AS A TEACHER of Jewish children and adults, it’s my job (and joy!) to soak up as much Torah as I can – in the broad sense of “Torah” as “the entire corpus of the Jewish textual tradition.” Fortunately, there’s…
Category: Torah
The Text(s), the tribe, the learning, the being. (With a bit of random spirituality mixed in.)
Pithyism #613
YOUR SPIRITUALITY is none of my business.
New & Then
(A recent sermon. Skip it if you like – you won’t hurt my feelings.) THERE IS AN OLD STORY about a rabbi who was so engrossed in his Talmudic studies that he didn’t pay attention to the weekly Torah reading.…
Everything I Know About G?d
G?d’s Hamsters
(With welcome help from special guest star Ann Autumn.) “The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.” – Samuel Beckett, Endgame You can’t know who you are without knowing where you’ve been. Mr. Beckett, most famously the…
Bargain Abasement
Sermon delivered last night (2507.25). I won’t be offended if you sit this one out. HERE’S A LITTLE-KNOWN FACT: Not every Israelite settled in the Land of Promise – but then again, that was by choice. The Torah this week,…
Talk Shop
DUE TO THE Hebrew calendar’s complexities, we sometimes double up on the weekly Torah readings. The first of this week’s two portions, Matot (Numbers 30:2-36:13), concerns the laws of vows. Words are supremely powerful in Judaism – after all, our…
We are spiritual beings having a physical experience.”
— Teilhard de Chardin
Reluctant Shepherds
OUR TORAH PORTION this week (Pinchas; Numbers 25:10-30:1) contains a powerful lesson in leadership dynamics. G?d reiterates to Moses that the mistake the prophet made a few chapters ago – smacking a rock instead of commanding it to produce water…
Reverse Coarse
(Sermon delivered yesterday morning. Feel free to skip it if Jewish resilience isn’t your thing.) HERE’S A QUESTION: Why are we still here? The traditional opening of any Jewish morning prayer-service, and also what Jews say upon first entering the…
Thirsty Work
What did Moses do wrong? IN THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION, Chukat (Numbers 19:1-22:1), Moses disobeys G?d’s command to speak to a rock and thereby produce water for the thirsty Jews and their animals. Instead, Moses – perhaps in grief over…
Any god who is mine but not yours, any god concerned with me but not with you, is an idol.”
– Abraham Joshua Heschel