21, 2020 By Hebrew College
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Parashat Devarim (Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22) and Tisha B’Av By Rabbi Jim Morgan | July 25, 2020 Alas, she has become a harlot, The faithful city that was filled with justice, Where righteousness dwelt—but now murderers. (Isaiah 1:21; JPS) Every year, we read Parashat D’varim as we approach Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of our liturgical calendar and the one on which we are reminded that our Temple—the symbol of our unity and our access to God’s presence—was destroyed on account of our baseless hatred for… Read more
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