Talmud of America
My recent posts..."Talmud of America" Pardes Institute, a non-denominational study center based in Jerusalem, offers immersive Jewish learning around the world. One project is “Talmud of America,” which aims to illuminate and interpret, through Jewish eyes, some...
Twilight Zone
My recent posts...Twilight Zone בֵּין הַשְׁמָשׁוֹת Bein hashemashot, literally, between the suns. בֵּין הַשְׁמָשׁוֹת A twilight zone of time, or rather, out of time, between one day and the next. Our sages of old used this concept to explain certain miraculous...
When to Pray Yizkor
My recent posts...My edited comments from this past final day of Pesach. Ellie’s mom, Julia Helfman, died on her 95th birthday, December 24, 2025. This was the first Yizkor service Ellie feels obligated to attend. She said, “I’m now a member of a club I was not eager...
Timing
It had become a Kremer household Pesach tradition, or rather, a pre-Pesach tradition. Somewhere within a couple of days prior the first seder and noon on erev Pesach, something would go awry in the kitchen.
Testing
For the Israelites, the revelation at Sinai — with its Ten Declarations — is an encounter with the Divine even more intimate and intense than was the Exodus. They saw, they witnessed the thunder and lightning, the shofar blaring, the mountain smoking…and they stepped back.
Even after Moshe/Moses tells them what Adonai is doing, they remain at a distance. Are they fearful? Wary? Awestruck?
Next, Adonai, acting through Moshe, begins presenting to the Israelites laws, regulations and blueprints that will serve as the foundation and framework of a new Adonai-centered religious, political and cultural society.
Here we sit, sharpened #2 pencils at hand, ready, thinking, “How will we know if we pass the test?”
Then the proctor announces, “This is a timed test. Once you begin, you are to complete it in one lifetime.”
Shabbat shalom ! שבת שלום