On the eve of his fraught reconciliation with Esau, Jacob is engaged in a wrestling match that lasts the night. In the end, Jacob is left with a wound which will cause him to limp for the rest of his days, along with a new name.[1] Until this point, Jacob…

As Jacob escapes from his brother’s murderous rage, the result of Jacob’s subterfuge and lies, he encounters a place. We are not told where this place is, merely its brute fact. “He encountered a place”[1] somewhere between a murderous brother and a city full of familial lore but which he…

Auschwitz survivor Dr. Edith Eger once said: “We don’t cover garlic with chocolate, there is no forgiveness without rage, but love conquers all.” Her words recall verses from Song of Songs: “Let me be a seal upon your heart, like the seal upon your hand. For love is fierce as…

The first word in Parashat VaYera comes from the verb root “ro’eh,” which means “to see.” In so many ways, this Parashah is all about what happens when we truly see — and fail to see — each other. When God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, God fails to see…

There is no obvious explanation in the biblical text for why it was Abram who was called by God for the sacred calling. What were the qualities that made him worthy? We just don’t know. But we can imagine, as the ancient rabbis did in the following midrash : “Rabbi…

The narrative stories found in the Book of Genesis are rich and full of life. Each character seems to jump off the Torah scroll and into our hearts. One cannot help but feel drawn in by the stories we return to year in and year out. Through the patriarchs and…

“It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we…

There is a world we wish for and the real one we’ve got. The core message of Torah is that we, in partnership with the Holy One, can, and therefore must, change the world for the better. Even the Land of Israel, according to some, is not intrinsically holy, but…

Life is a series of choices and consequences. We experience this truth today, just as Moses experienced it thousands of years ago. Now, in the midst of the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), best understood as Moses’ ethical will, we hear the distilled lessons of a prophet desperate to see his…