Torah Portion: Parashah

Each week, we read a different section of the Torah. Sometimes we read stories about our ancestors’ journeys. Sometimes we read details about the ancient Temple or complex lists of laws. Whatever the content, the Torah portion (or parashah) is frequently the basis for discussions and sermons at Shabbat services in synagogue and throughout the week. Torah text has also been the inspiration for many contemporary songs, poems, and prayers.

Latest Rituals

Building a Tabernacle

Inspiration for me / as I struggle to build / a space inside my heart / where holiness can dwell.

God, heart, holinee, manna, mishkan

A Kavanah for Peaceful Protest: For Those Rising Up in a World on Fire

Let this be our prayer. Let this be our stand. Let this be our refusal to accept empire as sacred, or militarism as holy.

beha'alotcha, justice, protest, solidarity

Studying Torah

“Gripped by the desire to decode what we cannot know, we examine each word…”

Shabbat, torah, Torah study

Shamini: The Power of Eight

“Beyond the realm of seven’s creation, / Perhaps it is there…”

Gevurah, hesed, Omer

The Midwives

“Given any chance, we would never let a mother or a child die…”

exodus, midwives, Puah, Shifra

Pekudei

“I am comforted by a divine sense of wonder…”

journey, time, torah

Dear Moses

“Then how Aaron cradles the blossom for you…”

Aaron, love, Moses, speech

Genesis 25:8

“The children of Abraham, / bowing their heads / to bury the past and join hands in grief.”

Abraham, Genesis, grief, Isaac, Ishmael, Israel

Tsom Shovavim

A guide to a renewal and reconstruction of an obscure Jewish fasting practice called ‘Tsom Shovavim.’

exodus, fasting, Shovavim, teshuvah

Dinah’s Brothers, Tamar’s Husbands

“One more dangerous reading, and I tore my hair /in pain with the story’s daughters, Dinah and Tamar.”

family, matriarchs, torah