Image as Portal to God

Last updated on: February 7, 2023 at 1:44 pm By Hebrew College

By Rabbi Adina Allen Parashat Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23) This week, in Parashat Yitro, at the foot of a shaking, quaking, smoking Mount Sinai, the Israelites receive the word of God and are given the Ten Commandments—the foundational ethical and religious code for how to live as a people in service to God. The first two commandments are set up to enforce monotheism as the religious system, declaring that God is the only god. Then, before the prohibition against coveting or adultery or... Read more

Leading with Love

Last updated on: February 1, 2023 at 10:37 pm By Hebrew College

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By Heather Renetzky Parashat Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16) When I first learned the meaning of the words to the popular children’s song “Ring Around the Rosie,” I was horrified. I knew it as a fun little song, sung by happy kids skipping in a circle. Then, I read that the words—“Ring-around-the-rosie/A pocket-full of posies/Ashes, ashes/We all fall down”—are about the bubonic plague. The happy tune belied its deeper and darker meaning. Shirat HaYam, the Song of the Sea, is similarly complex. In... Read more

Other People’s Old People, and Other People’s Kids

Last updated on: January 23, 2023 at 11:46 am By Hebrew College

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By Rav Hazzan Ken Richmond Parashat Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16) Years ago, I brought a teen klezmer band on tour to Eastern Europe. Our eighteen-person entourage included a dozen musicians, several parent chaperones, a grandmother returning to her hometown for the first time since the war, and a small film crew. We divided into pairs for rooming, with the occasional need to switch to three per room. On the evening when we were first preparing to switch to our groups-of-three formation, one of the... Read more

Hello, Pharaoh, My Old Friend

Last updated on: January 17, 2023 at 3:27 pm By Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Yael Werber Parashat Va’era (Exodus 6:2-9:35) Last night, I put a record on while I cooked dinner. Wednesday at 3AM by Simon and Garfunkel, their debut album, featuring “The Sounds of Silence,” an acoustic version. The album was recorded and released in 1964 and was initially a flop. Both Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were in their early twenties at the time, and after this failed release, went their separate ways until a remixed version featuring additional tracks with overdubbed electric... Read more

The Borrowed Son

Last updated on: January 10, 2023 at 6:00 pm By Hebrew College

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By Naomi Gurt Lind Parashat Shmot (Exodus 1:1-6:1) PROLOGUE I was sitting in a women’s Torah study years ago with my then-toddler son on my lap when I first saw it. We were studying Parashat Shmot, Chapter 2 to be precise, and suddenly it was clear as crystal, even through my tears. I clutched my boy tighter and said, “Moshe’s mother gave him up twice.” I had been told, of course, that our children are always separating from us, that childbirth is only... Read more

Fierce Legacy Work

Last updated on: January 3, 2023 at 4:25 pm By Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Mónica Gomery Parashat Vayechi (Genesis 47:28-50:26) This dvar Torah is written in loving memory of Tristen Sloane, z’’l. The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life. A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Advice for Living Life and Facing Death. Advice for Future Corpses (And Those Who Love Them): A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying. These are a handful of titles, among dozens, of books within the field of end-of-life care and... Read more

Facing God and Ourselves

Last updated on: December 27, 2022 at 11:37 pm By Hebrew College

By Rabbi David Maayan Parashat Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27) Parashat Vayigash takes its name from Yehudah’s act of “drawing close” to Yosef in order to pour out the remarkable speech that finally causes Yosef to reveal his identity. Yehudah recounts the series of events that have transpired since he and his brothers came to Egypt seeking food during the famine, particularly the demand that the Egyptian official (whom we know to be Yosef) made upon them to bring their younger brother Binyamin along... Read more

Divine Light and Human Hands: A Mystical Teaching on Hanukkah

Last updated on: December 19, 2022 at 1:22 pm By Hebrew College

By Rabbi Or Rose This post is an updated version of the author’s 2010 essay by the same title published in the Huffington Post. “Blessed are You, YHWH our God, who performed miracles for our ancestors in days past, at this time.” What does it mean to light the Hanukkah candles? One response that I have found intriguing over the years comes from the early Hasidic master, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev (d. 1809). The Berditchever (as he is affectionately... Read more

Dangerous Gifts—the Origin of Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Last updated on: December 12, 2022 at 4:15 pm By Hebrew College

By Rav Rachel Adelman Parashat Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him an ornamented tunic [ketonet passim] (Genesis 37:3 NJPS; alt. “a coat of many colors” KJV; “a long robe with sleeves” NRSV). The following poem is a modern midrash about Jacob’s gift of the “ornamented tunic,” aka the “amazing technicolor dreamcoat” [ketonet passim] to Joseph, his favorite son. Inspired by passages from the midrash Pirqei... Read more

The Burden of Miracles

Last updated on: December 8, 2022 at 10:15 am By Hebrew College

By Rabbi Avi Killip Parashat Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43) Have you ever wished for a miracle? Was the miracle granted? Did you expect it to be granted? In Taanit 20b we learn from Rabbi Yannai: “A person should never stand in a place of danger and say: ‘A miracle will be performed for me!’” We can never be certain that God will show up to intervene and offer us protection in our moment of need. This is not how God interacts with our modern world.... Read more