Have you ever felt that you were being treated as a number and not as a person? We Jews have a variety of responses to this potential problem. When you come to minyan, we won’t count you to see if we have the required 10 Jewish adults. Instead, we’ll use a Biblcal verse that has Continue Reading »
Forty-nine years ago next week, a 2,000-year-long dream came true. “Har Habayit beyadenu–the Temple Mount is in our hands,” came the simple but emotional declaration by Motta Gur, commanding officer of the Jerusalem Brigade of the IDF. The return of Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem is one of the greatest moments in our history. We celebrate Continue Reading »
“The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed” (Robert Gibson, science fiction author). This week, we read Parshat Behar, which begins “Dateline: Sinai.” We are then given a series of commandments that we didn’t read about back in Yitro and Mishaptim, when we last saw Israel standing at Sinai. In fact, the entire Continue Reading »
Did you remember to prepare for the two major Jewish holidays we’ll observe next week? I bet you didn’t. That’s because in the scope of things, Pesah Sheini, which is on Sunday, and Lag B’Omer, which begins Wednesday night into Thursday, are by no means major holidays. But they are marked on any Jewish calendar Continue Reading »
This Shabbat, we’ll get a handful of Torah. On Lay-led Shabbat, we’re having a lunch and learn with five different teachers about Parshat Kedoshim, which is about as rich a weekly portion as one can find. Leviticus 19 is called the essence of the Torah, or the Torah in miniature. On Shabbat morning after services, you’ll Continue Reading »
This Shabbat is what I always think of as the Bridge Shabbat. It’s the Shabbat that falls between two recent additions to the rhythm of the Jewish calendar: Yom HaShoah, our annual commemoration of the Holocaust, has just ended; Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s day of independence, is next week, beginning Wednesday night. There’s one more Continue Reading »
When Pesah begins on Shabbat, we in the Diaspora experience a unique confluence of observances on the final day of the holiday, which is also Shabbat. On the one hand, as is always the case on the last day of Pesah, we recite Yizkor. But on the very same day, since there’s no Shabbat Hol Continue Reading »
This week’s Torah reading can bring great pain to some of its readers. Parshat Tazria begins with the subject of ritual impurity as a result of childbirth: “When a woman at childbirth bears a male, she shall be impure seven days…” What in this passage has the potential to cause readers pain? If you said Continue Reading »
Every year on Purim, we have a return encounter with Megillat Esther. My instincts lead me to conclude that we do one of two things during the megillah reading. We either follow along to remind ourselves of the story we’ve long known, or we peruse the Hebrew looking for Haman’s name so we can make Continue Reading »
This is an exciting Shabbat at HHJC, with Shabbat Across America tonight and Sisterhood Shabbat tomorrow morning. I don’t want to steal the thunder of the sisterhood women teaching Torah, so in this column, I’ll share something I wrote for the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, who send out a weekly email teaching piece on Continue Reading »
