Category: Thought of the week
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Comfort After the Cracks
This week we read Parashat Vaetchanan, on Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of comfort after Tisha B’Av. After the heaviness of the fast, after remembering destruction, exile, and all the painful moments that have marked Jewish history, we hear the words from Isaiah: “Comfort, comfort My people.” It is a beautiful line, but it is not…
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Learning to Hear the Warning
This week we begin the book of Devarim, with Moshe standing before the Israelites and looking back over the journey they have taken. He does not offer a sentimental farewell. He does not soften the past to make everyone feel better. Instead, he speaks with painful honesty about failure, fear, rebellion, missed opportunities, and the…
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The Journey Does Not End There
Parashat Matot-Masei brings us to the closing chapters of Bamidbar. After all the wandering, complaints, battles, mistakes, grief, and moments of courage, the Israelites are finally standing near the edge of the Promised Land. They are not there yet, but they are close enough to feel that the wilderness is no longer forever. That matters,…
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Careful With Fire
Parashat Pinchas is difficult, and it should be. It opens with Pinchas being rewarded after taking violent action in the middle of a national crisis. That is not the sort of passage we can read lightly, or turn into a simple moral lesson. The Torah praises Pinchas for his zeal, but Jewish tradition has always…
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Blessing in the Places We Least Expect
This week we read the double parashah of Chukat-Balak, and together they offer a strikingly honest picture of human limitation. In Chukat, the people face death, thirst, frustration, and uncertainty. In Balak, a foreign king sees Israel approaching and immediately panics. One parashah shows us a people struggling from within. The other shows us how…
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Who Do You Think You Are?
This week’s parashah, Korach, is one of the most uncomfortable in the Torah because Korach does not present himself as wicked. He does not openly say that he wants power, status, or control. Instead, he speaks in the language of equality and holiness. “All the congregation are holy,” he says. On the surface, it sounds…
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When Fear Writes the Report
This week’s parashah, Sh’lach, tells one of the most frustrating stories in the Torah, and perhaps one of the most human. Moshe sends twelve spies to scout out the Land of Israel. They return with evidence of its beauty and abundance, carrying a cluster of grapes so large it needs to be carried between two…
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When the Light Is Not Enough
This week’s parashah, Beha’alotcha, opens with the lighting of the Menorah in the Mishkan. Aharon is instructed to raise the flames, ensuring that each lamp gives light. It is a beautiful image, but also a demanding one. Light does not appear by accident. It must be tended, raised, and protected. At first, the parashah feels…
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The Danger of Hollow Holiness
This week’s parashah, Naso, is the longest in the Torah, yet one of its most striking themes is not quantity, but contradiction. Within a single parashah we encounter the Nazir, a person who voluntarily takes on additional restrictions in pursuit of holiness, separating themselves from wine and ordinary pleasures. Yet later, that same Nazir must…
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The Covenant of Belonging
This week, Jewish communities across the world celebrate Shavuot, marking the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Yet Shavuot is not simply the anniversary of revelation. It is the annual return of a question that Judaism never stops asking: what does it actually mean to receive Torah? The festival readings speak not only about celebration,…