Tag: Rabbi Efrat Zarren-Zohar

Sometimes it is helpful to focus in on the details— this is true in life and in learning Torah. When we pay close attention, we can find deep meaning in the subtleties of a smile or in noticing the filigreed pattern of a leaf’s veins jus as we can find profound meaning or beauty in one verse — or even letter — of Torah. For each detail is a fractal, or at least a portion, of a larger reality and truth. Through paying attention to details we can connect to beauty and to meaning. However, there are also times in which it is helpful to step back and take in the big picture. From afar, we can take a broad perspective in which beauty and meaning emerges through the melting away of detail.

A few weeks ago, riding the subway in New York City, I spotted a woman reading a book titled, “The Courage to Be Disliked.” I reached for my gold hostage-tag necklace and found myself repeating: “the courage to be disliked.” Then I tried a different variation: “the courage to be despised.” In recent years, Jews across the West (especially those visibly connected to Israel) have felt a rising tide of hostility. Legal protections remain in place, and allies have not entirely disappeared. But the climate has shifted — and we need to prepare. Not just politically or strategically, but emotionally and spiritually. We must find the courage to accept that we may be disliked, even despised, for our Jewish commitments. Not by strangers in distant corners of the world, but in the very spaces that once felt like home.

Few figures in the Torah are as perplexing as Korach. Unlike Pharaoh, Balak or Amalek, Korach was not an external enemy seeking to destroy the Jewish people. He was one of their own. A Levite of distinguished lineage, he belonged to one of the most prominent families in Israel. He lived in the generation that witnessed the Exodus from Egypt, stood at Mount Sinai and experienced Divine revelation firsthand. Yet despite all this, Korach launched one of the most destructive rebellions in Jewish history. On the surface, his challenge seemed noble enough: “For all the congregation are holy, and the Lord is among them. Why do you exalt yourselves over the assembly of the Lord?" (Numbers 16:3). At first glance, Korach sounds almost democratic. He speaks in the language of equality and inclusion. Why should Moses and Aaron hold positions of authority? Why shouldn’t leadership be shared more broadly?

In the 1950s, a psychologist named Solomon Asch ran one of the most unsettling experiments in social science. Asch brought subjects into a room with other individuals seemingly just like them. The group was shown two cards – one with a single line, one with three lines of different lengths – and asked which line matched. The answer was obvious. A child could see it. But Asch had actually filled the room with actors. And the actors, who always answered first, unanimously chose the same wrong line. And then it was the real subject’s turn to choose.

This rich Torah portion Beha’alotecha incorporates diverse precepts within Judaism and thus offers many perspectives on how to lead a meaningful life. In it, we see that God leads the Jewish people in multiple ways: through the use of natural wonders, by establishing the Torah as a guide, and by teaching the importance of respectful behavior toward others. These modalities represent three of the myriad ways to find meaning in life and to develop a personal connection with community and the divine presence. Throughout the parsha, the Jews are physically led by the Ark of the Covenant, which held the tablets of the Ten Commandments and would travel in front of them. In this way, both literally and figuratively, the Torah served as the people’s guide in the desert. In our lives as well, the Torah can serve as a guide through the challenges we face.

Lately, I've been having these strange moments. I'll be reading, or teaching, or cooking—and a quiet thought creeps in: Will AI replace me? It's not always a dark thought. Sometimes it's simple curiosity. But beneath it lies a deeper question many of us are asking. In a world of looming superintelligence and advanced robotics: What makes me irreplaceable? It's unsettling to imagine that many of the qualities we take pride in — intelligence, creativity, even productivity — might one day be performed better and faster by machines. But alongside those flickers of unease, I've been having another kind of moment — moments of clarity and grounding. Moments that feel utterly, defiantly human. This past Shavuot, I was lying in a hammock beneath the trees when my five-year-old climbed into my arms. We nestled into one of our "cuddle sessions." I wasn't just hugging her — I was trying to make her feel, deep in her little body, that she is loved. For being her. For being mine.

On Shavuot Jews around the world will spend the night learning - remembering and reliving - the experience of receiving the Torah on Har Sinai. Interestingly there is a much more common occurrence in our lives, the public Torah reading, which happens each week on Mondays, Thursday and Shabbat which also serves to reenact that central national experience of revelation. By examining some of the technical laws surrounding the Torah reading we can gain insight into the meta – ideas the Rabbis wanted to create with this fundamental ritual. The minimum required structure to perform a public Torah reading is that ten verses must be read in total and there should be three aliyot, in which a minimum of three verses are read in each. The facts of these laws are very confusing at first glance. Did the Rabbis not know basic math? If one requires three aliyot of three verses why not rule that the minimum total required is nine verses and not ten? However, when one unpacks the reasons behind these laws a deeper idea emerges.

In Ancient Rome, life revolved around the Coliseum. In New York City, the cultural capital of America, all roads lead to Times Square. And in London, Buckingham Palace stands as the heart of the city. These central monuments reveal the core values of each society — spectacle, commerce, and monarchy respectively. So, what lies at the center of the Jewish Nation? In the opening of the book of Numbers, God instructs the Israelites to arrange themselves by tribe, giving each its assigned position, distinctive flag, and marching formation. But perhaps most significantly, these tribal designations all revolve around a single focal point: "The Israelites shall camp each man with his standard, under the banners of their ancestral house; they shall encamp, surrounding the Tent of Meeting." (Numbers / Bamidbar 2:2)

This week’s Torah portion, Behar-Bechukotai, is the origin of the call to “Proclaim liberty throughout the land.” (Leviticus 25:10). As an American, I read those words and think of the Liberty Bell, on which they are inscribed. But in context, this verse is part of a set of mitzvot about land use, distribution of resources and the importance of sacred rest. One of those mitzvot is the requirement of the shmita year, a Shabbat for the land every seventh year in which fields are allowed to lie fallow and all debts are forgiven.

