分类: Dvar Torah

Out of the Darkness (P. Mikeitz)

12/14/2025

During this Hanukkah week – and now in the wake of the attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Australia – we kindle candles of hope, continuity and community.

We participate in an extraordinary collective act of hutzpah.

We've all known the darkness before the dawn, the anxiety before the knowing, the gauntlet before the triumph. There have been times so dark that we could never imagine light ever penetrating.

And yet.

The Amazing Technicolor Hindsight Stories We Tell Ourselves (P. Vayeishev)

12/7/2025

Joseph's coat of many colors has become the stuff of art, parenting books, spiritual seeking and a now-timeless Broadway musical.

And wow, is it loaded! Perhaps Joseph's coat became such a Biblical icon precisely because it is so loaded.

Stitched into its amazing technicolor weave is a deep teaching about how we make meaning in our lives – and the stories we tell about what happens. In the process, this essentially human (and Jewish) project can't help but play a time-traveling trick on us that hides in plain sight.

It's worth revealing that hidden story (with bonus content from "The West Wing").

Hearing the Unheard (P. Vayishlah)

11/30/2025

Sometimes received religious traditions fail to hear the voice of suffering. Even worse, received traditions can suppress the voice of suffering.

It happens because every religion, by definition, titrates high principle through inherently limited and flawed human capacity.

What is our duty in response?

Rational Spirituality Beyond Belief (P. Toledot)

11/16/2025

Believers might readily embrace the spiritual prospect of asking God a question and receiving a response (whether with a knowing or feeling beyond self, or an inner sense within).

But how about disbelievers? In a rational world of left-brain logic, can suffering and brokenness drive a rational response that is spiritual? Indeed they can, and the source is poignant.

The Pause That Refreshes (P. Hayyei Sarah)

11/9/2025

When we think of a "pause that refreshes," most modern Jews will think of Shabbat. For sure.

Turns out that a daily "pause that refreshes" is good for the soul, and for work efficiency, and physical health. And it's very Jewish.

Read on, with a bonus spotlight on R. David's learning at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

Sick Visits (P. Vayera)

11/2/2025

When the going gets tough, some of us have an instinct to pull in – to self-isolate, even conceal our tough times.

Maybe we resist drawing attention to ourselves or our difficulties. Maybe we feel that stoicism and privacy are the best parts of valor. We cleave to normalcy like it's nobody's business.

For deep reasons, Jewish spiritual life calls us against these instincts. We have duty to visit and help, and we have a duty to allow it. Here's why.

Trust and Verify (P. Lekh Lekha)

10/27/2025

It's okay to be afraid during times of uncertainty, especially when much is at stake.

But when we let fears rule us without lovingly questioning them, we tend to make what we fear more likely to impact us.

And then who are we really?

Between Fleeting and Forever: The Art of Time (P. Noah)

10/19/2025

Our experience of time is not linear. Whatever a clock tells us, long stretches can pass in a blink while some moments seem to last forever.

As we enter our annual calendar's peak autumn and the colder, darker months, perhaps we can open a window on how the Biblical Noah and his family felt aboard the ark. What might we learn about spiritualizing our experience of time?

The Courage to Buck the Patriarchy (P. Bereishit)

10/12/2025

The Torah Cycle begins again. As our ancestors have done for thousands of years, the turning of Torah's scroll aims to teach us partly by eliciting our questions.

But for many centuries, one question apparently was too dangerous to the patriarchy for most to ask – which is why we must.

For Whom We Stand (P. Ha'azinu)

9/28/2025

On this far end of Yom Kippur, we remember in our bones that all life goes the way of all life. It is true that all life ultimately dies, and equally true that all that dies once lived. We also know that in very real ways, all that died lives on in us, through us, in the air we breathe, in the values we uphold.

We who dared to touch death on Yom Kippur rise into new life and new joy as we near Sukkot (Season of our Joy). And then the cycle begins again – exactly as before, and utterly changed.

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Out of the Darkness (P. Mikeitz)

The Amazing Technicolor Hindsight Stories We Tell Ourselves (P. Vayeishev)

Hearing the Unheard (P. Vayishlah)

Rational Spirituality Beyond Belief (P. Toledot)

The Pause That Refreshes (P. Hayyei Sarah)

Sick Visits (P. Vayera)

Trust and Verify (P. Lekh Lekha)

Between Fleeting and Forever: The Art of Time (P. Noah)

The Courage to Buck the Patriarchy (P. Bereishit)

For Whom We Stand (P. Ha'azinu)

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