By Bread Alone

Last updated on: February 16, 2021 at 1:56 pm By Hebrew College

Terumah: Exodus 25:1–27:19 Rabbi Micha’el Rosenberg | February 16, 2021 When my spouse and I got married, we received many useful gifts: dishes and a food processor and an extremely well-designed picnic backpack. We also received, from a relative who is hopefully not reading this, a lovely, but very heavy and exceedingly impractical sculpture of a bowl of fruit. Not a porcelain bowl filled with actual fruit, mind you, but porcelain fruit permanently affixed to a bowl made out of the... Read more

Rules Made to be Broken

Last updated on: February 10, 2021 at 12:14 pm By Hebrew College

Parashat Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18) By Frankie Sandmel | February 9, 2021 There’s a moment in Fiddler on the Roof where a villager says, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” And Tevya responds, “Very good, that way the whole world will be blind and toothless.” The villager is quoting from this week’s parasha, Mishpatim, which is almost entirely full of laws. (Tevya might be quoting Ghandi, but we’ll leave that aside for now.) In these chapters, we... Read more

Thunder and Silence

Last updated on: February 4, 2021 at 5:06 pm By Hebrew College

Parashat Yitro (Exodus 18:1 – 20:23) By Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer | February 3, 2021 An excerpt from Thunder + Silence, a melodic midrashic performance piece imagining the divine voice at Sinai. This section is based on Midrash Rabbah 5:9. בשעה שנתן הקב’ה את התורה It was the hour of revelation on Mount Sinai. We were all there. We stood trembling as the mountain shook, as thunder ripped through the core of the earth. And we heard a voice. THE VOICE. It Called to... Read more

At The Entryway to New Beginnings: What We Need to Move Forward

Last updated on: January 26, 2021 at 5:14 pm By Hebrew College

Parashat Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16). By Yael Werber | January 26, 2021 Sometimes there are moments in time that are so intense, so momentous, so anticipated that when it finally comes time to experience them regular prose fails, and the only way to truly capture them is through poetry. The parting of the sea in Beshalach is a moment like that—the emotion and excitement held in those first steps of freedom intermingled with the regret, despair, and fear at what they left behind... Read more

A Festival for All of Us: MLK, Inauguration, and the Unfinished Work of Redemption

Last updated on: January 20, 2021 at 1:49 pm By Hebrew College

Parshat Bo (Exodus 10:1–13:16) By Cantor Ken Richmond January 20, 2021 We celebrate this week the birthday and the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who often retold the story of the liberation from Egypt as a model for modern-day redemption and transformation. Simultaneously, as we read this week about the dramatic and violent events that brought about political and societal change for our ancestors in Egypt, we are preparing for a transfer of power in our country, feeling a... Read more

The Scrolls of Redemptions (Megillot haGe’ulah)

Last updated on: January 14, 2021 at 3:08 pm By Hebrew College

Reflections on Parashat Va’eira (Exodus 6:2-9:35) By Rachel Adelman | January 14, 2021 I wrote this reflection on Parashat Va’eira in January 2020, before the onset of the pandemic. It has been revised and republished with the understanding that it is uncannily more relevant now than it was a year ago. Every day we wake up to the horrific news of more sick, more dying, while many are isolated, impoverished, suffering from depression and anxiety, with trauma lodged within the individual and collective... Read more

Gratitude

Last updated on: January 6, 2021 at 5:23 pm By Hebrew College

Parashat Shemot (Exodus 1:1–6:1) By Rabbi Ebn Leader January 5, 2021 To our most beloved teacher, Moshe, Who drew us out of slavery in Egypt And brought us to the place where we could receive Torah Who translated the sound of thunder into letters carved in stone So that we could follow the letter trail and carry our hearts back through thunder Who led us through forty years of wandering in the desert, through years of going nowhere, And who stayed... Read more

Sharing Our Legacies

Last updated on: December 30, 2020 at 11:03 pm By Hebrew College

Parashat Vayechi (Genesis 47:28 – 50:26) By Susan Shevitz | December 30, 2020 In this age of COVID, we’ve all seen the scenes in newspapers and online. Desperate for connection to his mother in the ICU, a man recruits a nurse to bring in his picture and read what he has written to her on a card. A daughter FaceTimes with a member of her father’s medical team, who holds the phone near him so they can see each other for a... Read more

Unity or Division?

Last updated on: December 23, 2020 at 6:21 pm By Hebrew College

Parashat Vayigash (Genesis 44:18 – 47:27) By Rabbi Jim Morgan | Dec 21, 2020 This year we have emerged from the bright flare of the final evening of Chanukah into the extreme darkness of this particular winter. Yes, the nights have slowly begun to shorten, giving way to slightly longer days, but our country’s political polarization and struggle with COVID-19 threatens to overwhelm the hope we might place in next month’s inauguration and the vaccines that promise to stem the tide of... Read more

Chanukah Heroines of Yore

Last updated on: December 15, 2020 at 12:25 pm By Hebrew College

Parasha Mikeitz: Genesis 41:1-44:17 By Rachel Adelman | December 14, 2020 When we light Chanukah candles around the winter solstice, we shunt back the darkness, defy the long nights, and, placing the menorah on the boundary of our homes, proclaim the Chanukah miracle [pirsumei nisa]. Yet the debate as to what that miracle may have been still rages. Most Jews are familiar with the rabbinic account of the little cruse of pure oil found in the Holy of Holies of the Temple, which should have... Read more