Torah: Terumah- Our Tables are Our Witnesses Why do we actually bless the table when we chant the traditional grace after meals? The words are as follows: “May the Merciful One send abundant blessings to this household and on this table that we have eaten upon.” The table is a repository of life memories. Around…
Why does Judaism differ from Christianity on abortion? It all comes down to two missing nouns in this week’s Torah reading. Let’s take a look at that text to see the ambiguity: “When men fight and knock a pregnant woman, causing her to miscarry, if there is no tragedy [to whom?], the responsible party must…
When is lying permitted? This question comes to the foreground in our Torah’s unfolding story. Moses has misled Pharaoh. The Israelite leader did not say, “Let my people go for we refuse to serve as your slaves.” Rather he repeatedly said on behalf of God, “Let My people go to worship Me in the wilderness…
Torah: B’Shallah Even miracles do not necessarily change a fixed interpretation of reality. How could the Egyptian leadership have changed their minds again? Ten plagues have come and gone and so have the Israelites. Remarkably, the Torah text does not say this time that “God had hardened their heart.” The leadership’s reversal has a psychological…
Torah: Bo – Why did Pharaoh hold on to the slaves for so long? For that matter, why did it take a war to free the slaves in the United States? With the opening several month’s ago in D.C. of the African-American museum, I learned much about our nation’s history of slavery. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin…
Dear Friends, I am a child of refugees. With Auschwitz and forced labor behind them, my parents languished for two years in a Displaced Refugee camp in Stuttgart, Germany. Visas were hard to come by. Neither of my parents had a learned skill. Neither had finished high school amidst the disruption of war. Such visas…
Torah: Va’Era – Our Torah finds us in bondage. Moses and Aaron appear before the powerful ruler and warn of impending plaques. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel speaking in Chicago in 1963 at a conference on “Religion and Race,” began: ”At the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses. Moses’ words were:…
Torah: Shemot – “And a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph” (Exodus 1:8). This week’s Torah reading begins the Exodus account. The rabbis wonder how the new king could not have known Joseph’s achievements on behalf of Egypt. Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer, composed during the first two centuries of the common era, states that Pharaoh…
Torah: Va’Yigash- What does it take to be a tzaddik, a righteous person? Joseph is distinctly called ha’tzaddik, the righteous one, by the sages of the Talmud (Yoma 35b). They primarily point to Joseph’s overcoming the sexual advances of his employer Potiphar’s wife and emphasize that his self-restraint revealed his exemplary character. Elie Wiesel points…
Huston Smith (2009) Huston Smith, who died at the age of 97 this past Friday in Berkeley, was a towering, spiritual sage. My visits with him endure as gifts of spiritual wisdom and the modeling of genuine goodness. Professor Smith was a trailblazing explorer of religions from the inside, stating, “If we take the world’s enduring…