joshkadosh 
Moses refuses to continue existing without the presence of certainty, and God answers – as God does – “NO.” Only glimpses: “My presence shall pass by, and My hand will cover over you. As I lift My hand you will see my back [achorai], yet My face is unseeable.” Our most direct connection to the […]Read Post ›
“Speak to the Israelites, let them take for Me gifts; whosoever has a generous heart, from them take gifts.” Cryptic instructions: the takers are givers, the givers have hearts, the gifts are the ultimate kind with no hope of recompense, thanks or purpose. It would be easy to say that God dwelt in the act […]Read Post ›
A new regime is proposed to replace weary Moses, composed entirely of ‘people of truth, haters of corruption’. There was a functional hierarchy between them, of course, ‘captains of hundreds, captains of fifties, captains of tens.’ Yet their authority lay not in their superior, but in truth. A prophetocracy! In moments of weakness they would […]Read Post ›
What’s the sound of oppression? The Zohar teaches that when the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, the power of speech itself was in exile. We know many flavours of silence: rage, shock, grief, apathy, shame, quiet lovers, friends grown apart. “Israel cried out, their plea rose… and God saw Israel, and God knew.” It wasn’t […]Read Post ›
The Channukah candles are lit after sunset, so that they can be seen. But by whom? And until when? “Rabbi Yochanan said: Until the Tarmodeans stop walking.” Whatever the mysterious miracle of Channukah is (and the deeper one delves, the more vague it seems to be), it needs to be communicated to those outside. A […]Read Post ›
Rebecca, suffering from pain and confusion, “goes and demands God” (telech lidrosh et hashem). There’s a strength in this that we feel, demanding that there be order and sense in the chaos that is her life – or else! We can also read her act in a different way, that she went “to interpret God”, […]Read Post ›
Abram’s name is changed to Abraham – no longer the father of one nation, but of humanity. And God introduces a new name: Shadai. One legend parses it as She-Dai, “it’s enough.” Maybe this is a religious God, one of divine limitations, one who makes up new laws and regulations, telling people ‘not to go […]Read Post ›
If we are trapped by minds, words, perceptions and perspectives, let us at least be aware of them. Let us shape them like a Sukkah. The flimsy walls we touch are what we think we know. Behind them we hear rustles of other truths; we rejoice in vulnerability and hope the walls will hold. The […]Read Post ›
We all sinned, and have no excuses but laziness and small-mindedness. But at least – if one transgresses properly – there’s an energy, a sense of being alive. On Yom Kippur we frantically beg for forgiveness, and it’s true, we don’t want to sin anymore. But we don’t just want to keep the rules, we […]Read Post ›
The last three commandments in the Torah are enormous. 611: Imitate God in all your actions. 612: Gather the entire people every seven years, teach and celebrate. 613: Write down the Torah for future generations. Three directions: inwards, outwards, and temporal, bridging past and future. These three directions need to be clear and unobstructed, this […]Read Post ›
Moses’ cries become the model for all prayer: “I pleaded to God… You began to show me Your great deeds…” This is prayer: nobody says ‘You’ to a transcendent metaphysical concept. Given appropriate definitions (justice, beauty, kindness), acts in the world are seen as Godly. Every crisis, surprise, or understanding of history is both an […]Read Post ›
Moses instructs future judges: “Fear not in face of any man, for justice is God’s.” Before seeing a criminal, anyone can have an opinion about justice. Seeing their face can be terrifying. Their incomprehensible humanity confronts us; their actions are alien, but looking into their eyes we see for a moment who we could also […]Read Post ›
The ‘red cow’ ritual to cleanse the impurity of death could not be understood, even by the wise King Solomon. Maybe: not finding a reason for it was the mark of wisdom. Reason means alignment with a reasonable system – the cruellest atrocities have been justified by this circular logic. God save us from a […]Read Post ›
Korach challenges the leaders: “All the people are holy… why are you raised above us?” We’ve already noticed the difference between this claim of intrinsic holiness, already achieved, and the struggle to fulfill the impossible imperative earlier: “Be holy!” But it’s complicated. Korach’s mistake is in the words ‘all‘ and ‘are‘, and in thinking that […]Read Post ›
Shema Israel: we are commanded to listen. Twelve men are told to travel through the promised land. Ten become spies (although the word isn’t used), forcing their negative opinion on their people; two call on the people to continue the journey. This is the greatest sin of the generation. Political opinion that doesn’t lead to […]Read Post ›
The newspaper head-lions roar: This many dead, these new rules, this new crisis. But not everything happening has a name yet, and words limit our thoughts. On Pesach, the child who knows not to ask and the ‘evil’ child receive the same answer: “Because of This, God acted for me as I left Egypt.” The […]Read Post ›
Only a minuscule proportion of what happens to us is a result of our decisions. This truth is so obvious, yet repeatedly concealed by false religions (supermarkets, politicians, rabbis) offering security if only we perform the right rituals or buy the right products. The randomness of the virus strips away these illusions. The minuscule proportion […]Read Post ›
If we insist that events don’t just ‘happen’, but make sense, have a direction and internal grammar, then the world is talking to us. Always. Putting the world into words is the task of a prophet, of everyone. “A lion has roared, God has spoken, who can but prophesy?” But making sense of events, understanding […]Read Post ›
120 words of Torah 