Shalshelet
The nearly 305,000 words of a handwritten Torah scroll tell tales, state laws and inspire ideas. It is devoid of some useful things like vowels, punctuation and cantillation marks. Cantillation, or trope, is the musical chanting that can help bring Torah text alive when it’s read aloud, as during services.
It’s Our Story
Last week’s Torah reading was mostly the story of Noah and the Flood. One of the more curious elements of the tale is what happens when the earth dries out enough for the animals and their human tenders to exit the vessel.
Bee Juice
My recent posts...After havdala ended last week’s Galeem (“waves,” our Sunday school), the usual joyful mayhem erupted in the lobby: Kids running down halls for a water bottle, a work of art, a lollipop; parents calling after them “Remember your ________!”; brief...
Welcome to”chol”
A couple days of magnificent weather have been a welcome respite from the bounty of precipitation during Sukkot and the closing festival days. This morning, we stored away our sukkah — unscathed by the nor’easter — for next year.
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