I don’t know about you, but I’ve been hanging on to some hope for a reset for our world. I worry a lot. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping.

B’reishit. “Beginning.” A new beginning. How thrilling that every year we get to start over. The gift of an unblemished new start, untouched by triumphs or challenges. We finish the story and we immediately begin it again.

At my congregation for Simchat Torah

V’zot Hab’rachah, “This is the blessing,” is the Torah portion read on Simchat Torah. This is the final blessing Moses will proclaim to the ten tribes of Israel prior to his death.

You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I  The Eternal your God.

“Give ear, O heavens, let me speak;
Let the earth hear the words I utter!
May my discourse come down as the rain,
My speech distill as the dew,
Like showers on young growth,
Like droplets on the grass.”
(Deuteronomy 32:1-2)

So begins the last great lecture of

Twenty-two chapters into Genesis, we come to the Torah portion for the first day of the new year, Yom Rishon shel Rosh HaShanah. This chapter (Genesis 22:1-19) is also known as “The Akedah” or “The Binding.” 

Abraham is facing the test not unlike what parents

The parashah states “You stand this day, all of you, before your G-d, you tribal heads, you elders, and you officials, all the men of Israel, you children, you women, even the strangers within your camp, … to enter into the covenant.” The covenant is made with

Parsha Ki Tavo focuses on the Israelites entering Canaan and reiterates the laws detailed elsewhere in Deuteronomy. As Adele Berlin writes in The Torah: a Women’s Commentary , “These laws…..aim to regulate society when Israel settles in Canaan.” Ki Tavo

Parshat Ki Teitzei, on first reading, seems to be much about rules - a varied list of directives providing guidance and structure when faced with a myriad of different situations: who to marry, who not to marry, how to treat captives and beasts of burden,