Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

For most of Western thought, when people consider it, they divide thought into two primary categories. There are people who single out logic and reason, and who regard that mode as the core of human identity, as the pinnacle of human achievement, and as the mark of our uniqueness as a species. They hold this form of thinking to be in opposition to emotion, which they view as somehow sliding back into an animal existence and an inferior state of being. Of course, this charge upsets the emotionalists, being that they are - by definition - emotional. Read more...

Like so many people, we live with unresolved polarities. Opposite perceptions of the world, each appropriate to a specific situation, jostle our sense of security, identity, and self. For Jews, that sense of living with contradictions extends back to our earliest beginnings. A small people, we encompassed the universe with our poetry and our prayers. A weak people, we articulated notions of good and evil which have challenged and restrained the most powerful nations of the world. Read more...

In thinking about what could I possibly share with you at this season, how I might help frame the issue of being alive, I thought naturally of Milk Bones. Milk Bones, for those of you who do not live with spoiled dogs, are the boxes of little dog bon bons that we purchase to lavish upon our pets. But I want to tell you not about new milk bones per se; I want tell you a story about very old milk bones. It's really a story about freedom. Read more...

In one of its most sublime breaks with many other religious traditions, the Torah retains the record of God's insistence that the sacred writings of Israel belong to the entire people, not simply to one holy caste or exclusive one aristocracy.  The Torah of Israel belongs to all Israel.   Read more...

The rabbis of the Talmud established a method of reading the Torah that is embodied in the 13 Rules of Rabbi Ishmael (known as the Yud-Gimel Middot) found at the beginning of the ancient midrashic collection, the Sifra. Those hermeneutical rules provided guidelines for transforming the text of Torah into a living and applicable document. Subsequent rabbis went further, providing for how to derive halakhot, specific laws, from the Torah’s timeless legislation as well.   Read more...