Recent Weekly Torah
Passover (and Purim) and Shavuot Jews
Since the high holidays and Sukkot will be upon us soon, let鈥檚 talk this week about springtime holidays鈥 No, really 鈥 as you鈥檒l see in a moment I鈥檓 actually quite serious about this.
One of the most familiar verses of this week鈥檚 parashah is famous for the way in which it has long been creatively (mis)quoted in Jewish liturgy, that is, in a crucial ceremony of the Jewish calendar. In (transliterated) Hebrew it reads:
鈥淎rami oved avi鈥 (Deut. 26:5)
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Do Not Let Your Heart Falter
This week鈥檚 Torah reading records that before going out to battle, the Israelite troops would gather together to hear from their leaders. The generals would give the orders, and then a priest would step forward and bless the assembled soldiers. He would say to them:
鈥淗ear, O Israel! You are about to join battle with your enemy. Let not your heart falter. Do not be in fear, or in panic, or in dread of them. For it is the Adonai your God who marches with you to do battle for you against your enemy, to bring you victory鈥 (Deuteronomy 20:3-4).
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The Heart of Religion is to Care for the Poor
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Are We Architects of Our Own fate?
A central theme of Parashat Eikev is contingency: that a person鈥檚 fate is predicated on their actions, and the future is not yet written. A core problem occupying medieval philosophers, including the classical Torah commentators, the question of causality continues to fascinate鈥攁nd elude鈥攗s today. In our own time, it tends to be scientists who explore the way that cause and effect play out in time. Physicists debate the linearity of time, with some advancing the block universe theory in which causality is an illusion created by human cognitive processes.
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Multiple Motives for Our Actions
Why do I show up to teach my classes at 王中王六合彩特码? For a whole variety of reasons. I love teaching. I signed a contract to do so (I promised). I owe it to the students, who paid tuition. I am being paid. Responses from students challenge me to think in new ways, thus enriching and expanding my scholarship and writing. I am deeply committed to Judaism for reasons that I have thought about a lot, and I am glad to be training the next generation of rabbis and lay leaders for the Jewish community. I want people to think well of me
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