D'var Torahs

Covered in Holiness Covered in Holiness In this week’s parsha, we encounter the holy task entrusted to the Levites as they cared for and transported the Mishkan/Tabernacle through the desert. The vessels had to be carefully wrapped and covered before they could be carried. The Torah is very protective of these sacred objects. They were not to be exposed unnecessarily or looked upon casually. Judaism teaches us that the holier something is, the more carefully it must be treate

Sinai and Ruth: A Story of Love and Kindness On Shavuot, we celebrate the giving of the Torah at Har Sinai. But alongside the thunder and lightning and revelation, we also read one of the quietest stories in Tanach: the story of Ruth. Shavuot is not only about receiving the Torah. It is also about love and kindness. The Torah was given with love.G-d did not need us, yet He chose a relationship with us. The giving of the Torah was an act of divine love and closeness. And the J

Becoming in the Wilderness The opening of Sefer Bamidbar places the Jewish people in a profound liminal space. They are no longer slaves in Egypt, but they are not yet living in the Promised Land. They exist in the in-between space, in the wilderness. Egypt was a place of constriction where they became enslaved. The wilderness was a place where their identity was reshaped, and they transitioned to become a free people. They worked hard to rid themselves from their slave menta

Are You Living By Chance? The Torah presents us with two very different ways to live. One is a life of connection. A life lived with awareness of Gd, with the belief that our lives have meaning, that we are guided, and that nothing is random. That Gd is with us and has a plan for the world. The other is what the Torah calls keri. Keri means casualness. It is not an outright rejection of Gd. It is something much quieter and more subtle. It is living as though everything simply

The Whisper of Holiness, In this week’s parsha, the Torah opens with: “Emor el hakohanim… v’amarta aleihem” “Say to the Kohanim… and say to them.” The question is asked as to why the Torah repeats itself. What can we learn from the double language of say… and say? One beautiful mystical teaching suggests that the repetition hints to a softer kind of speech. It hints to a whisper. To the revelation of a secret. Moshe is asked to whisper this truth to the Cohanim (the pr