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.
Remember! Forget!
Is Amalek demoralizing the Israelites by picking off the vulnerable? Perhaps shaming them for not protecting those most at risk?
After defeating Amalek, the Israelites are told to blot out the memory of that tribe — implying that we dare not again betray the unprotected.
The charge to erase the memory of Amalek closes with the injunction “lo tishkach / do not forget!”
As if we could!
Would that we could forget this past year, blotting out our feelings of vulnerability, but “lo tishkach / we cannot forget / we may not forget / we will not forget.”
Let us remember…and learn compassion and determination.
Shabbat shalom! שבת שלום