By Rabbi Mónica Gomery Parshat Lech Lecha (Genesis: 12:1-17:27) The day after I became a rabbi, I taught a room full of men how to sing the alef-bet. The men in the Jewish Spirituality Group at the Essex County Jail, where I served last year as the Jewish chaplain, had requested I teach them some Hebrew. And so, on Sunday I was ordained, draped in a tallis and called rabbi for the first time in front of hundreds of people, and on Monday I... Read more
By Rabbi Avi Stausberg Parshat Noach (Genesis 6:9-11:32) In the beginning, there was nothing. When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth being unformed and void. Except, that’s not exactly true. Because there was something. There was darkness, and there was wind, and there was water. A lot of water. God separated water from water, creating an expanse in between and God gathered all the lower waters together, and dry land took form. God called the... Read more
Parashat Bereishit (Genesis, 1:1-6:8) By Rachel Adelman, Ph.D. As the saying goes: “All beginnings are difficult.” We are reading Bereshit, “In the beginning…,” again. It is the start of a New Year and I am filled with the tentative joy and trepidation of Yom Kippur in Jerusalem. Just at the opening of the gates at Kol Nidrei, I stood with my three-month-old granddaughter, Naomi Tzipora, in my arms—my daughter and son-in-law by my side—filled with hope and awe, holding our... Read more
Parshat Sukkot (Leviticus 22:26-23:44) By Rabbi Dan Judson There is a story told of Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev that he was feeling chalisha [weak] before the holiday of Sukkot began. He had worn himself out with the fervency of his Yom Kippur prayers. His students gathered around him and waved an Etrog under his nose and the strong and unique smell of the fruit revived his spirits and he entered the season with the appropriate energy and joy. I appreciate... Read more
Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16:1-34; 18: 1-30) By Rabbi Micha’el Rosenberg Yom Kippur is the single most significant day of the Jewish calendar. And so it’s certainly not coincidental that the Torah reading for Yom Kippur, stands in the center of the Torah. Almost precisely at the middle of the middle book of the Torah, we find a description of the rites that would take place in the Tabernacle on the Day of Atonement. On this most central of days, we read the central message of... Read more
Ha’azinu/Shabbat Shuva, Deuteronomy 32:1-52 By Rabbi Alyson Solomon Early in Genesis we find Hagar, with dust in her hair and on her feet. Hagar is Abraham’s handmaid, pregnant with his first and oldest son, running from her master’s home. She runs furiously into the wilderness and stops by an עֵין הַמַּיִם, a spring or more literally, an eye of water. In Genesis 16:7-8 we read: Suddenly an angel appears and says to Hagar, “From... Read more
(Nitzavim/Vayalekh, Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20, 31:1-30) By Rabbi jane Kanarek, Ph.D. Like all too many, I had an ambivalent relationship with my childhood Hebrew School. As a young child, I enjoyed it. I loved learning to read Hebrew, to chant the Shema, and to tell the Torah’s stories. But as I got older, I started to rebel against my four-day-a-week school. Much as I loved playing the ballgame gaga during break and relished sneaking in candy from the store across the street, I distanced myself... Read more
(Ki Tavo, Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8) By Rabbi Adina Allen In this week’s parsha, Moses sets two paths before the Israelites as they prepare to enter the land. If they heed God’s word, the Israelites will be blessed in every way possible and will be established as am kadosh, a holy people to God. If, however, they do not heed God, they will be cursed in every way imaginable. Their communities will be torn apart, their cities ravaged, their flocks decimated, their spirits... Read more
(Parashat Ki Tetzei, Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19) In Jewish sacred time, we have entered the season of teshuva. Often translated as repentance, teshuvacomes from the Hebrew root meaning to return. However lost we feel, however far we have wandered – there is a way back. It is possible to find our way home – to God, to ourselves, to one another. At the heart of this season, then, is both a summons and an embrace. The period of teshuva begins in earnest with the start of... Read more
Parshat Shoftim, Deuteronomy 16:18 – 21:9 By Rabbi Minna Bromberg “What are you writing about?” my mother asks. And I grumble at her because I’m sure that talking about it will only reveal how thoroughly undeveloped my thinking really is. But then I remember that — even though I am sitting in her house and using her computer — I am, in fact, a grown up and she is, in fact, someone who is often helpful and insightful. And so... Read more
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