Separation and Connectedness
Jul 17, 2013 By Leonard A. Sharzer | Commentary | Va'et-hannan
In Parashat Va-ethannan, Moses seems to have finally come to accept that he will not enter the Promised Land with the People, whom he liberated from Egyptian slavery and guided during a 40-year trek through the wilderness. As he concludes his first oration, he recalls his pleading with God to allow him to enter the Land, a plea that was denied because of his response to the demand of the People for water. Now, no longer pleading for a pardon, or even a commutation of the sentence, he exhorts the People to follow God’s commandments and the teachings he, Moses, has transmitted to them.
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Consolation and Repair
Jul 24, 2013 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Eikev
Here we find ourselves two weeks into the seven weeks marked ever so gently by their haftarot, the shiv’ah d’nehemata (seven haftarot of comfort or consolation)—seven weeks in which the haftarot have nothing to do with the parashiyot, and everything to do with where we are in the calendar year: heading from Tish’ah Be’Av into the season of teshuvah, and ultimately into a new year.
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Bacon in the Season of Repentance
Jul 31, 2013 By Charlie Schwartz | Commentary | Re'eh
As it becomes clear that living and dealing with “bacon mania” is part of early 21st-century life in the United States, now is a good time to reflect on the Jewish prohibition of eating pork, which appears in this week’s parashah.
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Roads to Nonviolence
Aug 7, 2013 By Ofra Arieli Backenroth | Commentary | Shofetim
Is there a way to wage war in a humane way?
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We Have Met the Enemy, and the Enemy Is Us
Aug 14, 2013 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Ki Tetzei
How does war affect the human soul? Our Torah portion, Ki Tetzei, begins with a verse that raises these issues in a stark and discomfiting manner.
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To What Shall We Return?
Aug 28, 2013 By Lisa Gelber | Commentary | Nitzavim | Vayeilekh
As we engage in teshuvah, (re)turning to the deep, soulful place hidden beneath the barriers we erect for others and ourselves, we must ask ourselves to what we are returning and how that relocation will manifest itself in our lives.
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Face to Face
Nov 24, 2015 By Anne Lapidus Lerner | Commentary | Vayishlah
The tortured relationship between the twin brothers Esau and Jacob has been a significant element in the two previous parshiyot—Toledot and Vayetze. It is resolved in this week’s parashah, Vayishlah. Although there is no peace treaty, the resolution is deeply desired by both brothers and reflected both in the undoing of the language that started the problem and in the brothers’ truly seeing and acknowledging each other.
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Family
Nov 18, 2015 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Vayetzei
This week’s Torah reading, Vayetzei (Genesis 28:10-32:2), opens and closes with flights of angels accompanying our forefather Jacob (aka Israel, though, he won’t get named that until next week), as he flees from and returns to the Promised Land. When Jacob leaves, he is running in fear for his life. For our father Jacob has cheated his macho older brother Esau once too often, so much so that he has threatened to kill him. Of course, Esau isn’t that much older, for the two brothers are twins. But as any set of twins will tell you, the one who came first, even if by mere seconds—that one is the elder. We might assume, along with the Bible, that birth-order matters. But Genesis is all about the younger supplanting the older and we are on solid ground suggesting that this sibling rivalry stuff is at the very heart of this week’s Torah lesson.
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