If the Exodus teaches anything essential about Judaism, it is that redemption is not merely remembered. It is embodied. Israel’s foundational story does not simply recount that God once intervened in history. It proclaims something far more daring, that history…
Category: Torah Commentaries
Yitro – A Perfect Government
With Parashat Yitro we reach one of the decisive turning points in Israel’s formation as a people. The journey from Egypt to Sinai has never been merely about escape from oppression; it has been about the reordering of allegiance. From…
B’shelach – I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing
Imagine, just for a moment, if I asked everyone to join hands and we played that old Coca‑Cola jingle from the early 1970s: “I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony.” It was the perfect fusion of…
Bo – Who’s the Boss?
Every one of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, lives under some form of authority. There is always a voice that carries the final word in our lives, the ruler supreme, the one whose judgment prevails when all…
Va’eira – Four Stages of Liberation
Listen to an audio version This Shabbat marks three weeks into the New Year in accord with the western secular calendar, the one by which a majority of Jewish people worldwide attempt to conduct their normal life’s business. Many have…
Shemot – Seventy-nine and Holding
I woke up this morning, glanced at the news, and for a brief moment wondered whether the earth had slipped off its axis while I was asleep. Yesterday’s headline in the Courant read, “The World Is on Watch,” and it…
Vayechi – Mercy and Justice: The Incredible Two-Headed Servant
Parashat Vayechi brings us to the close of the book of Genesis and places us squarely at a moment of transition. These are end-of-life words—Jacob blessing his sons, Joseph preparing to die in exile, and in the Haftarah, King David…
Vayigash – At the Threshold of Blessing
The Torah portion Vayigash brings us to one of the most emotionally charged threshold moments in Israel’s story. Judah steps forward, Joseph reveals himself, and a family fractured by betrayal stands at the edge of reconciliation (Gen 44–45). Rabbinic tradition…
Light Over Might
Listen to an audio version Hanukah is perhaps the most cherished Jewish holidays, celebrated by both religious and secular Jews. While much of the Western world celebrates Christmas, Hanukah has become the Jewish alternative, replete with gift-giving, “heart-unfriendly” holiday foods,…
Vayeshev – Dream On
Dream On — not the dismissive phrase our culture sometimes uses to mock hope, but the ancient call our tradition gives to test, discern, and live the dreams that come from God. When the world grows cynical, when spiritual longing…