- Shabbat Metzora’/Hagadol 5784
Dear Friends,
Little did Judy and I know when we concluded last year’s seder with leshanah haba-ah birushalayim, “New Year in Jerusalem,” how much the Jewish world and life in Israel would have changed by the next Pesah. Indeed, we are spending Pesah 5784 in Yerushalayim, but not because of the arrival of the messianic redemption. Since ...
- Shabbat Pekudei 5784
The Thursday lunch-and-learn group started a new course last week–a look at the weekly haftarah. For the next year, I’ll use this space to share something that didn’t make it into our class discussion.
The architectural details of the Torah reading, Pekudei can numb us to a moment of profound excitement in the Torah reading. On the first ...
- Shabbat Ki-Tissa 5784
The Thursday lunch-and-learn group started a new course last week–a look at the weekly haftarah. For the next year, I’ll use this space to share something that didn’t make it into our class discussion.
Eliyahu took an enormous gamble when he arranged a contest on Mount Carmel. He, the solitary remaining prophet of God, faced off ...
- Shabbat Tetzaveh 5784
The Thursday lunch-and-learn group started a new course last week–a look at the weekly haftarah. For the next year, I’ll use this space to share something that didn’t make it into our class discussion.
For the second consecutive week, our Torah portion and haftarah focus on the minutiae of the mishkan and mikdash, the portable and stationary sanctuaries of ancient Israel. ...
- Shabbat Terumah 5784
The Thursday lunch-and-learn group started a new course this week–a look at the weekly haftarah. For the next year, I’ll use this space to share something that didn’t make it into our class discussion.
In Haftarat Terumah, we read of King Solomon’s project to build the Temple. There was something out-of-the-ordinary about the stones that were used ...
