By Rabbi Avi Strausberg `15 A Drasha for Shavuot As a rabbi and someone who genuinely loves learning Jewish text, I am fortunate to learn a lot of Torah. Over the last 15 years, my learning has taken me from the midrash of Israeli feminists to the hasidic writings of Kedushat Levi, from the stories of our ancient rabbis in the pages of Gemara to modern poetry on God and revelation. And, yet I wonder: To what extent has my learning made an... Read more
By Rabbi Shira Shazeer Parashat Bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20) I don’t like packing. While there is something satisfying about the moment when I am done packing, it rarely outweighs the unpleasantness of the task itself. Having fewer occasions that require packing was perhaps one of the silver linings of the pandemic. When my family prepares for a journey, though everyone helps gather things, I do more than my share of the planning and the actual work of loading things into suitcases, boxes... Read more
By Rabbi Becky Silverstein Parashat Behar-Bechukotai (Leviticus 25:1 – 27:34) Being human is not easy. I carry this thought with me constantly. It lives in my heart as I watch my kids try to learn new things or express their feelings with words instead of big actions. It lives in my head as I learn new texts. It lives in my body as I work to parent, facilitate, lead, teach, and be in a world filled with overwhelming suffering and deep beauty. Being... Read more
By Rabbi Joey Glick Parashat Emor (Leviticus 21:1-24:23) Mr. Rogers, Daniel Tiger, God, and Moses share a problem this week: how do we talk about death with those we love. In the summer of 1968, Fred Rogers noticed something troubling. In the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, Mr. Rogers worried about children becoming traumatized by what they heard from grownups and from what they watched on the evening news. It was increasingly impossible... Read more
By Rabbi Avi Killip Parashat Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:1-20:27) Parashat Kedoshim is beautiful and very full. There is much to see on the surface. In just two chapters of Leviticus, we are told to care for the poor, to be honest, to never take revenge nor bear a grudge. We are told when and how to give sacrifices, keep Shabbat, and what we are permitted to eat. We are told how to guard relationships, how to treat our animals and how to harvest... Read more
By Jessica Spencer Parashat Tazria-Metzora (Leviticus 12:1-15:33) Our bodies, with their many sensations, their flaws and flows, are hard to understand. They form both our public selves and our most private parts. Parashat Tazria-Metzora offers us two different models of how to make sense of our bodies. What can we learn from the Torah of skin diseases and discharges? What can we intuit? In Leviticus 13, we encounter graphic descriptions of skin markings: וַיְדַבֵּר יְהֹוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל־אַהֲרֹן לֵאמֹר׃ אָדָם כִּי־יִהְיֶה בְעוֹר־בְּשָׂרוֹ שְׂאֵת אוֹ־סַפַּחַת אוֹ... Read more
By David Mahfouda Parashat Shemini (Leviticus 9:1-11:47) Last spring I taught a class about creative practice and Jewish practice. The last session in the series was about Shema—about the ways in which our own creativity stems from our ability to listen deeply and direct attention. The class’s working definition of listening was heavily influenced by Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing, in which she lifts up Franco Berardi’s distinction between ‘connectivity’ and ‘sensitivity.’ Connectivity is the rapid circulation of information among compatible units—an... Read more
By Rabbi Avi Strausberg Pesach / Passover In our early days of courting in New York City, my wife and I would take turns planning mini-adventures. One day, we’d take the ferry to Staten Island, standing on its deck, mist in our faces. The next, we’d walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and discover a local shop with homemade ice cream. Each date was an opportunity to dazzle the other person, to present them with an offering in the form of... Read more
By Rabbi Frankie Sandmel RS ‘22 Parashat Tzav (Leviticus 6:1-8:36) A favorite song—or, songs, actually—in the Jewish activist circles I often run in is a mashup which takes a verse from this week’s parashah, transformed into a chant by the illustrious Shefa Gold, and combines it with a classic protest song. The result is a powerful agitation, as organizers use that word, meaning: something to inspire a sense of self-interest and personal investment in the issue at hand. The verse, Leviticus 6:6:... Read more
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Hidden in Plain Sight
By Heather Renetzky Parashat Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89) The first time I ever read Parashat Naso was in preparation for my Bat Mitzvah. As a curious 12-year-old, there was a lot in this Torah portion that could have caught my eye: The instructions for how we can repair wrongdoings (Numbers 5:6-9), the baffling Sota ritual (I remember looking up what “adultery” meant), the very specific commitments of the Nazarite. But the thing I got stuck on was not any of the flashier parts... Read more