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Picture of Rabbi Lisa Edwards

Rabbi Lisa Edwards

Unloading the emotional U-Haul: Parashat Vayechi (Genesis 47:28-50:26)

A funeral director once said, “In all the funerals I’ve attended, I have yet to see a hearse with a U-Haul trailer attached.” But while it’s true that “you can’t take it with you,”meaning material possessions, I’m not so sure about emotional possessions. How many of us have walked behind a casket where lay the body of a relative or friend with whom we were still talking? Or, wrenchingly, with whom we never had the conversation we meant to have?

Shabbat Pesach (Exodus 33:12-34:26)

I’ve taken to traveling light to avoid costly airline baggage charges. But my wife wisely reminds me that paying $25 to check luggage costs less than a chiropractor visit.

Is It Sufficient?

When I was a teenager, my friends and I used to laugh at the public service announcements that played nightly on television, back in the day of legal youth curfews: “It’s 11 p.m. Do you know where your children are?”

Speak Up

I recently had the privilege of listening to Rabbi Arik Ascherman, an American-born Israeli rabbi who, often at great physical risk to himself, advocates for others through the organization Rabbis for Human Rights.

Crossing paths

Parshat Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) How about, for starters — crossed path by crossed path, person by person, angel by angel — a rescued world?

Commemorating Sorrows

\”Every head is ailing, and every heart is sad\” (Isaiah 1.5). We read these words in this week\’s haftarah for Shabbat Khazon (Sabbath of Vision), the Shabbat before Tisha B\’Av. The words seem especially poignant and true these past few weeks, as we watch in angst as events unfold in Israel, Lebanon and Gaza.

Life More Ordinary

In this week\’s double Torah portion, Tazria-Metzorah (Leviticus 13, in particular), God instructs Moses and Aaron on the role of priests when people take ill.

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