Blogs

Few of us these days spend much time thinking about our own personal purity. And with good reason! If two people in a conversation can easily hold three opinions, imagine how many different concepts of personal purity can be entertained on a planet of 8 billion people! Group these people into religious and philosophical schools of thought, and it won’t be very long before their ideas on the subject go...Read more...

This week marks my mother Roslyn H. Benamy’s 21st yahrtzeit so my thoughts are very much around how she might have reacted to current events, as well as the weekly Torah portion. We are still at Sinai, as the first words of this last portion of Leviticus reminds us: “God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai saying:” (Lev. 1:1) and we are being told (again) to keep the Sabbath. Here, in chapters 25 and 26 at the end...Read more...

The middle of Leviticus is where we find ourselves this week in the yearly cycle of Torah readings, smack dab in the middle.  The six chapters of Leviticus (16-21) we read this week contain many, many details that pertain to Aaron and the priesthood and sacrifices. These types of details may seem repetitive and obscure in their meaning or intent and this is not a popular portion to preach on when these portions...Read more...

This is THE existential question facing any society, any group, even any family! When it comes to Jewish identity we have both the religious aspect, which for many of us is what we think of when we say “Jewish”, but we also have the ethnic aspect. The immense diversity in ethnic expressions of Jewish identity is, on the one hand, a cause to rejoice; more ways to achieve the same goal means more “wins” for...Read more...

This is the first Shabbat in the month of Nisan, the month of Spring and renewal. This is also the first Torah portion in the Book of Leviticus, also known as “Torat Kohanim”, i.e. the manual for priests. We are between the merriment and extremity of Purim and the celebration of freedom that we invite all to join in: “come, have boiled fish croquets with horseradish, shredded apple salad and crackers”. Yes,...Read more...