RJ Blog

By Al Tanenbaum This week’s Torah portion, Chukat, is uncommonly rich with themes of life, death, leadership, and faith. Most often it is thought of for its nearly impenetrable and detailed commandment for using the ashes of an unblemished cow for cleansing those who have come in contact with the dead. Alternatively, scholars and students debate the harsh punishment that God handed down to Moses for his failure to speak to a rock, instead striking it twice. Chukat also furthers the narrative of the passing of a generation as we read of the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, and the [...]

by Rabbi Barry Block The disconnect is striking. “The Jewish vote,” we were told last year, is all about support for Israel. But here I am at the Consultation on Conscience.  Israel is on the agenda, to be sure. But it’s a crowded agenda. And our friends in Washington seem to “get” that better than the pre-election press. The Consultation’s keynote was a conversation between Rabbi Rick Jacobs and Ambassador Susan Rice. They talked about Israel. But they also struggled with Sudan and Syria. They emphasized international LGBT human rights. Senators and members of Congress of both parties are poised [...]

For too much of Jewish history Jewish women did not count. Consider the opening of the Book of Exodus: “Eleh sh’mot b’nai Yisrael – These are the names of the children of Israel.” (Exodus 1:1) The text then goes on to name only the male children of Israel: Reuben, Simeon and Judah… but there is no mention of the female children of Israel. There definitely were many female children of Israel who were there but the opening of Exodus doesn’t see fit to mention them. The Biblical text seems to be telling us that: “girls don’t matter. Pharaoh also believes that [...]

By Blu Greenberg In every generation, Jews have understood the significance of the Revelation of Torah in their lives. We have studied and written and taught about the meaning of Torah and its relevance to contemporary circumstances. With the publication of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary in 2008, the teachings of women scholars and Jewish professionals on the significance of Torah in their lives had not been shared in such a dedicated work. The “Contemporary Reflections” section in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary “enable us to hear women’s voices that reckon with divine revelation….each essay shows the significance of Torah as [...]

by Karen Humphrey In the last few weeks, our Torah portions have dealt a lot with the design and construction of the Tabernacle. In reading commentary on these portions, one of the things that caught my eye was the way the four cardinal points of the compass were used in the Tabernacle. I began to wonder how that related to the directions of the Native American Medicine Wheel and the Chinese Ba Gua. 

Union for Reform Judaism President Rabbi Rick Jacobs and NFTY President Evan Traylor delivered a joint D’var Torah during Saturday morning T’fillah at last weekend’s NFTY Convention and Youth Engagement Conference, which run concurrently. An abridged text and full video of their address follows; you can also find the full text of Rabbi Jacobs Friday night d’var Torah, “On Top of the World,” here.

This d’var Torah is the winner of the Wendy Blickstein Memorial D’var Torah Competition, which was established in memory of Wendy Blickstein, a former member of NFTY’s Mid-Atlantic Region whose years were cut far too short because of cancer. The Blickstein family established this competition for aspiring teen writers to share their words of Torah with our NFTY Convention community and beyond.

Two thousand years ago, a rabbi recalled the breadth and depth of what his teacher had given him. Yohanan ben Zakkai remembered his teacher Hillel saying: If all the heavens were parchments and all the trees quills and all the seas were ink, it would still be impossible to write down even a part of what I learned from my teacher. (Sofrim 16:6) I am no Yochanan ben Zakkai, but these words express how I feel about Rabbi David Hartman. I would not be a rabbi if I had not studied with Rabbi David Hartman, the founder and spiritual leader [...]

by Marilyn Price I’m not exactly sure when it first began. My guess is that I was 4 or younger, and my brother David was 6. We shared a bedroom, the only one, in an apartment with my folks on the north side of Chicago. They slept on the pull-out hideaway bed in the living room. No TV, no room to roam, just me and my big bro. We had books from the library, but I couldn’t read yet, so although David could have read me stories when we were supposed to be sleeping, he did not. We were compliant [...]

The New York Times published an interesting story this week on late NYC Mayor Ed Koch, a Jew. Apparently the mayor’s rabbi, Arthur Schneier of Park East Synagogue (Modern Orthodox), tried to take His Honor cemetery shopping, but Koch was bound and determined to be buried in Manhattan, and so he will spend eternity in Trinity Cemetery, surrounded by Episcopalians. Although the Times implies that Park East was where the mayor davened – when he davened – it also clearly states that he identified as a Conservative Jew. Not that he lived as one; he neither kept kosher nor was [...]

by Livia D. Thompson, FTA “And when Israel saw the wondrous power which the Eternal had wielded against the Egyptians, the people feared the Eternal; they had faith in the Eternal and in God’s servant Moses. Then Moses and the Israelites sang this [Shirot Hayam] song to the Eternal.” B’shalach (Exodus 14:31—15:1) “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions,” (Abraham Lincoln during one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, August 21, 1858, according to Lincoln on Leadership) Moses and Lincoln, while separated [...]

Beginning this week Visit URJ’s new site For Torah haiku You might have read about the URJ’s new website, ReformJudaism.org, which includes it’s own blog. As RJ.org transitions to a sort of “insider’s blog” about congregational life and Movement activity, the new website is the right place for material like The Torah In Haiku. So, starting with this week’s entry on Yitro, you’ll now find my quick takes on the weekly Parsha at its new home. After you’ve gotten your haiku fix for the week, be sure to take some time to explore the new website and blog for a [...]

by Cantor Ellen Dreskin Not many of us stop to think about the role of storytelling in our lives. Everything that happens to us is sifted through our own filters, our own history, our own set of circumstances, and settles in our hearts and our brains as a story – our story. If Torah or liturgy or Jewish tales speak to us, it is probably because we feel the truth in these Jewish sources as it intersects with our own experience. How many of us remember our desire to hear the same bedtime stories again and again and again, and [...]

It’s Shabbat Shirah Time to read Shirat HaYam The song of the sea Who is like You G-d? Majestic in holiness Doing miracles