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>The Courage to Live with Uncertainty

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The Courage to Live with Uncertainty

For each of us there are milestones on our spiritual journey that change the direction of our life and set us on a new path. For me one such moment came when I was a rabbinical student at Jews’ College and thus had the privilege of studying with one of the great rabbinic scholars of our time, Rabbi Dr. Nachum…

Out of the Depths

What did Jacob add to the Jewish experience? What is it that we find in him that we do not find to the same measure in Abraham and Isaac? Why is it his name – Jacob/Israel – that we carry in our identity? How was it that all his children stayed within the faith? Is there something of him in…

When the “I” is Silent

This week’s parsha relates a powerful, primal vision of prayer. It is one of the great images of the Torah: Jacob, alone and far from home, lies down for the night, with only stones for a pillow. He dreams of a ladder set on earth but reaching heaven, with angels ascending and descending. This is the initial encounter with the…

Jacob’s Ladder and the Structure of Jewish Prayer

It is one of the great dreams of the Bible. Jacob, afraid and alone, finds himself in what the anthropologist Victor Turner called liminal space – the space between – between the home he is escaping from and the destination he has not yet reached, between the known danger of his brother Esau from whom he is in flight, and the…

Leah’s Tears

We sometimes forget that the phrase Keriat Ha-Torah does not simply mean “reading the Torah.” In biblical Hebrew the verb likro means not “to read” but “to call.” The phrase mikra’ei kodesh, “festivals,” literally means “holy convocations,” days on which the people were called or summoned together. Every seven years – in the command known as hakhel – the king…

Encountering God

  It is one of the great visions of the Torah. Jacob, alone at night, fleeing from the wrath of Esau, lies down to rest, and sees not a nightmare of fear but an epiphany: He came to a certain place [vayifga bamakom] and stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he…

Feeling the Fear

It is one of the most enigmatic episodes in the Torah, but also one of the most important, because it was the moment that gave the Jewish people its name: Israel, one who “wrestles with God and with men and prevails” (Gen. 32:29).  Jacob, hearing that his brother Esau is coming to meet him with a force of four hundred…

Laban the Aramean

The Parsha in a Nutshell In this week’s parsha,Yaakov ran away from home, because his brother Esav had promised to kill him for sneakily getting the Firstborn’s blessing from his father. On his way to his Uncle Lavan’s home in Charan, he stopped for the night on Mount Moriah. While asleep, he dreamed of angels climbing up and down a…

Makom conversation: with Prof Oz-Salzberger

…Shul this morning about the birth of her children in Parshat Vayetse. And I weep when I read this: she calls her first child Reuven, saying, “Now my husband will notice me.” But clearly he doesn’t, because she calls the second one Shimon, “Maybe my husband will listen to me.” But clearly he doesn’t, because she calls her third one Levi, saying, “Now my husband…

Life-Changing Ideas featured in Covenant & Conversation

…To survive tragedy and trauma, first build the future. Only then, remember the past. TOLDOT: You are as great as your ideals. If you truly believe in something beyond yourself, you will achieve beyond yourself. VAYETSE: The deepest crises of your life can turn out to be the moments when you encounter the deepest truths and acquire your greatest strengths….

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