Parashat Vayakhel (Exodus 35:1-38:20) By Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld First, a confession. I am among those already exhausted by the amount of time I am now spending in front of a screen, rather than in the physical presence of other human beings. Please don’t get me wrong. I am grateful—deeply and daily—for the technology that is allowing us to stay connected to one another during this period of “social distancing” and to overcome, at least a little, the heightened sense of... Read more
Parashat Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11-34:35) By Cantor Ken Richmond Purim, the annual topsy-turvy holiday that we celebrated this week, provides an opportunity for thinking about God’s presence and absence, God’s quality of seeming alternately hidden or revealed, as we listen to the only Biblical book without God’s name and wonder whether the plot twists are ruled by God’s will or by lottery, and whether the vicissitudes of the world are meaningful or capricious. This tension seemed even stronger this year, the... Read more
Parashat Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20-30:10) By Joey Glick Every year at this time, I read Spring for Sophie, a wonderful children’s book by my friend and classmate Yael Waeber. The book follows the emotional and sensory journey of a young girl eager for the end of winter. Sophie’s mother helps her to notice—with her eyes, ears, nose, fingers, and tongue—the slow transformation of the season. I love the book for its mindful approach to life and its reminder to carefully notice... Read more
Parashat Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19) By Rabbi Avi Strausberg A transatlantic flight to Israel. Two adults, two small children, two perfectly packed neatly-organized backpacks. One bag is replete with an assortment of Ziploc bags of all sizes, each sealed with its perfect in-the-air snack: chex mix with surprises (chocolate chips!), veggie straws, dried cranberries. Another bag chock full of smart travel toys: magnetic puzzle sets, shiny new crayons and coloring pads, stickers galore. There are cell phones, headphones, books with flaps,... Read more
Parashat Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18) By Rabbi Brian Besser The Torah purportedly reiterates its mandate to protect the stranger 36 separate times. Variations in negative form (“do not wrong the stranger,” “do not oppress the stranger”) and positive (“you shall love the stranger,” “you shall have one law for the stranger and citizen alike”) appear throughout. Attesting to their importance, two such instances bracket the categorical commandments of the Book of the Covenant in this week’s portion. Righteous conduct toward the... Read more
Parashat Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23) By Susan Shevitz This week we read about the central event in the collective consciousness of the Jewish people: the revelation at Sinai. Parashat Yitro (the Torah portion of Jethro) vividly describes the activities and prohibitions that were to prepare the Israelites for the coming experience. Fire and smoke, blasting horns and quaking mountains lead to this seminal event in the memory of Am Yisrael (the Jewish people). And yet, if this great revelatory event was transcendent and other-worldly, it is immediately... Read more
Parashat Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16) By Rabbi Jordan Braunig Parashat Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16) This week we are treated to a thrilling journey from bondage to freedom, complete with a quick escape — oppressors at our heels, a trek on dry land between spectacularly split seas, a song of liberation on exultant lips, and, finally, jubilation on the shores of deliverance. The high drama, suspense and intense joy make Parashat Beshalach undoubtedly among the great mythic moments of the Torah. Less appreciated is the... Read more
By Rabbi Gray Myrseth Parashat Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16) You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin and extend it to the lintel and the doorposts and not one of you shall go out from the entrance of your house until morning. (Exodus 12:22) When a fence bows before a storm, animals run loose, hooved feet catching in the gap. Downriver all the uncleared tables; That sound is either wailing or it’s... Read more
By Rachel Adelman Parashat Va’eira (Exodus 6:2-9:35) I recently heard a fascinating interview with the psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, an expert on the treatment of trauma. He defines trauma as overwhelmingly negative experiences which become lodged in the body beyond the reach of language. As an expert on PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder), he maintains that the “talking cure”—the traditional psychoanalytic attempt to make a coherent narrative of one’s trauma—cannot really help patients, but embodied work such as EMDR (eye movement desensitization... Read more
By Rabbi Avi Killip Parashat Shemot (Exodus 1:1-6:1) Moses is the original social justice lobbyist. When Moses wakes up to the injustice of the Israelite slavery, he is not in a position to make any grand changes to the social and economic structures of Egypt. He is not the Pharaoh. But he is a “prince of Egypt” and that comes with some privilege and avenues for changemaking. Lobbyists use relationships to influence the decision makers in power. Shemot Rabbah, our midrashic... Read more
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