Union for Reform Judaism Member Congregation
Our Torah portion contains one of a number of census lists of the Children of Israel, particularly compiled for the purpose of counting up the number of men from each tribe able to bear arms, with each tribe recording its own number.The total of this census between all the tribes came to 601,730 men of…Read on →
Last Saturday evening, Motza’ei Shabbat, Steve and I attended an outdoor Havdalah ceremony, as part of a demonstration of protest against the latest insult to liberal religion on the part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstration took place in front of the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem. Called together barely 48 hours earlier, the…Read on →
About two weeks ago, there was a news report in New York that a man in his 60’s was bitten by a poisonous snake in his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. He was taken to Jacobi Hospital, and then was well enough to be released. So, how does a poisonous snake come to an apartment in…Read on →
Our Torah portion focuses on Korach, a member of the tribe of Levi. In fact the portion itself bears his name. Korach foments rebellion among the people, because he resents Moses’s leadership, which of course, was assigned by God. Korach is the paradigmatic troublemaker, because he deliberately tries to break the unity of the Children…Read on →
Our Torah portion this week contains the commandment concerning the wearing of tzitzit—fringes. Numbers Chapter 15: 37) The Eternal said to Moses, as follows: 38) Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the…Read on →
We open the Torah this week on our ancestors out in the Wilderness. They are in crisis. They are wandering, without much sense of where they are headed. They are hungry, without much assurance that they will find sustenance. They are frightened, without much confidence that they will be comforted. They complain to Moses. He…Read on →
Our Torah portion this week is Naso. In the context of this episode, Moses and Aaron are told to take a census in the wilderness. The census of last week’s portion was for the purpose of counting up the male Israelites of age 20 or older who were able to bear arms. The census in…Read on →
We are reading this week the “Holiness Code,” in the Book of Leviticus. It is the same portion that we in the Reform Movement read on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, because it contains some of the most fundamental values of ethics and decency that are embodied in Biblical teaching. “You shall not insult the…Read on →
Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, step up to the altar to offer the sacrifice, as they are required to do as Kohanim—Priests of Israel. But there is something amiss in the procedure, and the sacrifice they offer is described in our Torah portion in cryptic terms: eish zarah—strange fire. We aren’t told any further details than…Read on →
This week we begin our reading of the Book of Leviticus, much of which focuses on the ancient system of animal sacrifice. Within the context of the ancient world, this system was the primary modality of vicarious atonement for sins. The priests (Kohanim) would serve as divinely-appointed intermediaries. They would dash the blood of slaughtered…Read on →