Blog Archives

Who Counts (P. Bamidbar)

5/25/2025

The fourth book of Torah (Numbers) opens with our desert-wandering ancestors starting their 14th month walking free from Egypt. They begin by taking a census of the Children of Israel, of each separate tribe, and of subsets of the Tribe of Levi dedicated to sacred service. Thousands of years later, Auschwitz survivors bore numbered tattoos on their forearms, a gruesome testament to the horror of treating people as ledger entries.

What does it mean to "count" in Jewish life?

Hunger Games (P. Behar-Behukotai)

5/16/2025

Our agricultural ancestors knew much that we do not. They knew in their bones that life depends on nature's balance and on our mutual dependence.

And they understood, better than us moderns, that physical life and spiritual life are profoundly intertwined.

We'd do well to learn the secrets they knew.

Holy Gear Shifts (P. Emor)

5/11/2025

As spiritual beings, we can understand life as a constant choice between inertia and change, letting things ride or deliberately altering them. We don't pay attention, or we do. We accept what is, or we try to act.

So it is with most things Jewish, especially Jewish time – a series of holy gear shifts throughout life.

Holy is as Holy Does (P. Aharei Mot-Kedoshim)

5/4/2025

Jewish life uses the word "holy" so often that the word can seem like punctuation – ubiquitous but peripheral, faded from view, nearly empty of the word's deep meaning.

This week's Torah portion reminds us that "holy" is more than a word or even important. "Holy" is the center, the whole point of the whole thing.

Which begs the question: what is holy anyway?

Who Counts (P. Bamidbar)

Hunger Games (P. Behar-Behukotai)

Holy Gear Shifts (P. Emor)

Holy is as Holy Does (P. Aharei Mot-Kedoshim)

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