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Shabbat Weekly Dvar Torah

Education is our Jewish Superpower

May 23, 2025

Education is our Jewish Superpower

This week’s double Torah portion, Behar–Bechukotai, closes out the book of Leviticus with what can only be described as a spiritual mic drop — or maybe more accurately, a Torah-powered origin story. Because what we get here isn’t just a list of laws. It’s a blueprint for building a society powered not by force, but by faith. Not by conquest, but by conscience. And most importantly — by the superpower we’ve relied on for generations: learning. In Parshat Behar, we encounter Shmita — the mitzvah to let the land rest every seven years. No planting. No harvesting. No business as usual. Just stop. Trust. Recharge. It’s the Torah’s version of powering down in order to power up.
On the Omer and Orchids

May 16, 2025

On the Omer and Orchids

I can’t keep most plants alive, but somehow my orchids thrive. Fragile yet resilient, they bloom when I least expect it. On one of the darkest days of the last year, I returned home shaken by the loss of eight Israeli soldiers in Gaza to find that an orchid I thought was long dead had flowered. During the shiva for my daughter’s closest friend, also killed in Gaza, another bloomed despite having shed its flowers only a month earlier. On the day following the attacks of October 7th, I sat dazed and disoriented in my garden watching a bee gather pollen from a flower.
Made with Love

May 9, 2025

Made with Love

Kedoshim contains the two great love commands of the Torah. The first is, “Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:18). Rabbi Akiva called this “the great principle of the Torah.” The second is no less challenging: “The stranger living among you must be treated as your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were strangers in Egypt. I am the Lord your God (Lev. 19:34). These are extraordinary commands. Many civilizations contain variants of the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” or in the negative form attributed to Hillel (sometimes called the Silver Rule), “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary; go and learn.”(Shabbat 31a). But these are rules of reciprocity, not love.
Israel Needs Our Prayers — and Our Engagement

May 2, 2025

Israel Needs Our Prayers — and Our Engagement

One of the most beautiful pieces of Jewish liturgy is one of the most modern: the Prayer for the State of Israel. But despite its beauty and poignancy, the prayer has become a locus of controversy. In the early 1990s, a tradition of sorts emerged: whenever people disliked what the Israeli government was doing, they stopped reciting the prayer or altered its wording. During the Oslo process, many on the Orthodox right refrained from reciting that prayer entirely or changed its wording. And since Benjamin Netanyahu’s government took office, and especially since the war in Gaza began, many on the left have been calling for similar changes or omissions; replacing words with those they find more palatable or not saying the prayer at all.
Seeing the Grand Tapestry

Apr 25, 2025

Seeing the Grand Tapestry

Parshat Shemini presents a pivotal moment in the Torah, particularly in the context of community and leadership. The portion details the inauguration of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and the roles of Aaron and his sons as the first priests. One significant event is the tragic death of Aaron's sons, who bring unauthorized fire before God. This alien fire consumed them, and they instantly died. A day that began amidst celebration, and particular elevation for Aaron and Elisheva’s family of Kohanim (priests), turned into one of death and grief.
From Fasting to Feasting: The Spiritual Rhythms of Yom Kippur and Passover

Apr 18, 2025

From Fasting to Feasting: The Spiritual Rhythms of Yom Kippur and Passover

As we move through the Jewish year, few holidays reveal as much about the Jewish soul as Yom Kippur and Passover. One calls us inward, into silence and fasting. The other calls us outward — into storytelling, song, and shared meals. Though they stand in stark contrast, both holidays use food — or its deliberate absence — as a spiritual tool, helping us sharpen our focus and deepen our connection to Jewish memory and meaning.
Matzah: Bread of Slavery or Liberty?

Apr 11, 2025

Matzah: Bread of Slavery or Liberty?

Made only of flour and water — with no shortening, yeast, or enriching ingredients — matzah recreates the hard “bread of affliction” (Devarim / Deuteronomy 16:3) and meager food given to the Hebrews in Egypt by their exploitative masters. Like the bitter herbs eaten at the Seder, it represents the degradation and suffering of the Israelites. Matzah is, therefore, both the bread of freedom and the erstwhile bread of slavery. It is not unusual for ex-slaves to invert the very symbols of slavery to express their rejection of the masters’ values. But there is a deeper meaning in the double-edged symbolism of matzah... Matzah is the bread of the Exodus way, the bread of freedom; hametz is the bread eaten in the house of bondage, in Egypt.
Vayikra: A Great Smallness

Apr 4, 2025

Vayikra: A Great Smallness

An article in New York magazine entitled “How Not to Talk to Your Kids” described Thomas, a gifted fifth grader who attended a highly competitive school. In his school, prospective kindergarteners were given an IQ test to confirm their precociousness, and only the top one percent of all applicants was accepted. Thomas scored in the top one percent of the top one percent. Since Thomas could walk, he has always heard that he was smart. But as he progressed through school, this self-awareness didn’t always translate into fearless confidence in tackling his schoolwork. In fact, Thomas’s father noticed just the opposite...
What Blessing Can You Offer Someone Today?

Mar 28, 2025

What Blessing Can You Offer Someone Today?

One of the things I miss most about going to shul regularly is the moment when the final line of a book of Torah is read. In many places, the kahal (community) rises and calls out, “Chazak, chazak, v’nit’chazek” (“Be strong, be strong, and may we be strengthened”). These words are then echoed by the Torah reader. This 30-second ritual takes an otherwise ordinary moment in the flow of Torah reading and transforms it into a reflection of what we have experienced and what we hope is to come. This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Pekudei, reveals a similar moment of enriching dissonance.
Can’t We Just Skip to the Good Parts?

Mar 21, 2025

Can’t We Just Skip to the Good Parts?

If you were making a movie version of the Torah, you wouldn’t have a Parshas Vayakhel. You would have last week’s Golden Calf episode; you might have Moshe “on the mountain” getting instructions for the Mishkan. You certainly would include the splitting of the sea in your movie. You might even have a scene where we hear Hashem say, “build Me a mishkan and I will dwell among them,” from Parshas Trumah and some jump-cut edits to building the various mishkan components. But you certainly would not have Moshe telling all the details of the build to the Jewish people and then the actual item by item description of the build like in Parshas Vayakhel. Instead, you would have a montage.