How to Live Amidst Alienation and Exile

Last updated on: January 7, 2025 at 12:01 pm By Hebrew College

Since the US election two months ago, and over the course of the devastating war in Israel and Gaza, I have been plagued with a feeling of alienation. In both America and Israel, the gap between the way the world is and the way I believe it should be grows ever wider. And, despite significant effort on my part, I don’t know how to fix things—how to bridge the ideological, social, and spiritual divides that make progress so elusive. This... Read more

The Patriarch who wasn’t a Patriarch

Last updated on: January 2, 2025 at 1:04 pm By Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Michael Shire Parashat Va-Yiggash (Genesis 44:18-47:27) What makes a Patriarch a patriarch? What makes a Matriarch a matriarch? Genesis provides the stories of characters in each generation, some of whom we have designated as leaders of their generation, ultimately including them in our prayers. We do this for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah (Berakhot 16b:13-14). The rabbis suggest that each has a different relationship with God such that we repeat the phrase ‘God of…’ each... Read more

The Truth that Sets us Apart

Last updated on: December 23, 2024 at 7:31 pm By Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Becky Silverstein `14 (Parashat Miketz Genesis 41:1-44:17) A few weeks ago, I was in a meeting whose icebreaker question was, “What is your favorite night of Hanukkah.” Answers ranged from first to fourth to last, to questions about whether one lights like Hillel or Shammai (see Shabbat 21b). My favorite night is whatever night(s) that I can sit and take in the lights. Hanukkah lights have one sole purpose—to publicize the miracle of survival. While we are not supposed to... Read more

Success on Our Way; an Alternative to the Prosperity Gospel

Last updated on: December 17, 2024 at 11:24 am By Hebrew College

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By Rav Hazzan Ken Richmond, Hebrew College Rabbinical School ’21 Parashat Vayeishev Genesis 37:1-40:23 As part of our recent late-night wind-down routine, I’ve been watching the show “Greenleaf,” which was recommended as a show with all the drama and intrigue of synagogue life and politics, but through the lens of a Southern, African-American church. The show, which explores wealth and power dynamics within the church and its leaders, has gotten me ruminating about the prosperity gospel. In Fiddler on the... Read more

Planting the Seeds of Potential

Last updated on: December 10, 2024 at 2:11 pm By Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Heather Retnezsky ’24 Parashat Vayishlach Genesis 32:4-36:43 In a parasha filled with high intensity moments—Jacob wrestling with an angel, Jacob and Esav’s reunion, and the rape of Dina (to name a few), Deborah’s death could be easy to miss: וַיִּבֶן שָׁם מִזְבֵּחַ וַיִּקְרָא לַמָּקוֹם אֵל בֵּית־אֵל כִּי שָׁם נִגְלוּ אֵלָיו הָאֱלֹהִים בְּבָרְחוֹ מִפְּנֵי אָחִיו וַתָּמָת דְּבֹרָה מֵינֶקֶת רִבְקָה וַתִּקָּבֵר מִתַּחַת לְבֵית־אֵל תַּחַת הָאַלּוֹן וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ אַלּוֹן בָּכוּת׃ (7) There [Jacob] built an altar and named the site El-bethel,... Read more

What the Sigma, Jacob?

Last updated on: December 3, 2024 at 10:59 am By Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Shira Shazeer ’10, Hebrew College Rabbinical School Parashat Vayetzei Genesis 28:10-32:3 Working with high school students, one of my pastimes has become learning the new ways kids these days use language. It makes me feel clever to be able to understand what they are saying, and occasionally to use one of my new vocabulary words, always ironically and intentionally to see the “cringe” they evoke. This year, as the students entering high school turn the corner from youngest... Read more

From Conflict to Creation: Rebecca’s Question and Our Own

Last updated on: November 26, 2024 at 1:17 am By Hebrew College

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Parashat Toldot Genesis 25:19-28:9 In this week’s Torah portion, we encounter Rebecca, our matriarch, in the midst of a moment of deep personal struggle. She is pregnant with twins, and as the children struggle within her, she feels their turmoil and her own pain. In her distress, she asks,“Im ken, lama zeh anochi?” – “If so, why I?” (Genesis 25:22). At first glance, Rebecca’s question might appear to be a cry of frustration or despair, an expression of her physical... Read more

An Appreciation at Our Matriarch’s Burial Place

Last updated on: November 19, 2024 at 12:09 pm By Hebrew College

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Parashat Chayei Sarah Genesis 23:1-25:18 When I read the opening verses of Chayei Sarah, my eyes tear up. With all she has experienced throughout her long life, Sarah’s death is recorded in two sentences, a mere twenty-five Hebrew words: Sarah’s lifetime, the span of Sarah’s life, came to one hundred and twenty-seven years. Sarah died in Kiryat-Arba—now Hevron in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her. (Genesis 23:1-2) Why the redundancies—her lifetime,... Read more

“Say you are my sister…”
In the House of Abimelech

Last updated on: November 12, 2024 at 5:24 pm By Hebrew College

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By Rav Rachel Adelman, Hebrew College Faculty Parashat Vayera Genesis 18:1-22:24 This is a dark time so I feel compelled to look to darker times in Torah to find a source of light. Three obscure stories, all what Phyllis Trible calls ‘texts of terror’, punctuate the patriarchal and matriarchal narratives. They are known collectively as the ‘wife-sister tales’: Abraham and Sarah (then named Abram and Sarai) in Egypt in Pharaoh’s court (Genesis 12:1-10); Abraham and Sarah in the House of... Read more

They Say: There is a Land

Last updated on: November 5, 2024 at 11:47 am By Hebrew College

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Parashat Lech Lecha Genesis 12:1-17:27 The land that I imagine when I read God’s promise to Avraham doesn’t match up with the Israel I see today. In Lech Lecha, God says, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” Later in Exodus, God adds detail to this promise, describing it as “a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” When I think of the land... Read more