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Taste: Sweet in our Mouths

Jun 6, 2016 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Short Video | Shavuot

From the 5776 Receiving Torah with All Our Senses series.

Hearing: Reading the Torah and Singing its Praises

Jun 6, 2016 By Nancy Abramson | Short Video | Shavuot

From the 5776 Receiving Torah with All Our Senses series.

Touch: Beyond the Mountain’s Edge

Jun 6, 2016 By Jan Uhrbach | Short Video | Shavuot

From the 5776 Receiving Torah with All Our Senses series.

Fragrance: The Aroma of the Torah

Jun 6, 2016 By Daniel Nevins | Short Video | Shavuot

From the 5776 Receiving Torah with All Our Senses series.

Sight: Revelation at the Yiddish Theater

Jun 6, 2016 By Stefanie Halpern | Short Video | Shavuot

From the 5776 Receiving Torah with All Our Senses series.

Festival Ma’ariv (Lower Voice)

Recordings by Rabbi and Hazzan Seth Adelson
Project coordinator: Rabbi David Freidenreich

Festival Ma’ariv (Higher Voice)

Recordings by Cantor Arianne BrownProject coordinator: Rabbi David Freidenreich

Festival Shaharit (Lower Voice)

Recordings by Rabbi and Hazzan Seth Adelson
Project coordinator: Rabbi David Freidenreich

Festival Shaharit (Higher Voice)

Recordings by Cantor Arianne Brown and Cantor Jennifer Kanarek CahnProject coordinator: Rabbi David Freidenreich

Festival Musaf (Lower Voice)

Recordings by Rabbi and Hazzan Seth Adelson
Project coordinator: Rabbi David Freidenreich

Festival Musaf (Higher Voice)

Recordings by Cantor Arianne Brown and Cantor Jennifer Kanarek CahnProject coordinator: Rabbi David Freidenreich

Songs of Joy, Counterpoints of Tragedy

May 6, 2016 By Jonathan Lipnick | Commentary | Aharei Mot

Perhaps the Torah speaks now, in the spring of atonement, because we know so well our songs of joy carry with them counterpoints of tragedy.

Why should we be reading about Yom Kippur around the time Pesah is celebrated? These two holidays seem so different, and yet, in her poem “Aharei Mot,” Ruth Brin was on to something, leading me to wonder: How was I to understand the interrelationship between Yom Kippur and Pesah? How was I to take Ruth Brin’s instructive words to heart?

<em>Shevi’i Shel Pesah</em>: Living at the Frontier

Shevi’i Shel Pesah: Living at the Frontier

Apr 29, 2016 By Lauren Henderson | Commentary | Pesah

On the seventh day of Passover (Shevi’i shel Pesah), we reached the frontier of our existence: Yam Suf, the Sea of Reeds. We had known slavery intimately, becoming deeply comfortable in Egypt even as we clamored to leave. And after all the plagues and darkness and death, we arrived, trembling, at the water’s edge, about to surface and breathe the unfamiliar air of freedom for the first time.

Prophetess, Leader, Musician

Apr 29, 2016 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Pesah

Joy is the theme of the hour as God’s praises are sung during the completion of Hallel. The image that bursts forth in our mind’s eye is that of Miriam the Prophetess and the women celebrating their newly found freedom on the banks of the Reed Sea. While the moment is solemn, it is also one of intense elation.

A Noble Freedom

Apr 22, 2016 By Tim Daniel Bernard | Commentary | Pesah

Many Virginians of middle and upper ranks aspired to behave like gentlemen. In the early seventeenth century an English gentleman was defined as one who could “live idly and without manual labor.” The words “gentleman” and “independent” were used synonymously, and “independence” in this context meant freedom from the necessity of labor.

—David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, 366

Beyond the Exodus from Egypt

Apr 15, 2016 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Pesah

Most of us, at one time or another, have asked the question about the Passover seder that the Haggadah attributes to the “wicked son”: What is the point of all this? At such moments of skepticism, we probably understand why an annual family gathering is worthwhile, we perhaps remember fondly the seders of our youth, and we may even confess to being moved by the rituals reenacted at the seder table year after year: reciting the four questions, dripping wine from cup to plate at the recital of the ten plagues, singing Had Gadya. But really, we ask: Why is the event of Israelite slaves leaving Egypt over 3,000 years ago (if it ever happened in the first place) so important that an entire holiday is devoted to it (not to mention countless daily prayers)?