Parasha of the Week

Do people need a place to worship? After all, God may be everywhere but they want to find holiness in a single place. That is why they want to build a Mishkan. The root of the word Mishkan, literally “dwelling place,” has to do with the place where God can be found. We build Synagogues for the same reason, it is a place to assemble and find God. In fact, we even have a name for the Lord comes from the same Hebrew root as Mishkan, Shechinah.   Shechinah is the name we use for God when we feel him most closely. Every name that we for HaKadosh Baruch Hu means something different. And this word comes closest to the aspect that is most proximate to us. This Sidra is preceded by the laws of Shabbat.  The sages therefore indicate that we are to learn that even labors for God do not outweigh the holy Shabbat. While we may be involved in many activities that seem to be very important to us, even making a Mishkan, this one aspect of living the life of a Jew is critical to...

Tzedaka is collected, One half shekel from each person.  Everyone could afford it so that all Israel contributed the same amount for the creation and dedication of the Mishkan, the sanctuary. There is a small but meaningful lesson in this: all we have do is our part.  We are not asked to move mountains, make miracle, and change the universe: all we need do what we can.  And when we play our small but significant role everything in nature and the universe works.  Just like the poem attributed to Benjamin Franklin, “For the want of a nail the shoe was lost, For the want of a shoe the horse was lost, For the want of a horse the rider was lost, For the want of a rider the battle was lost, For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost, And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.” Everything matters.  Everyone matters. We are not tasked to do the impossible just our part in making the world a little more perfect.   Then we come to the story...

The menorah has been lit.  The Torah says that it must burn continually, a  ner tamid .  You recognize that phrase because that object adorns every synagogue throughout the world.  There is a  ner tamid , an eternal lamp that burns when all the other candles or lights have been extinguished. It is often said that this is a reminder that God never sleeps.  His Presence is always with us, watching, observing and hopefully taking joy from our most noble thoughts and actions.     But one of the foremost sages of modernity, the Sefet Emet, reveals that there are two kinds of flames.  One is the flame that we need to foster in order to ignite the more permanent fire.  The second is the one that we want to burn. The first flame, he teaches, sometimes is hard to light but once lighted the second one catches quickly and burns easily.  That is like faith.  It is hard starting, building the kno...

I am not so much concerned about the nature of God as our relationship with him. After all, God is God and how much can we comprehend the Almighty? If we understood everything that God is and does we would be as God. His ways are opaque. That is we cannot possibly hope to understand them.   Yet we all have moments when we feel as if we want or need to see the Holy One, feel His Presence. Can you think of some of those times? It would make a great conversation at dinnertime to discuss it with people you were close with and see if there are similarities between the times you wish to see God and the times they wished to see God (or the hand of God).   Ki Tissa contains a similar idea.  Here, Moshe begs to understand God’s ways (see 33:13).  Remember, Moshe saw God two other times in his life.  Can you recall them?  One was when Moshe saw the apparition of the blazing bush.  The other was when God called Moshe to the top of Mount ...

In the story that we tell on Purim we have a 10-chapter tale filled with corruption, beauty queens, villains, saviors and even humor.   The antics of the king Acheshverosh are laughable.  We cheer for Mordecai & Esther who finds her inner core of strength and boo at Haman as we attempt to drown out the sound of his name and blot it out from mind and memory.  Can anyone doubt that he is evil?  There is nothing simple about this story. It is a tale about genocide. Congresswoman, Ilan Omar has vilified Israel, and has brought up old canards of Jews who control the world through money, or, as she wrote “It’s the Benjamins baby.”   She has accused American Jews of dual loyalty, of old canards of classic anti-Semitism, while applauding organizations like Hamas, which calls for the dismantling of the Jewish State and mass slaughter of Jews.    Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested in Facebook that wildfires in California...

Having proclaimed the Law to the ancient Israelites at Mt. Sinai,  “God said to Moses, ‘Come up to Me on the mountain and be there’”  (24:12).  Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotzk observed, “There is a difficulty here.  If Moses came up on the mountain, he would already be there, so why would God also bother to specify,  “and be there?”   Even though he may be standing on the very peak itself, his head may be somewhere else.  The goal is not merely to ascend but also to  be there , to be present there, and nowhere else-and not to be going up and down at the same time.” Last week was Ten Commandments, the Divine Revelation at Sinai.  Having affirmed their willingness to embrace the Commandments, with two of the most inspiring words in Hebrew occur: " Na’aseh v’nishma.  We will do, and we will then hear!" Who among us would say, ‘Sure, I’ll do it, now tell me what’s it all about?’ Precisely because listening to instructions comes before followin...

The chosen one: The one who chose and willingly gave up everything that was familiar to him.  Launching himself from his homeland he followed the “word” that came to him.  And in return for his faith and fidelity the Holy One, blessed be He, foretold that he would be blessed but there would be an enslavement of his great great-grandchildren.  God promised that throughout it all that  Anochi  “I will judge the nation that does so.” (Genesis 15:14).  Using the intimate name  Anoch i instead of the usual  ani , God made a vow that He would be with Abraham and his people forever, blessing them, guiding them and covering them. We come to today’s Torah portion, Yitro, which contains the Ten Commandments.   In the Zohar, a story is related of Rabbi Yossi who once approached Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai with a question. “I am puzzled,” he said.  “Why is it that God - even before He gave the Ten Commandments – thought it ...