Thanksgiving The United States was the first country to offer Jews the right to vote in national elections. Although we endured much discrimination, we simultaneously found opportunity and made great contributions. For most of us, our experience of anti-Semitism differed from that our parents. We have lived openly and proudly in a country of diversity. Remarkably, when the Pew Research Center asked…

VaYera: The huppah [wedding canopy] symbolizes the tent of Abraham and Sarah, the model Jewish home. In the opening verses of this week’s Torah reading, Abraham is sitting at the entrance to his desert tent when he spots strangers. He rushes out to greet them. Bowing, he says, “Please my master, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass from before your…

Lekh L’kha marks a new beginning of an uncharted future. Abram hears a call to go forth to the land that God would show him. At the same time, Canaan is the once sought destination of Abram’s father (Genesis 11:31). Rabbi Wolfe Kelman commented, “There is no greater influence on a child than the unfilled dreams of a parent” and pointed to…

B’reishit The Bible’s creation story conveys vital lessons: the world is good; there is a unifying intentionality in creation; and humans are fashioned in the image of God, with the culminating charge to make time holy. These descriptions of creation are not scientific, but a foundational worldview. Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson writes in  Renewing the Process of Creation (Jewish Lights, 2016) that…

Sukkoth The prophet Amos declared (3:8),“Shall a lion roar and who would not fear?” My Talmud teacher, Dr. Elieser Slomovic, said that in the mountains of Eastern Europe where he grew up they did not have lions. But, pious Jews lived with fear of God and read the word lion in Hebrew- ERYeH- as an acronym for the milestones of this penitential…

Ha’Azinu: Our Torah reading begins, “Give ear, O heavens, let me speak; Let the earth hear the words that I utter!” The reference to the heavens and earth listening are only metaphors. Paganism believed that nature in all its parts was alive. Spirits possessed trees and lakes and the sky. Those spirits were fickle and demanded bribes. Priests offered incantations to those unpredictable…