Shoftim: The King Is Commanded to Write a Sefer Torah When the Temple stood, once every seven years, at the festival of Hakhel, the gathering of the men, women and children of Israel, the king would read the Torah aloud… Read More »
D’VAR TORAH Parashat Re’eh – Birkat HaHodesh This week I read several colleagues’ Divrei Torah who all highlighted the theme of legislating servitude in ancient Israel. How could it be that we left Egypt and now we allow slaves?! This… Read More »
D’VAR TORAH Parashat Ekev Sometimes a great dish of ice cream or the best dark chocolate can be a great source of comfort. A good kiddush works that way, too. This Shabbat I am looking forward to sharing in both… Read More »
From Wood and Stone to the Aleph – Tav of Rebuilt Jews & Zion The Acrostic of Return Rabbi Scott Bolton · Congregation Or Zarua Tisha B’Av 5786 On a day when we sit on the ground amid a world… Read More »
D’VAR TORAH Parashat Mattot-Masei – Birkat HaHodesh Station Stops and Sensing the Wow I’ve shifted my understanding to see grace as the power planted within us to stop and sense the wow. Please click HERE to read my D’var Torah… Read More »
D’VAR TORAH Parashat Pinhas, Happy 250th Birthday America Pinchas, Kallen, and the Covenants We Embrace America at 250 Parashat Pinchas opens with the strangest reward in the Torah. A young priest commits an act of shocking zealotry, and God responds… Read More »
D’VAR TORAH Shabbat Hukkat-Balak Parashat Balak: The Fear With No Object In a teaching on Parashat Balak that Rabbi Zohar Atkins offered, he notices something strange: Balak is the one king Israel is divinely forbidden to harm (Devarim 2:9), and… Read More »
When we left Egypt there were many non-Jews who left with us. And by the time the Camp of the Israelites is described in the Book of Numbers – really “The Book of the Wilderness” – the erev rav, the… Read More »
Our parsha begins with instructions to the Kohanim, the priests. Moses tells Aaron that for loved ones the priests may become tamei (ritually disqualifying them to serve in the sanctuary) and that they may participate in burying deceased family members.… Read More »
Rabbi Saul Berman wrote about the radicalism of Judaism in the ancient world: “In the pagan world, holiness was an attribute of temple and priesthood. One of the great radical steps that the Torah took was to shift the concept… Read More »