by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 9, 2023 | Acharei Mot
The portion of Acharei Mot picks up following the deaths of Aaron’s older sons, Nadab and Abihu. It contains the instructions for the Yom Kippur — or Day of Atonement — service in the Tabernacle, and forbids slaughtering animal offerings outside the...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 9, 2023 | Pekudei, Temple
This week’s portion is often read together with the previous portion, Vayakhel. Besides the mathematical inevitability of some years having an extra Saturday, Jewish tradition prescribes a leap month be added seven times over a 19-year cycle so that Passover always...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 19, 2023 | Faith, God, Good and Evil, Israel, Psalms, Tests and Trials
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz When I sit down at my Shabbat dinner table and I am blessed to have my four children around me, something strange happens. I look at them but I don’t see them. I look at my 20-year-old daughter and see one moment, caught in time, with her in...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 11, 2022 | Balak, Community, Holiness, Modesty, Purity
In today’s world of social media, nothing is private. People post and share everything about themselves, from what they ate for breakfast to their most personal and intimate moments. Sometimes it seems like privacy and personal space is a thing of the past, but is...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 12, 2022 | Beha'alotcha, Israel, Leadership, Light Unto the Nations, Temple
I often find myself walking around my house, turning off lights in empty rooms. Why waste electricity if there is no one there to benefit from it? Interestingly, a similar question arose thousands of years ago, in the Temple itself! In the eighth chapter of Numbers,...
