by Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant Torah Parsha (BO) is a sequel to last week’s Parsha, VA’EIRA, which concluded with the perpetuation of the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt, despite the seven devastating plagues, which God had imposed on the Pharaoh and his people. In BO, God relentlessly exacerbates the essence of His final three plagues. […]

by Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant Miracles, magic, and marvels aptly describe this week’s Torah Parsha (VA’EIRA). The Exodus narrative is central to our identity as Jews, and is read every year at Shabbot, and again at Passover. Each year, we tell and re-tell the powerful story, which enabled the Jews to escape slavery and oppression in […]

This week, we begin the second Book of the Torah, EXODUS, with the Parsha, SHEMOT. The story continues with the end of GENESIS, and the descendants of Jacob, Joseph, his brothers, and their families living in Egypt, albeit 400 years later. “The Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that […]

by Student Rabbi Shelley Goldman This Shabbat is my Grandmother’s Fourth Yartzeit. By Jewish reckoning, she died Shabbat morning of Parashat Vayechi, the last Torah portion in the book of Genesis. At this point in our story, our patriarch Jacob is lying on his deathbed and offering blessings to his sons. I remember hearing these words […]

by Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant In last week’s Parsha (Mikietz), Joseph, then Viceroy of Egypt, is approached by ten of his brothers from Canaan, to purchase grain and food, as the famine Joseph had prophesied to the Pharaoh proliferated throughout the entire region. At first, Joseph does not identify himself as the brother, who they so […]

by Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant In last week’s Torah Parsha (Vayeishev) the intense jealousy of Joseph, and his father’s ostentatious partiality to Joseph reached a crisis of urgency. Feeling unfairly overlooked, and powerless, they took out their frustrations on Joseph. He was sold as a slave to Egypt; and, after a series of events, as a […]

by Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant Clothes and Garments play a major role in this week’s Torah Parsha (Vayeishev). They appear to be a precursor of change to both the characters and the lives of those, of those who are affected. We first meet Joseph, (beloved son of Jacob), not as an ‘interpreter’ of dreams, but one […]

by Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant In last week’s Torah Parsha (Vayeitzei), we read about how Jacob, himself was deceived into marrying Leah, instead of her younger sister, Rachel, with whom he was deeply in love. We learned that between Leah, Rachel, and their maidservants, Jacob sired twelve sons, who became the ancestors of the twelve tribes […]

by Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant Love, loss, rivalry, and betrayal: These words read like an advertisement for a blockbuster movie, a new must-read thriller. However, in the context of this week’s Parsha (Vayeitzei), each of these words are critical, both to understanding the nature of the individuals involved, and to the consequences of their actions. In […]

by Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant Parsha TOL’DOT presents an ancestral tale that haunts us with its themes of cunning and deception. As the narrative proceeds, we feel the pain of both the tricked and the trickster. We realize that each of the characters is caught in a web of relationships, a web of words, true […]