Tag: god
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Just Getting Even?
In our Torah reading for tomorrow, (Genesis 31:7-32:3) Jacob flees from Laban with his family and all of the wealth he has managed to accumulate in his years of service/servitude to his father-in-law. We learn that Rachel, Jacob’s wife (and Laban’s daughter), steals the household idols and brings them with her. The commentators wonder why…
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To Be Ever Fresh and Fragrant
Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlov, the great-grandson of the founder of Hassidism, the Baal Shem Tov, was born in 1772 and died at the age of 38 in 1810. Rabbi Nachman is buried in Uman, in Ukraine, where he spent his final years. His grave has become a place of pilgrimage for tens of thousands who…
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Love Makes the World Go Round
In her 1986 album, True Blue, Madonna singsThere’s hunger everywhereWe’ve got to take a standReach out for someone’s handLove makes the world go roundIt’s easy to forget If you don’t hear the soundOf pain and prejudiceLove makes the world go round. The idea that “love makes the world go round” is found in our Parasha…
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A Broken Vessel
Our holy Torah knows of no perfect people. Even the founder of our religion, Abraham, the first Hebrew, is a flawed individual. Between the ages of 75, when, as Abram, he received his promise from God that he would become “a great nation” to the age of 99, when Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the…
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Striking a Balance
The Torah portion for this week contains two stories, one of destruction and one of dispersal. In the story of Noah, God regrets that he has created humankind. The Torah tells us that the “earth was filled with lawlessness”. According to the sages, a merchant would bring a cartload of grapes through the marketplace. This…
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The Universal Word
What word in the English language is the most understood around the world? This word appears in our Torah portion this week. When you say this word, people in Europe understand it, people in South America understand it, and in Africa, and across the Middle and the Far East all understand this word. In fact,…
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The Miracles of Everyday Life
In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses assembles the Israelites and recounts the past forty years of their experience together. He reminds them of “the wondrous feats that you saw with your own eyes, those prodigious signs and marvels.” “Yet,” he continues, “The Eternal has not given you a mind to understand or eyes to see or…
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A Summary Execution?
Last week’s parasha closed with the Israelites, encamped at a place called Shittim. There, they begin to commit harlotry with the daughters of Moab, a pagan people. A plague breaks out among the people, an expression of God’s displeasure (to say the least) with the Israelite’s descent into paganism. An Israelite prince named Zimri brings…
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Extra Sensory Perception?
Our Torah reading (Numbers 22:2-25:9) this week opens with the Israelites encamped on the steppes of Moab, on the east side of the Jordan River, across from Jericho. Thay are poised to enter the Land of Canaan. Balak, King of Moab, has heard of the military victories of the Israelites and offers the prophet, Ballam,…
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The Daughter of Pharaoh
The Book of Exodus opens with a list of names of Jacob and those who went down with him to Egypt. This gives the book its name in Hebrew, “Shemot” or “Names (of)”. We are quickly introduced to Pharaoh, then to Moses. But we are introduced to important women as well. There are Shifra and…
Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph 