Union for Reform Judaism Member Congregation
Our Torah portion this week opens with the death of the Matriarch of our People, Sarah. She derived great joy from the birth of her son Isaac. But throughout most of her life, she encountered great difficulty and pain, much of which came about from the secondary position to which she was relegated within her…Read on →
As we approach the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, z”l, on November 4th, a tangible and trustworthy peace between Israelis and Palestinians seems, still, a pipe dream at best. Yet we remember that peace accords between Israel and parts of the Arab world have indeed been achieved, and continue…Read on →
Our Torah portion explains that the mabul – the flood – that God sent to destroy the world was as a result of the hamas that had filled the earth. In Biblical translation, this word hamas is usually translated as “violence.” Rabbinic commentaries further explain this “violence” as “economic corruption.” But violence in the raw,…Read on →
This week we begin again our yearly cycle of Torah study. The Torah portions of this week and next week concentrate on primordial history: the creation of the world and human beings, and the nature of human beings and their potential to do both good and bad (the yetzer hatov – the good inclination, and…Read on →