Parashot

Jacob Wrestles with An Angel Genesis 32:24-28. English text below "Jacob is a liar and a thief". " Judaism is a religion of deceit, not to be trusted." Martin Luther himself, who veered into virulent antisemitism wrote that "Jews are a rabble to be burned" in his work " On the Jews and Their Lies" in 1543 mis-translated Jacob as "deceiver" as a foundation for his antisemitic views and suggested violence against Jews. ("Jacob" actually means "he followed", since he was the second of two twins delivered) Jacob as deceiver was a central trope for millennia of antisemites: I believe this Torah portion proves exactly the opposite and makes any thoughtful reader re-examine that idea. The life of being Abraham’s grandson was a lonely one.   He always seems to be a man alone: Fleeing his home alone, "with only his staff". Alone in the wilderness sleeping with a rock and seeing a ladder to heaven, ange...

from our Torah Scroll: "and he cried for her" Today’s Parasha portion, is “Chayei Sarah”, “The Life of Sarah”. It is three things A heartbreak A Mystery and a Romance A Torah scroll takes a year to pen by hand.  It has exactly 304,805 letters.  And when the scribe gets to this story about Sarah’s death, he has to intentionally embed a mystery in the typography.   There is no explanation for it but there are differing opinions as to why. It says here that Sarah lived for 127 years.   Abraham and she had a brilliant marriage, with failings of course, we know all about them.   The couple completely changed the direction of their lives, set a course for the unknown and in the end, had no greater desire than to see what God entrusted them with come to pass.   Many of you have had moments like that, where you hear from God and you changed everything.  It says:  אברהם לספד לשרה ולב כ תה “Abraham mourned for Sarah  AND HE WE P T FOR HER”. And therei...

  Scriptures for the Day of Atonement.   I looked up all these scriptures for my own use, to buttress my own thoughts and prayers on this day of atonement.   Others may find it useful too, so here it is…  Leviticus 16 - instructions for Yom Kippur. (the whole chapter) Leviticus 16:29-32   An Annual Atonement -  29 “This shall be a permanent statute**.  (הוקה עולם, a law forever) for you: in the **seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, *you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you; 30 for it is on this day that atonement shall be made ***for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD. 31 It is to be a sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent statute. 32 So ***the priest who is anointed and ordained to serve as priest in his father’s place shall make atonement: he shall thus put on the linen garments, the h...

I've solved the equation of life!   Or at least I may know where the balance point may be... ​1 “All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, so that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to give to your forefathers. 2 You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, so that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, so that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds0 out of the mouth of the LORD. Deuteronomy 8:1-3 These three verses all have one tiny word in the middle that connects cause and effect.  It’s tempting to mentally edit what’s being said here and focus just on the result and not w...