As many of you know, and some of you have been privileged to experience, the March of the Living is an extraordinary and transformative experience. This year’s 2026 March returned last week… Ten years ago, I was in Poland and Israel on Miami’s Leo Martin March of the Living. The trip fell precisely during Parashat Kedoshim (Be Holy), our Torah portion last week, and Parashat Emor (Say… to the Israelites), our Torah portion this week. I'll share two remarkable stories with you (among so many others that take place during this remarkable program).

Years ago, Nina Yarus introduced me to the study of Mussar; I had never heard of it, and I had been a rabbi for at least 15 years already! When I mentioned Mussar to my Orthodox husband, he rolled his eyes. Apparently, in the Orthodox world it’s often used by teachers to lay on the guilt, or parents to give textual support for their parental disapproval. Most of the Mussar texts were written in pre-modern times and in very medieval language and style – probably why so few liberal Jews even know about it, let alone study it.

You know how sometimes during a conversation you start to zoom out because the topic fails to grab your attention? That’s kind of what this week’s parshios, Tazria and Metzora, do. They begin a lengthy discussion about laws of spiritual impurity before going on to cover the incredibly exciting topic of tzara’as (skin disease), the metzor (the one suffering it), and their laws of purification. Can’t wait, huh? But, before we go there, the Torah reminds us about the need to perform a Bris on an eight-day old male which, quite frankly, seems out of place. True, the parsha starts off talking about birth, but there are other more relevant places for the mitzvah of Bris, which is why commentators try to learn something from it.

Early this week, terrorists set fire to four Hatzalah ambulances in London. Hatzalah – the volunteer Jewish emergency service built on the principle that when someone is dying, minutes matter. I made the mistake of spending too long on X reading reactions. Tweet after tweet questioned why Jews should have their own ambulance service at all. The Jewish community’s response was swift: these ambulances are funded by Jews and run by Jewish volunteers, but they serve everyone. I couldn’t stop thinking about that response. Not because it was wrong – I am genuinely proud of what Hatzalah does. But because of what it assumed: that Jewish particularity requires a universal alibi. Would arson be any more justified if these ambulances served Jews? Would anyone demand this of a Black mutual aid society? A church food pantry? An Asian community health clinic?

In Israel today, there are sounds we have come to know all too well — the sharp, jarring alerts, followed by the rising and falling wail of sirens that send us rushing to safe rooms and bomb shelters. These sounds rupture the rhythm of daily life, filling the air with urgency, fear, and vulnerability. They remind us, again and again, that the danger is real, that our security is not to be taken for granted, and that we are still engaged in the struggle for continued existence in our land. Against this backdrop, Parashat Vayikra introduces us to a radically different kind of sound…

I used to think that Parashat Vayakhel had “interesting material” and “boring material” in it. The “interesting material” is Moshe / Moses bringing the Israelites together and telling them to make an offering to G!D based upon how their heart is moved to do so. Following that, Moshe / Moses continues by asking those who are skilled to come and make all the objects that G!D has commanded regarding the Mishkan / Tabernacle, the place where the Divine Presence will dwell. So the whole community of Israelites brings and makes objects for the Mishkan / Tabernacle — blue, purple and crimson yarns or tanned dolphin skins or gifts of copper or spun goat’s hair…

Parshat Ki Tisa picks up with Moshe still meeting with HaShem on Har Sinai. God instills Moshe with instructions for taking censuses, anointing priests, and keeping Shabbat. After doing all this, HaShem gives him the tablets with the Ten Commandments. Down on the ground, though, a jarringly different sequence of events takes place (Shemot 32:1-4). We know this as the sin of the eigel hazahav, or the golden calf. Moshe famously comes down and smashes the tablets, after which HaShem commands him to carve new ones. One way to make sense of this off-putting episode is to see the golden calf incident as an instance of the worship of gold, the worship of money.

If you are lucky, you will live to see your parents begin to need you in the way you once needed them. You will feel it most in the small things: lifting a cup of water to your motherʼs lips; adjusting the light your father can sleep. Laying a hand on his forehead. And you will be desperately sad, but also lucky, because each time you do these things, you will remember that they once, so many times, did them for you. And you will know that you were, and are, loved. God, too, is a parent. But Godʼs biggest tragedy, if one can say such a thing, is that God will never grow weak or old. God will never need us to do for Him what He once did for us.

This week’s parsha, Mishpatim, is one of the longest and most detailed portions in the Torah. After the dramatic moment of Mount Sinai - thunder, lightning, and the giving of the Ten Commandments - the Torah shifts gears completely. Parshat Mishpatim is filled with laws about everyday situations: Borrowing and returning objects, Accidentally causing harm, Interpersonal responsibility, How people are expected to treat one another when things go wrong. There’s no drama. No miracles. Just regular life. And that shift is intentional. Right after revelation, the Torah teaches us that holiness doesn’t stay on the mountain.