Korbanot Pregnant with Meaning – Parshat Tazria 2024

Pregnancy is objectively difficult. The experience varies from woman to woman and from pregnancy to pregnancy, but there are common challenges that apply almost universally even if everything is going as expected. During the first trimester, a pregnant woman may have extreme nausea, cravings, and just a very weird relationship with food. I remember that …

The Place of the Family Tree – Parshat Va’eira 2024

The first half of the twentieth century caused much upheaval around the world, death and destruction, and uprooting of entire populations from where they had been for centuries or even millennia. As a result, many people cannot easily access their family tree, cannot reach back into the past, and really understand where they came from. …

The Search for a Partner – Parshat Chayei Sarah 2023

When I was 18 or 19 years old, though I don’t remember why, my mother bought me a book called The Shidduch Crisis: Causes and Cures about dating in the Orthodox Jewish community. The most interesting aspects of the book are also the most concerning, especially a sample Shidduch résumé included in the back. When …

Prayer for Those Caught in the Maelstrom – Parshat Noach 2023

In the Babylonian myth known as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim tells his friend, the king Gilgamesh, about a flood brought upon the world by the Babylonian god Enlil. According to a version of the story, Enlil’s reason for destroying the world was because human beings, who were created by the gods to do their …

Running Like a Child – Parshat Beha’alotecha 2023

As a teacher, the end of a school year is always bittersweet. Obviously, there is some relief after 9 or 10 months of hard work preparing lesson plans, making copies, writing and grading tests and assignments, and working with students. But there is also a feeling of melancholy, of nostalgia for the many hours spent …

Pharaoh’s Chariots and Confronting Fear – Pesach 2023

It has now been just over a year since Russia invaded Ukraine and attempted to capture Kyiv. Since that time, the war has gone very poorly for Russia, with many tens of thousands of casualties and few territorial gains remaining. Though the war is far from over and a final outcome is still years away, …

Bring the Children With You – Parshat Vayelech 2019

“Shul really isn’t a place for children.” That’s what the woman sitting behind Rochelle Kipnis told her when Rochelle asked her why she kept shushing her children during davening. According to her post in the blog, Kveller, in 2016, Rochelle was horrified by these comments, particularly because her children were mostly singing along or asking simple …