Tag: Rabbi Efrat Zarren-Zohar

Several summers ago, my husband and I took our children to see the movie “Inside Out.” I remember sitting through the animated film next to our children, and as the movie ended, the credits ran, and the lights began to come up in the theater, David and I both sat there, frozen in our seats, tears streaming down our cheeks. Our children stared at us in confusion. Why in the world were we crying?

One of the things that American Jews, especially Jews born after World War II, take for granted is that Jewish life is not cheap here. Jews in America are considered equal citizens with the right to protection by the government and when Jews are harmed, our government will respond and protect us as it should for any other American.

I first fell in love with Jewish books at Camp Eisner, the Reform Jewish camp in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Almost fifty summers ago, as a young teenager, I was assigned the duty of cleaning out the camp library. I did a terrible job. The truth is cleaning has never been my strong suit. Reading is.

This week's Parashat Shemini contains a long exposition of the laws of kashrut, a practice I didn't grow up with. Though my father z”l loved tradition in general, he was the first one in his family to have a non-kosher home, saying: "" We're American! What is this craziness? We should eat like Americans!

Matzah is the hard bread that Israelites initially ate in the desert because they plunged into liberty without delaying, “since they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay; nor had they prepared provisions for themselves” (Exodus 12:39). However, matzah carries a more complex message than “Freedom now!”

The obligation is not only to recall the Exodus but to relive it. On the one hand, rituals of remembrance on festivals are commonplace: We light a menorah on Hanukkah to remember the miracle of the oil. We circle the bimah on Sukkot with the four species to remember a ritual performed on Sukkot in the Temple. On the 9th of Av, we read the Book of Lamentations to remember the destruction of the Temple.

This week's Torah portion, Ki Tisa, begins with Moshe/Moses atop Mount Sinai, communing with God. The last thing God says to Moshe is a set of verses we now know as V'shamru [Exodus 31:16-17], commanding us to keep Shabbat throughout the ages as a sign of covenant with God.Then God gives Moshe the two tablets, inscribed by God's own hand.

This week's Torah portion, Ki Tisa, begins with Moshe/Moses atop Mount Sinai, communing with God. The last thing God says to Moshe is a set of verses we now know as V'shamru [Exodus 31:16-17], commanding us to keep Shabbat throughout the ages as a sign of covenant with God.Then God gives Moshe the two tablets, inscribed by God's own hand.

This week's Torah portion, Ki Tisa, begins with Moshe/Moses atop Mount Sinai, communing with God. The last thing God says to Moshe is a set of verses we now know as V'shamru [Exodus 31:16-17], commanding us to keep Shabbat throughout the ages as a sign of covenant with God.Then God gives Moshe the two tablets, inscribed by God's own hand.

I remember that last year on Purim, we were aware of Covid-19, but not yet panicked. Our lives were still moving forward routinely. My family went to synagogue and celebrated Purim as we normally would - with our community, with raucous, shared fun and celebration. In big, crowded rooms filled with lots of people. A day later...

While I deeply appreciate and honor the ‘engineering’ aspect of the building of the Mishkan, and the significance of all the specifications and details, I have come to understand the building of the Mishkan as akin to a four-direction compass for the spiritual infrastructure of the Jewish people. In the current state of mayhem and upheaval that we are all experiencing, this compass allegory is especially important today.

Sometimes when we read the parsha (weekly Torah portion), we are jolted by the disparity between the modern, privileged lives we live in the 21st century and the reality reflected in the Torah and the world in which it appeared. Parashat Mishpatim (Shemot/Exodus 21-24) this week gives us a lot of material to consider.

My distinguished father-in-law Richard has been an important person in my life for almost fifty years. I was a very young freshman in college when we met. An ardent believer and lover of Torah, I was also not very skilled or self-confident about expressing my opinions. This made it all the more challenging when the first thing he said to me after being introduced was: “I cannot fathom how anyone could believe in a God that would ask Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.” This was not what I was expecting to hear as I stood next to my boyfriend and tried to smile sweetly.

What is remarkable is not the behavior of the Israelites; rather, God’s response is what ought to capture our attention. Let us look again, a bit more closely than we did before: “the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’ So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood; he threw it into the water and the water became sweet.”

In Parshat Bo, we meet the final plagues of the ten meted out to the Egyptians. Before the last plague of the killing of the first-born males in the Egyptian households, God instructs Moses to deliver one penultimate punishment: darkness - choshech. But this darkness is not merely the dark of the night. It is called choshech afela - a thick darkness.

Moshe, in the cliffhanger at the end of Parashat Shemot, was demoralized by the Hebrew slaves’ apathy towards their impending freedom. He was devastated by Pharaoh’s tightening the screws on the slaves and increasing their suffering to crush Moshe’s initiative (Exodus 5:6-6:1).

This week's Torah portion, Shemot, could be entitled "the birth of a leader." We see Moses, adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, growing up as a prince of Egypt. We see him as a young man, for the first time realising the implications of his true identity.

One of the hardest things that human beings are called upon to wrestle with is: Forgiveness. In Parshat Vayigash we have one of the finest models of it in how Yosef/ Joseph deals with his brothers.