Neal @ March 8, 2010 # No Comment Yet
VAYAK’HEL/PEKUDEI (Exodus 35:1-40:38; haftarot I Kings 7:51-8:21 and, because Nisan starts on Tuesday making this a special Rosh Chodesh Shabbat, Ezekiel 45:16-46:18) WRAPS UP THE BOOK of Exodus by building the Tabernacle: the traveling God-tent whose structure and contents are so lovingly detailed in the previous four portions. After making certain that all the parts [...]
Neal @ January 11, 2010 # No Comment Yet
(sans apology to and/or connection with Messrs. Jarry et Ballard.)
THERE ARE THE HARLEY RIDERS. They would not dream of owning any transportation they couldn’t twiddle with or hack. Every knob, every switch, every gear is known and its connection to the whole machine is understood, monitored, adjusted. Their dreams are the smooth metal touch and [...]
Neal @ November 5, 2009 # No Comment Yet
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 added yet another level to the endless depth of serious Torah study.
First, about the art: Crumb [...]
Neal @ September 29, 2009 # One Comment
(I DELIVERED THIS YESTERDAY AT my synagogue’s Yom Kippur morning service, and am posting it by popular post-service demand.)
For the past 10 years, Ann & I have shared a small apartment on Sonoma’s France Street. We have hosted weekly Torah studies, annual Instant Family Passover Seders, and our once-in-a-lifetime remarriage under the chuppah in 2002. [...]
Neal @ June 30, 2009 # No Comment Yet
TUESDAY’S NOT TOO LATE FOR a Monday Mitzvah, unless you’d rather read something else.
Today: Don’t eat what’s not kosher (literally, “proper, fit”).
Let’s correct two misconceptions:
1. Kosher is hygenic.
2. Kosher is rational.
The basic rules from Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 are to eat nothing from the sea without fins and scales, nothing from the land [...]
