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December 26, 2021

The Healing Power of Torah

When a person has a fever, Rebbe Yochanan explains: “Go to a place where there is a bush, tie a strand of hair to said bush, and for three days (the length of most feverish illnesses), trim the bush a little each day and recite the following: ‘And the angel of God appeared to Moshe in a blazing fire in the midst of a bush.’”

Why use the burning bush text here? Let’s unpack this ritual:

The strand of hair, while odd, does make sense with modern science. Within a single strand of hair exists our DNA, meaning that our physical make-up is tethered to the bush in this ritual.

Why the trimming of the bush? Rav Acha bar Rava explains that as a person cuts away at the bush, he should say: “Bush, bush! God did not choose you because you are higher than all of the other trees, but rather because you are lower than all of the other trees.”

Anyone who has ever been sick knows this. In the process of recovery and healing, we experience humility. When we’re ill, we recognize the immense wisdom of the bracha Asher Yatzar, the Divine gift of everything working smoothly. We are fragile, finite, entirely dependent on God’s will and the miracle of healing.

The act of cutting away at the bush is the physical representation of our emotional acceptance that nothing is eternal but God. And yet with pruning, a bush can thrive. A person can go through the cuts, struggles and fevers of life and come out more vibrant and full than she otherwise would be.

With pruning, a bush can thrive. A person can go through the cuts, struggles and fevers of life and come out more vibrant and full than she otherwise would be.

But the message of this ritual is most profoundly conveyed in the reference to Parshat Shemot’s text itself: By all logic, the fire should have consumed the bush. So too with a fever in the body. And so, Rebbe Yochanan advises us to use the burning bush as a prayer– that God should save the body from destructive heat just as He preserved the bush from the blazing fire.

Healing is as miraculous and worth celebrating as the burning bush. As someone with a toddler who had a fever this past week during the covid surge, I affirm this with gratitude (not covid-related, and Ella is recovering, Baruch Hashem!)

Halachically, a person who was sick and has been healed recites birkat hagomel, a ritual upon healing, but Rebbe Yochanan’s burning bush ritual is live, happening in the midst of sickness, before healing. It holds our hand as we are ill and on the road to recovery. Rebbe Yochanan was known to offer his hand to others when they were ill: “Give me your hand,” he would say, and he would lift his fellows out of their illness and suffering.

As we face illness today that has again impacted daily life and our sense of security, we can gain chizuk and hope from Rebbe Yochanan’s ritual. We can read the text of our parsha as a prayer to God. Our sanctuary is emptier than usual, upstairs is not filled with kids, and the words of kiddush I will say in a moment will not lead to the schmoozing we ordinarily savor. And yet we are still here together, davening, learning Torah, and sharing love and commitment. We have not and will not be consumed. With this on our hearts, I invite you to close your eyes and join me in a prayer:

“Hashem, remember us down to the details of our DNA, which You gave us. Protect us and all of Your creations. We recognize we are fragile and that all life is in Your hands. Give us Your hand. Lift us up as Rebbe Yochanan was known to do for his fellows. We may feel cut down, as though over the past two years we grow only to be cut down. Turn those cuts into the very pruning that will lead to our flourishing ahead. In the midst of the fire, You have already made the impossible possible: the wisdom to create vaccines, boosters, and therapies; the community and medical guidance that have steered us and grounded us.

“Right now, we hold in our hearts all who are ill, all who are isolated, all who are afraid, all who are frustrated. We ask that You hold us too, such that the blazing fire does not consume, but rather proves to be the beginning of our story of redemption. ‘And the angel of God appeared to Moshe in a blazing fire in the midst of a bush.’”


Rabbanit Alissa Thomas-Newborn is a member of the spiritual leadership at B’nai David-Judea Congregation in Los Angeles, and she is a Board Certified Chaplain with Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains.

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It’s Time to Investigate the United Nations

While tens of millions of poor souls are dying and starving under brutal regimes in places like Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Congo and Somalia, among many others, the United Nations decided on Dec. 30 that only one country merited an open-ended investigation.

If you haven’t been living on Mars the past few decades, you’ve already guessed the name of that country—Israel—the recipient of more UN condemnations than all other countries combined.

So, what did the world’s only Jewish state do this time to deserve such a staggering level of discrimination from a world body that claims to champion justice, fairness and human rights?

