Tag: Learning Jewishly

“A little Torah is all anyone knows.”

Torah Study Anew Abu!

TODAY’S POST COMES FROM GUEST-BLOGGER Ann Clark and concerns our weekly living-room Torah study. We begin the reading cycle anew tomorrow (technically, yesterday and today) — but do we ever really begin, or end, anything? France Street Torah Study Neal…

Saturday Morning Live

Lay Led Torah Study & Service — 7/10/10, 9a to 10:15/10:30 to noonish Congregation Shir Shalom, 252 W. Spain St., Sonoma JOIN THE SONOMA VALLEY JEWISH community tomorrow morning at 10:30 for a laid-back, lay-led “Reform Mellow” service at Congregation…

Song of the Universe

TONIGHT IS SHAVUOT, WHICH CELEBRATES the gift of Torah at Mt. Sinai some 3,322 years ago. Whether one believes the Torah’s own account is inconsequential; what we celebrate is the living text (rather, Living Text) itself and its indivisibility from…

Nutshell Rabbinics

“HERE’S HOW THE TORAH WORKS, at least from a classical perspective: What’s important, really important, is not just the text — it’s your relationship to the text. Which means you get to say what Torah means, but within parameters as…

Torah Word: Kedoshim

Torah Portion: Acharei Mot-Kedoshim Leviticus 16:1-20:27 Haftorah: Amos 9:7-15 “Kedoshim t’hyu, ki kadosh ani Adonai Eloheicha — Be holy, for I am holy, Adonai your God.” (Leviticus 19:2) The second half of this week’s double portion takes a breather from…

R. Crumb, Darshan

MOST REVIEWS OF R. CRUMB’S “The Book of Genesis Illustrated” seem astonished that the man who kept us truckin’ through the ’60s could possibly give the Goode Booke such a serious rendering. But what astonishes me is that Crumb has…

School’s Out

TODAY IS THE WORST DAY (or one of the worst days) in any given year: it’s the last day I’ll be teaching religious school, which means I won’t see “my kids” any more — and I’ll be slightly stupider without…

Hiding the Hidden

Last week, we read in Parsha Beshallach about the departure from Egypt (Heb. “Mitzrayim”, or “narrows,” which the mystical tradition identifies with the forces of constraint and bad-habitry). Among the other nifty details is this one, from Exodus 13:21: “And…