Torah Specialist!
My recent posts... Torah specials! As do all blessings, the bracha we recite before learning sacred text or topics begins with praise of Adonai our God. We then offer thanks for the opportunity to engage with words or teachings of Torah: la’asok b’divrei Torah, a text...
Words / yom ha’atzma’ut
Like so many other commentators — ancient to modern — Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks elaborates on the construct of tzara’at, an unidentified skin ailment, as recompense for evil speech, lashon hara. Long-ago rabbinic wordplay connected tzara’at to words, speech, that can be hurtful. Aside from a clever acronymic derivation, why would the sages have focused on speech?
Makin’ Matza!
My recent posts...
Selling Chametz
Even if you don’t keep a kosher kitchen, and/or you don’t “convert” your kitchen for Pesach, there is still spiritual value in selling your chametz: You are engaging with myriad Jews worldwide in a practice that can be traced back to Torah and, if you include a donations to “ma’ot chitin,” you are enabling those in need to more fully celebrate Pesach.
Jerusalem of…
Jerusalem of old, of older, day after day after night,
of sacred harmonies in disharmonious keys,
of messianic wishings and divine certainties.
Of conflict by factions for fractions of the whole
of conflicting feelings uplifting and roiling the soul.
Of adhan bells nigun sirens protest — a call
to worship to support to deny to defy — rise and fall.
Where heaven and earth collide with force
to be rhapsodized as the ultimate source
of connection to heart and mind — belief
that is consternation to some, to others, relief.
Jerusalem of our future and of our past —
for you, with you, we celebrate, we fast.
Through burning and yearning your colors soft and strong,
our bodies and spirits vibrate, transcendent, to your song.