Oh, the usual. Last May, Israel decided it didn’t want to see thousands of its citizens—Jews and non-Jews alike—perish at the hands of Hamas terror rockets. As Hamas was launching 4,000 rockets at Israeli civilians, Israel defended itself with everything it had, including the Iron Dome, civilian bomb shelters and targeted air strikes.

Israel’s defense of its people triggered the scourge of Jew-haters everywhere, including at the UN’s Human Rights Council, the world’s anti-Israel headquarters, which voted to investigate Israel against possible “war crimes.”

The way the UN treats Israel significantly worse than the most murderous and evil regimes on earth is itself a crime. Not only does this gross singling-out undermine the UN’s credibility, it adds fuel to Jew-haters everywhere and endangers Jews.

The Dec. 30 vote in the General Assembly made that investigation official and open-ended. The resolution, which Israel’s UN envoy Gilad Erdan called “despicable and biased,” calls for the creation of a permanent “Commission of Inquiry” to monitor and report on Israel’s rights violations in Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

True to form, this is the first such commission of inquiry with an “ongoing” mandate, unwrapped exclusively for the Jewish state as a holiday present.

The irony of ironies is that on the same day the UN accentuated its maniacal singling-out of Israel, a poll came out showing that Palestinians blame their own leaders for their misery. The Palestinian Atlas Center for Studies and Research found that 45% of respondents hold the Palestinian Authority responsible for the perennial crises in the Gaza Strip, with 25% saying they hold Hamas responsible. Only 15% of Palestinians blamed Israel.

Maybe, after all these years, more and more Palestinians are realizing that their leaders have used hundreds of millions of foreign aid not to build schools and hospitals but tunnels and bomb factories.

Maybe they’ve stopped ignoring that Hamas terrorists hide behind women and children when they launch rockets at Israel so that Israel will be blamed for any Palestinian casualties.

Maybe they read somewhere that the Israeli army has the lowest wartime civilian casualty ratio of any army.

Maybe they saw a YouTube video of fellow Arabs in Israel who are grateful that Israel defends them and their families from indiscriminate terror rockets launched by Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel.

Or maybe they’ve been seeing news reports of their Arab brethren from the Gulf States and Morocco saying the exact opposite they’ve been hearing for years about Israel from their leaders—instead of being a demonic state, Israel is actually a vibrant and productive nation that can benefit all the people of the region.

None of that mattered, of course, to the UN, which understands the number one rule of international diplomacy: No one ever gets punished for discriminating against Israel.

Seekers of justice everywhere must demand a Commission of Inquiry to determine how this discrimination against Israel took place, who is behind it, and what will be the remedies.

There’s a special irony in the UN targeting a country already marinating in self-criticism and dissent, thanks to its free press. But beyond that, the way the UN treats Israel significantly worse than the most murderous and evil regimes on earth is itself a crime. Not only does this gross singling-out undermine the UN’s credibility, it adds fuel to Jew-haters everywhere and endangers Jews.

There is a movement afoot to fight back against this latest UN assault on Israel, and for good reason. This blatant discrimination against Israel violates the UN charter and the UN’s own laws and guidelines. The anti-Israel bias of many of the officials behind this calumny is also well established.

But to really get the UN’s attention, we must go beyond condemnations and refutations and call for an investigation. Seekers of justice everywhere must demand a Commission of Inquiry to determine how this discrimination against Israel took place, who is behind it, and what will be the remedies.

The UN will never reform until it gets a taste of its own medicine.

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Hal Taussig and Brandon Scott: After Jesus Before Christianity


Shmuel Rosner chats with Hal Taussig and Brandon Scott about their latest book: “After Jesus Before Christianity: A Historical Exploration of the First Two Centuries of Jesus Movements.”

Hal Taussig is Visiting Professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary in New York and co-pastor at Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church and the author and co-author of numerous works, including ‘Jesus Before God’, ‘Re-imagining Life Together in America’ and ‘Jesus and Wisdom’s Feast’.

Bernard Brandon Scott is the author and editor of many books, including The Real Paul: Recovering His Radical Challenge and The Trouble with Resurrection. A charter member of the Jesus Seminar, he is chair of Westar’s newly established Christianity Seminar. He served as chair of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, as well as a member of several SBL Seminars including the Parable Seminar and Historical Jesus Seminar.

Follow Shmuel Rosner on Twitter.

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