Each week, Rabbi Sheryl Lewart, z”l, would send out blessings to congregants and friends, offering a modern twist on each week’s Torah portion. Blessings for Life's Journey is a posthumously published collection of her writings.
Traditionally, as we end a book of Torah, we both congratulate ourselves and resolve to study even more diligently in the future. We say hazak, hazak, v'nithazek: be strong, be strong, and strengthen one ...
As we now begin our study of the book of Vayikra (Leviticus), we start with two observations:Even some fairly dedicated Torah learners find this the most difficult book of the Hamisha Humshei Torah (Five ...
There is so much wonderful meat for discussion in the Joseph story that it is easy to skip or skim the story of Judah and Tamar - or of Tamar and Judah - to get back to ...
A colleague of mine once summarized the inner power of Judaism in the following way: Judaism challenges us "to ethicize ritual, and ritualize ethics." Last week in this column we had a chance ...
What does the well-dressed Cohen Gadol (High Priest) look like? Quite resplendent, according to this week's Torah portion, Tetzaveh. Bearing on his chest the hosen mishpat (breastplate of judgment) with twelve different minerals, each ...
In this response to Exodus 24, Aaron Schuman ponders what Moses, Aaron, Nadav, Avihu and the seventy elders of Israel saw on Mt. Sinai.