MISHPATIM EXODUS 21:1−24:18
I read this parsha every year for close to fifteen years before I ever saw the angel in it, but there he is. God has promised since Abraham that God would be with us. Why now an angel? Who is this angel? What is an angel?
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YITRO EXODUS 18:1 - 20:23
Yitro brought Moses’s wife and sons, Gershom and Eliezar, to the base of the mountain where the people of Israel were encamped. (Exodus 18:6) In a scene as loving and touching and familial as any between Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi, when they arrived, Moses went out to greet his father-in-law, bowed low, and kissed him.
BESHALACH EXODUS 13:17 - 17:16
We read it now knowing how the story is going to end. We know they will get out, we know they will be free. We know they are going to dance. We know. We must remember that they did not know. And they packed their timbrels anyway.
BO EXODUS 10:1 - 13:16
The “no” of the Jewish people was “No, we don’t want to be slaves.”
The “no” of Pharaoh was “No, I will not listen to you, I will not hear you.”
From the story in this week’s Torah portion, we can learn that like Moses and Aaron and the Jewish people in Egypt, we can keep saying “No” in all the ways we need to until we are heard. And we can remember not to be like Pharaoh. We can hear someone else’s “No”.
Read MoreSHMOT EXODUS 1:1 - 6:1
Holy. Buckets. This. Parsha.
It’s like reading the news.
It would be easy, I think, to plunge into Shmot with Pharaoh and forget about Joseph and his family.
Read MoreVAYIGASH GENESIS 44:18 - 47:27
In the United States, every 2 seconds, someone needs blood. But mine is a cancer story. What does cancer have to do with blood? What does blood have to do with Joseph? And why is that picture of little me with a goat?
Read MoreMIKEITZ GENESIS 41:1 - 44:17
It wasn’t only a war of independence. The Maccabean revolt against the Greeks rose from an atmosphere of spiritual and cultural conflict. That they needed to oppose Antiochus who established Zeus in the Temple was clear, but to what degree could Jews adopt Greek culture and still be Jewish?
Did we really reject it all?
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VAYESHEV GENESIS 37:1 - 40:23
I believe our bodies are the most external expression of our souls. When we move our bodies in the world, I believe we are moving the most external expression of our souls in the world. When we touch someone else's body, I believe we are touching the most external expression of their soul with the most external expression of our own soul.
VAYISHLACH GENESIS 32:4 - 36:43
Dinah is the last child of Leah. Dinah is Leah’s daughter – a girl. And Leah named her.
Midrash Tanhuma Vayaheil teaches, “There are three names by which a person is called: one which their parents call them, one which people call them, and one which they earn for themselves. The last is the best one of all.”
BY AMY JOSEFA ARIEL
CHAYEI SARAH GENESIS 23:1-25:18
What if we started with what we don’t know?
What if we ended with curiosity?
BY AMY JOSEFA ARIEL
VAYERA GENESIS 18:1–22:24
Why did Idit look back? Did she miss her neighbors, or did she want to watch them burn? Was she aching for her two daughters who refused to leave, or was she upset about her material losses? Our Torah does not answer these questions. All we know is that she looked back.
BY AMY JOSEFA ARIEL
LECH LECHA GENESIS 12:1 – 17-27
Abraham is a good person. Abraham did not just stand there and let Pharaoh’s officials turn Sarah into a sex slave. And he most certainly did not just accept gifts from Pharaoh.
Except . . . he did.
NOAH (GENESIS 6:9 – 11:32 )
It is this parsha in which I find my heart, and it is also this parsha that breaks it.
BRESHEET 1:1 - 6:8
Hebrew is a gendered language, it’s true, and our tradition has known from the beginning that human experience is as rich and varied as each hour of a day.
SUKKOT 5778
We woke to the threat of rain, but it was the morning after Yom Kippur. . . . Rain or shine, it was time. Sukkah time.
YOM KIPPUR 5778
Here we are - so like Jonah - in the belly of our own fish, in the midst of a swirling sea, and we call out to . . . Who?
HA'AZINU
Have you seen The Good Place? I don't mean the actual "Good Place", of course. I mean the NBC show. Basically, The Good Place packs in everything we do in this High Holiday season.
NITZAVIM-VAYEILECH
How do we, with our bodies and our souls, best take in and express - best experience our relationship with God? How do we best honor the relationships with God others experience? Perhaps we could broaden the way we think about the concept of standing, of being upright in soul and in body.
