Shalom Friends, This week’s parasha, Vayigash (Genesis 44:18 - 47:27), brings the Joseph story to an emotional climax. To recap: Joseph, the beloved older son of the ill-fated Rachel, was despised by his jealous half-brothers—...
Shabbat Shalom Chaverim— The teaching gam zu l’tovah/even-this-is-for-the-good emphasizes that there are things in the world that are nistar/hidden and nigleh/revealed. Often, we are experiencing something in its nistar state, passing judgment on it, and...
Shabbat Shalom Chaverim— This week’s Torah portion, Va’yeitzei (Genesis 28:10-32:3), follows Jacob on his journey away from home and hearth, and into his life as an independent adult. On the first night, he finds himself...
Shabbat Shalom Chaverim— This week’s Torah portion, Toledot (Genesis 25:19-28:9) begins with another of our Jewish ancestors’ struggles with fertility. But finally, after pleading with God, Isaac and Rebecca do conceive—with twins. “And the children...
“And the life of Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years: these were the years of Sarah’s life. And Sarah died in the-city-of-four-corners, also called Hebron, in the land of Canaan and Abraham...
Genesis 18:1-22:24 Shabbat Shalom Chaverim— This week’s Torah portion includes the Akeida, the “Binding” of Isaac. Here’s the basic set up: Abraham and Sarah have been on a spiritual quest with their family and posse....
Shabbat Shalom, Chaverim— I love learning Talmud. I really do. I love its weird and floaty logic, its flights of fancy and its insistence on facing life’s messiest moments without shirking. I delight at the...
Shabbat Shalom Chaverim, This week’s Torah portion, Noach (Genesis 6:9 - 11:32) is focused on the mythic account of a massive, worldwide, completely devastating flood. What makes this flood particularly terrible, aside from its widespread...
Gut Yontiff. Jewish Tradition teaches that there are 50 gates of understanding. The first 49 are opened by our intellectual questioning and inquiry. But the 50th—the gate of heaven—requires a unique key: your heart. Ten...
This drash was written and delivered by Laura Goldman on Yom Kippur 5779. Good Yontif. You and I come to services on Yom Kippur for so many reasons, and all of them are good ones....
Tonight begins the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, when people all over the world gather to engage Judaism’s wisdom tradition of Tshuvah, which, while it has no parallel English concept, is often translated as...
Shabbat Shalom Chaverim, Wow, I’m still bobbling around in the afterglow of the Days of Awe, stumbling in and out of random sukkot, and my olfactory nerves are pulsing with etrog’s intoxicating perfume. Tis the...
Shabbat Shalom, Chaverim— It’s Shabbat Shuva this week, the Shabbat of turning, the first Shabbat of the new year, the Shabbat of facing, making, and accepting change. This time of year is set aside to...
Shabbat Shalom Chaverim— This week’s Torah portion, Re’eh (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17) begins with one of the great truths of life: “Look, today I am setting in front of you blessing and curse…..” Deut. 11:26 What else...
Julie and I are recently back from two weeks of vacation in the utterly glorious, sparsely populated, traffic free, and fecund Salt Spring Island, BC. Being away from our daily grind—relaxed and virtually stress free—we...
Maggid’s Musing Balak Numbers 22:2 - 25:9 2018 Shabbat Shalom, Chaverim— It is amazing to me that though we read the same, exact, words every year from the same, exact section of the Torah in...
This week’s Torah portion, Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32) details the first of a series of organizational tests for Moses. It begins when Korach, a well-heeled Israelite whose pedigree places him in the priestly class, contests Moses...
Shabbat Shalom Chaverim— This week we have a double portion: Tazria-Metzora (Leviticus 12:1 - 15:33). And what a doozy it is!! It has to do with the impact of skin diseases, contaminated clothing, leprous houses...
Shabbat Shalom, Chaverim— The feature story on the front page of this week’s Sunday New York Times was a wrenchingly beautiful and agonizing piece by Benjamin Weiser called “Nakesha’s Demons.” Mr. Weiser chronicles the descent...
Shabbat Shalom, Chaverim— This week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20 - 30:10), comes just in time for the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. As the bespangled, multi-colored, wildly tailored uniforms announce to the world the...