Talking Torah
Torah Reading – Yom Kippur Morning
And Aaron shall place lots upon the two goats: One lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel.
Sivan Rahav-Meir, a religious Israeli news broadcaster summarizes the commentary of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a leading 19th century German rabbi who founded the “School of Modern Orthodox Judaism”, on this sentence from the Yom Kippur morning Torah reading. She writes that the source of the word scapegoat is found in this Torah reading which describes the ritual of the Kohen on Yom Kippur.
Mincha Yom Kippur
The Reading of the Haftarah
The Book of Jonah is a book of the Prophets which tells of a prophet named Jonah, the son of Amittai, who is sent by God to prophesy the destruction of a city called Nineveh. Set during the reign of King Jeroboam (786-746 BCE), Jonah tries to escape this divine mission by sailing from Jaffa to Tarshish but is unable to do so...
Dvar Torah – Parashat Noah
Our Torah portion this week is Vayera. Perhaps unknowingly, we are very familiar with a “portion of this portion”. On the two days of Rosh Hashana when we read the stories of the birth of Isaac, Hagar, Abraham’s maidservant and their son, Ishmael getting sent from his home and finally, the Sacrifice of Isaac, we are reading from the Torah portion Vayera!
Dvar Torah – Parashat Bereshit
Genesis 1:1 – 6:8
The holidays of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and SheminiAtzeret/Simchat Torah are over. On Shabbat, we renew the annual Torah reading cycle with the Torah portion, Bereshit and the famous words, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” and the story of God’s creations in six days. God then rested and proclaimed that we too must rest on the day that He called Shabbat (Genesis 2:1-3)
Dvar Torah – Parashat Noah
If someone were to ask you about a fellow named Noah you would probably answer, “Yeah, that’s the guy who built an ark as commanded by God. Yes, it was God’s command to gather and to bring a pair of animals into the ark, male and female the Torah says (Genesis 6:22), “Noah did so, just as God commanded him”.