Torah Reflections

VaEira Exodus 6:2 - 9:35 Every year, as I meet the text narrating the plagues of Egypt, I am confronted with the same paradox. God commands Moses to ask Pharaoh to free the Israelites. Pharaoh refuses. God brings down a plague, and Pharaoh yields to Moses’ demands....

Shemot Exodus 1:1 - 6:1   The Book of Exodus opens with an accounting of the sons of Jacob—the brothers of Joseph—who have been living in Egypt at the invitation of Joseph and with permission from the pharaoh. After that first generation died out, we are told,...

Vayigash Genesis 44:18 - 47:27   Chapter 45 is pivotal in the Book of Genesis. Here, Joseph reveals himself to the brothers who had sold him into slavery some twenty-two years earlier. His brothers recoil in fear, but Joseph, in a tearful embrace, forgives them...

Vayish'lach Genesis 32:4-36:43   In the previous Torah portion, we read about Jacob’s vision of the ladder that came to him in a dream. At the end of that vision God appears to him to say: “And here I am, with you. I will guard you wherever you go, and I will...

Vayeitzei Genesis 28:10-32:3   One verse above all others in this Torah portion encompasses the entirety of Kabbalistic thought: “Waking from his sleep, Jacob said, ‘Truly, the Eternal is in this place, and I did not know it!’” (Gen. 28:16). The verse includes a...

Chayei Sarah Genesis 23:1-25:18   “The cry of the shofar is the tears of Sarah.” Thus says a midrash describing the moment when Sarah was told that Abraham had taken her son Isaac and had slaughtered him on an altar as a sacrifice. “Sarah began to cry and moan...

Vayeira Genesis 18:1-22:24   The subject of circumcision has engendered much controversy over the past few years. Should we or should we not, as a Jewish people, continue to honor the tradition that is said to have originated with Abraham? Or is it a barbaric...

Lech Lecha Genesis 12:1-17:27 Lech Lecha marks the beginning of the Patriarchal story in the Book of Genesis. We have traveled through the confusion of Creation and the Flood, and now we are about to embark on our spiritual journey as the descendants of our mythical...

Noah Genesis 6:9-11:22   One day, my daughter—who was 10 at the time—came home from the Jewish day-school she attended with an assignment to write a short essay about the opening verses of Noah:                This is the line of Noah.—Noah was a righteous man;...

B'reishit Genesis 1:1-6:8   We are accustomed to reading the opening verse of Torah as “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” but the Hebrew text is pregnant with esoteric interpretations that go far beyond that simple statement. For starters,...

V'Zot Ha-Brachah Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12   “Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Eternal knew face to face, for all the signs and portents that the Eternal sent him to perform in the land of Egypt…and for all the great might and...

HaAzinu Deuteronomy 32:1-52   Chutzpah. Whether Jewish or not, almost everyone knows this Hebrew/Yiddish word. The dictionary defines it as “unmitigated effrontery or impudence, gall, nerve, courage bordering on arrogance.” But there is a much deeper...