Rabbi of Ohr HaTorah Synagogue, mostly online synagogue in Los Angeles
Last week\’s portion ends with a ferocious battle; this week\’s begins with the after action report and the distributing of medals. We learn the names of those killed
and those rewarded and then all the troops are mustered and counted, to see who remains alive from the fighting.
Each of us lives a spiritual journey. One of greatest tasks in life is to know our journey, to understand its contours and what it demands of us. The Torah teaches us these journeys, these paths into our center.
This Shabbat is Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat in which we remember tribe of Amalek, the nemesis of Jewish people. Amalek is described in Bible as attacking the people of Israel at weak places and at weak moments.
For many, perhaps most, American Jews today, the words that open this week\’s Torah portion stand at the center of the their understanding of Judaism.
How does one prepare for freedom? One Jewish answer is found in the reading of the four special portions read along with the regular Torah portions in the weeks before
In this week\’s Torah portion, Vayechi, we have the most intimate description of a deathbed scene and the most elaborate description of a le\’vayah (funeral) contained in the Torah.
When I began to study Torah seriously as a college student, I was introduced to its spiritual depths. I found that the meanings of the holidays went beyond the agricultural and historical sources, and often had complex spiritual teachings woven in. I remember that, back in those days, I could find little spiritual or poetic meanings of Shemini Atzeret. It was blank, or more accurately, a cipher.
We lost e-mail contact with our son, Kayitz, when he and his Marine unit disembarked from their ship on Feb. 24. From just about the beginning of the Iraq War, though, we knew what he was going through.
At a recent Shabbat, a guest at our services asked the person staffing our welcome table, \”Is the rabbi here Jewish?\” What the person meant was, \”Is the rabbi a convert?\” Many have shared with me over the years, as our congregation has grown, that acquaintances of theirs have told them, on good authority, that Rabbi Finley \”is not really Jewish.\”
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