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.
Time: the sanctified and the quotidian
Other than Shabbat, we begin our holy days with a blessing, a bracha: shehecheyyanu…laz’man ha-ze. We thank Adonai for enabling us to be here now, reminding us to be present in that hallowed period
To close out of sacred time, a ceremony of havdala, “separation.” We bid farewell to Shabbat, to a festival, thanking God for those hours or days and for differentiating between the sanctified and the quotidian.
On Sunday night, we will pass from Pesach to chol, a regular weekday, and we can eat whatever we wish! I hope that we can all appreciate what made these Pesach days fulfilling, even as we look forward to how we will make them even more special next year. (Jerusalem, anyone?)
Shabbat shalom/chag sameiach/shavua tov!