During our most recent Shabbat morning Torah service, we had a little liturgical announcement: we declared the coming new month of Shvat. It’s hard to identify a more universally relevant topic than the environment. Along with the weekly dedication of Shabbat we sing in our Kiddush honouring Creation, and the prominence of this theme in […]
Were we a community that compiles, prints or announces names to be acknowledged as Mourner’s Kaddish is recited, last Shabbat I would have offered the name Malek Merabet, and those of the four men killed inside the kosher supermarket in Paris — Yoav Hattab, Phillipe Braham, Yohan Cohen and Francois-Michel Saada — and also police […]
IT’S … TODAY! A Bear, a Pig and some Monkees walked into a … Nope, that won’t work. Try this: “What day is it?” asked Pooh. “It’s today,” squeaked Piglet. “My favourite day,” said Pooh. ~ ~ ~ With the secular new year behind us, along with the reading of the whole book of Genesis, […]
As a youngster, I loved Hebrew school, Young Judea, our community summer camp, Camp B’nai Brith, and Friday night services. I went to services on my own, or with friends. I had even asked to attend afternoon religious school! My zayde, my mother’s father, and a pious Jew, was quietly proud that I persisted in […]
One of my favourite recurring queries about the Jewish holidays is “How do you spell [the holiday that falls on the 25th of the Jewish month of kislev]?” It’s a favourite because it invariably leads to wonderfully informative and often entertaining stories of folks’ encounters with this festival, whether in their family of origin, or […]
As an undergraduate, I contemplated a career in journalism and was involved with the student newspapers. I wanted to live in the beguiling shadow of those female film icons with their trench coats and snappy rejoinders, working on the W5 — the who, what, when, where and why of a story. OrH is settling into […]
Jacob said to his kin: Gather stones. They took stones, made a mound, and ate there by the mound. Laban called it Yegar-Sahaduta, but Jacob called it Gal-Ed. (Gen 31:46-47) Two different languages, the same name. Witness-mound. Laban’s name for the site of this peace treaty is in Aramaic; Jacob’s is in Hebrew. How did […]
“The ground is talking,” says the young commander of the Binyamin Brigade, responsible for the area in the territories between Jerusalem and Nablus, a poignant reference to the unique place the area plays in our Biblical heritage. Two days before, the former security advisor to the government and Underground fighter, opined that “Real peace needs […]
Toward the end of the Torah portion Hayyei Sarah, which is read this week in synagogues, we encounter the adult Isaac, who “went out meditating [lasu’ah] in the field towards the evening” (Genesis 24:63). Rashi, an early medieval commentator, interprets the verb lasu’ah as implying prayer, drawing also from the rabbinic tradition that identifies Isaac […]
The Jewish year cycle can be understood as an object lesson in extremes, at least at the beginning of the calendar year. We start in joy, celebrating a new year, and wishes for sweetness, but shaded in the colors of teshuvah throughout the days of repentance. Ten days later, we are at our most abject, […]
