“Comfort, oh comfort My people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem…” (Isaiah 40:1-2). That’s how last week’s haftarah began. “Zion says, ‘The LORD has forsaken me, My Lord has forgotten me’” (Isaiah 49:14). That’s the opening of this week’s haftarah. As we embark on a seven-week journey of consolation, following Tisha B’Av and leading Continue Reading »
With apologies to The Clash, the question on my mind and on the minds of all who love Israel in times such as these is “Should I Give or Should I Go?” As Diaspora Zionists, we struggle to find ways to express our support for our fellow Jews in Israel, millions of whom are under Continue Reading »
In light of this week’s continued onslaught of missiles from Gaza into Israel, it’s abundantly clear that the dream of shalom is not going materialize any time soon. But our prayers are replete with hopes for peace. Are these empty prayers, at least in the short term? Maybe we need to re-calibrate our definition of shalom in Continue Reading »
I can’t remember being as drained emotionally as I have been this week. My mind has been a receptacle for conflicting thoughts struggling with one another like Jacob and Esau in their mother’s womb. The words of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, kept coming back to me. “A season is set for everything; a time for every experience under Continue Reading »
Fear motivates us to do extraordinary things, not all of which are good. Last week, a middle school student stabbed one of his peers to death, allegedly as a result of deep fears and anxiety in the face of being bullied. This week, 11-year-old honor student Cyon Williams of Staten Island dropped out of his Continue Reading »
This hasn’t been the easiest week for the Jewish People and for the State of Israel. The kidnapping of three Israeli teenage boys on their way home for Shabbat from their yeshiva is traumatic enough. To add insult to injury, we await a vote at the Presbyterian Church’s General Assembly (scheduled for Friday) on a Continue Reading »
If one’s life is judged by how many countries one has visited, I’ve lived a rather pedestrian life. I’ve been to Canada, the US, Israel, and Mexico. Stopovers in France and Spain don’t count because I never left the airports. The most obscure Jewish community I’ve ever visited was in Elmira, NY. I applaud those Continue Reading »
My favorite menu notation is in one of those classic New York kosher delis. Under the sandwiches it lists the costs for all the extras–club bread, lettuce and tomato, extra extra lean meat–along with a warning: “Aggravating your server: $1.” Apparently, “waiter, there’s a fly in my soup” would be a tame interaction in this Continue Reading »
Few passages in Torah trouble us more than Parshat Sotah, which we will confront this week in the weekly portion, Naso. It’s the ritual forced upon a woman accused of adultery by her suspicious husband. But lest we think that only we, fortunate products of modernity and the age of reason, struggle with the bitterness of this Continue Reading »
If you’ve ever been to Jerusalem, you know it’s a special place. The Talmud famously records the statement that when God created the world, Jerusalem was allocated 9/10 of all earthly beauty. But with Yom Yerushalayim, the 47th anniversary of the reunification of the Jewish People’s capital, coming this week, we can learn a great deal Continue Reading »
