I do not remember many specific lessons from my elementary school experience, but the mnemonic devices we were taught have stuck with me.

As we’ve recently turned again to the beginning of our Torah, I want to address an important question: Is it true?

For me, the stories in the Torah represent a religious or poetic truth – not necessarily an historical or scientific truth.

This Shabbat, in parashah Pinchas, we read the story of the daughters of Zelophehad (Numbers 27:1–11).

It should not surprise us that in this week's Torah portion, parashah Balak, the animal that saves Balaam’s life is female.

On the first day of Shavuot, we read in Exodus 19 that God declares to the Israelites assembled at the foot of Mount Sinai:

“If you obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples….

One of the great examples of Reform Jewish thinking, some 2,000 years before there was anything called Reform Judaism, regards the Festival of Shavuot.

In the Torah, Shavuot is strictly an agricultural holiday, a celebration of both the first summer fruits

Speak
of ritual and rules,
of purity
and piety.
Speak
of celebration,
and time
that drifts and flows
in a spiral of
light and dark
and bounty and decay.
Speak, in each season
of coming and going
and rising
like smoke,
like breath,
effortless as
thought,
and

During the 40 years that I served as a congregational rabbi, Purim evolved from a pleasant celebration into what has become, in my view, almost a third High Holiday.

I have this terrible image I can’t quite shake, of walking into high school on the first day and being terrified.

More than 2,000 people attended Cherry Hill High School East when I was a student there.