As we started the new week, we started reading Parashat Vayechi, the final portion of the Book of Genesis. With it, the great narrative of beginnings comes to a close: families that are formed, relationships that grow strained, wounds that do not always heal, partial reconciliations, promises passed from generation to generation—and silences that linger in the air.  Vayechi places Jacob before us at the end of his life. He gathers his children not to distribute possessions, b

Hanukkah is already behind us. We have extinguished the candles—but not their light. Because the real question was never how brightly the ḥanukkiyah burned, but what kind of Jewish light we are capable of carrying with us once the festivals end and the unadorned season begins.  This week we entered the month of Tevet—an austere month, without celebrations, that confronts us with history stripped bare. In Tevet there are no visible miracles; there is memory. On the 10th of Tev

We continue to live through days marked by loss, fear, and an uncertainty that seems relentless. We keep trying—without fully succeeding—to make sense of the violence directed against identity, today against the Jewish people, even as we know that this logic of hatred never stops with one name and ultimately threatens every form of difference. And yet, even in the depths of pain, something refuses to be extinguished.  The day after a brutal attack, while grief still burned in

This Shabbat, Parashat Vayeshev brings us once again the story of Yosef—a story where inner light coexists with betrayal, and where light ultimately confronts the deepest darkness. And this year, as we prepare to light the first Hanukkah candle on Sunday night, that contrast between light and darkness takes on an even more urgent meaning. We are not just reading an ancient text; we are reading the world.  Lighting the Hanukkah lights is both a spiritual and political act. It

There are moments in life when the past comes knocking on our door—not with violence, not necessarily with pain, but with the quiet insistence of what remains unresolved. This is how our parashah Vaishlaj begins. Yaakov, after years away from home, returns to face Esav, the brother he had deceived, the brother he had fled from, the brother who once swore to kill him.   It is no coincidence that the Torah begins the story with the verb “vaishlaj”—“and he sent.” Yaakov sends me

Vayetze is a parashah of departure, but not an easy flight. Yaakov leaves his home with fear, guilt, and a heart in turmoil. He departs broken. And perhaps that is precisely why, in that moment—when nothing seems stable—he dreams. A ladder connects heaven and earth. Not to erase what has happened, but to tell him: your path is not disconnected. Angels ascend and descend. Movement. No promise of stillness, but a promise of presence. Yaakov sleeps on a stone, and yet, the heave

There are moments in the Torah that feel as if they were written to be watched like a scene on a stage. Parashat Toldot is one of them. We are not only witnesses to the birth of Esav and Yaakov, nor merely to the passing down of blessings; the Torah invites us into that “in–between” moment —that unsettling stretch of time when Rivkah feels the turmoil inside her womb, the struggling of the children within her— and she utters a question that still echoes through the generatio

This week’s Parashah opens with a statement that, far from being a biographical detail, is an existential manifesto: “And the life (the lives) of Sarah was: one hundred years, twenty years, and seven years—these were the years of Sarah’s life.” The Torah repeats “the life of Sarah” at the end of the very first verse, almost as if to remind us that her death is not the end—that her presence keeps pulsing in those who remember her, who speak her name, who walk in the path she c

In the beginning of Parashat Vayera, Abraham interrupts his reflections, and some comentarist say even a moment of connection with the Lord, to welcome three strangers who appear in the heat of the day. It’s a brief yet decisive moment: the encounter with the ineffable —with God, for the believer— is revealed in the encounter with another human being, in our ability to see the other even amid our own pain and worries. Our sages teach that God appeared to Abraham while he was

There is a section in our parashah that is often overlooked—perhaps because the opening verses are so powerful that they eclipse everything else. After all, they give the portion its very name: Lech Lecha.  It’s hard to compete for attention with something as extraordinary as God’s call to a man who seems quite ordinary, and that man’s selfless and wholehearted response—a response that would make him the founding father of a people, just as promised.   But this time, the text

Shabbat Parshat Noach. Noach—the one of the Flood, the one of the Ark. The survivor whose first act upon leaving the ark is to plant a vineyard, make wine, and become drunk… perhaps to drown his sorrow in the face of total destruction. Noach—the one of anguish, perplexity, and perhaps still, hope.  Just two years ago, the world began to sink once again into a mabul, a flood of violence and disorientation. At the time, we thought humanity had hit rock bottom, that the storm co

Botanists often tell us that the sequoias — those colossal trees that grow in California — are the longest-living species on earth. Some have reached two thousand years of age. It is humbling, almost overwhelming, to think that they were planted in the days of Rabbi Akiva and still breathe under the same sky.  Yet, according to a fascinating and little-known midrash, the oldest living creature in the world is not a tree, but a bird called the Jol — or Maljás. Tradition tells

As we approach the end of Sukkot, a question arises that many ask: What do we celebrate on Shemini Atzeret? At first glance, it seems to...

This week’s portion, Haazinu, is Moses’ farewell song. At the threshold of his death, aware that he will not enter the Promised Land, he...

Parashat Vayelech places us before Moses on the threshold of his farewell: a leader who knows he will not cross over, yet hands the...

In Parashat Nitzavim, Moses addresses the gathered people to remind them that God’s covenant includes them and all generations to come:...

Parashat Ki Tavó speaks to us about gratitude, memory, and collective responsibility.  It reminds us that abundance is not a gift for...

This week’s parashah opens with the words: “Ki tetze la-milchamah al oyevecha – When you go out to war against your enemies” (Deuteronomy...

שֹׁפְטִ֣ים וְשֹֽׁטְרִ֗ים תִּֽתֶּן־לְךָ֙ בְּכׇל־שְׁעָרֶ֔יךָ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יְהֹוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לְךָ֖ לִשְׁבָטֶ֑יךָ וְשָׁפְט֥וּ אֶת־הָעָ֖ם...

This week we turn to Parashat Re’eh, the fourth portion of the book of Devarim, still echoing with Moses’ parting words. At its core, a...