Wholly Jewish: Noa: The Beauty of Taking Up Space
The Power of Our Dreams, Both Asleep and Awake
When Do We Know We’ve Completed the Struggle?
In Parashat Vayishlach, Jacob receives a new name that becomes the name of the Jewish people: Israel.
The Most Painful Parts of Joseph’s Story Can Teach Us about Ourselves
Soul-Making: Living in the Peaks, the Valleys, and Everything in Between
What Torah Can Teach Us about Overcoming Loneliness
The Greatest Threat to Civilization, as Taught by Torah
When reading Parashat Tol’dot each year, I am amazed how relevant these ancient stories remain today, including the last significant moment in Isaac’s life.
Letting Abraham's Example Guide Us, During Election Season and Beyond
Is Time Ours or Is It God's?
In Parashat Emor, the verses in Leviticus 23:1-44 name and describe the sacred times of the Jewish calendar: Shabbat, Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, and the Pilgrimage Festivals of Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. Time becomes a holy thing, and the "normalcy" of time — of one day being no different than any other — is forever differentiated by the weekly Sabbath and by these special festive days.
The Sound of Shofar: Leading Us to Revelation and Freedom
Count off seven sabbath years — seven times seven years — so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. (Leviticus 25:8-10)
In this week's portion, the Jubilee year is established. Called yovel, our parashah explains how every forty-nine years — seven weeks of seven years — in the seventh month, on Yom Kippur, the shofar of freedom is to be sounded throughout the land for all its inhabitants. This iconic verse to proclaim freedom throughout the land is inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.