Community Blog

Welcome! Check out Rabbi Lizz's divrei Torah and other community updates here.

Shabbat Shalom! Tonight we honor those within our own community who have devoted themselves to jobs of service: First Responders, Peace Keepers, members of the military, and committed and honest civil servants. The Torah portion this week is Parashat Re’eh, which reiterates some of the greatest hits of the...Read more...

*This d'var Torah is posted a week late. It was written and delivered for Shabbat 8/16*

Shabbat Shalom! This...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Matot-Masei, which closes out our Book of Numbers. Without a ton of narrative, we still get a lot of movement in this parasha: Some interesting laws regarding vows that set up our culture of legal realities in rabbinic Judaism, a genocide...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Beha’alot’cha, which has several vignettes of life in the desert: the mounting of the lamps in the Tabernacle, how the Tabernacle was broken down and built back up along the Israelite’s journeys, how the Levites were consecrated for service...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! Count the Omer - tisha ushloshim yom, shehaim chamisha shavuot v’arbaah laomer - and the kabbalistic realm of this day is Netzach shebeyesod, Ambition in foundation. This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Bechukotai, in which we are promised blessings and curses (mostly...Read more...

A D'var Torah by Sisterhood Member Michele Jung

Shabbat Shalom! Good Shabbos!  Tonight’s Sisterhood Service has a Barbie theme, so you may be wondering what a plastic doll or the Barbie movie has to do with Sisterhood, Judaism, or this week’s Torah portion.  You may be thinking she is meshugana.  Don’t worry, I don’t know that much Yiddish.

Barbie was created by a Jewish woman, Ruth Handler.  She...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Shemini, in which the Mishkan is finally ready to receive its first official sacrifices, but two of Aaron’s sons bring an improper sacrifice and are smote. Then in the controlled chaos that follows, as Moses tries to resume the sacrificial...Read more...

          Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayekhel, more of the counting of items the Israelites bring to the building of the Mishkan. As we know from the Alicia Jo Rabins song I like to sing this time of year, wise-hearted people of all the tribes of Israel brought what they had to build and beautify the dwelling place of HaShem. Early in the...Read more...

            Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Yitro, in which Moses’s father-in-law tells him he needs to set up a governmental structure to share the work load with, because trying to attend to all of the community’s needs alone will only cause harm to himself and to the community. Later in the Parasha, Moses climbs up Mount Sinai to...Read more...

          Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Va’Era, the telling of the first 7 of the plagues. Toward the beginning of the Parasha,  7:19 says: G‑d spoke to Moses: “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your rod, and stretch out your hand upon the waters of Egypt’”. A somewhat esoteric Midrash known as the Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer explains this verse: “The first three...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayigash, in which Joseph’s success in Egypt really comes to a peak. He settles his brothers in the land of Goshen, continues to prosper in Pharaoh’s palace, continues to feed those suffering in the famine, and continues to feed Pharaoh’s...Read more...

          Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayishlach, in which Jacob splits up his camp in preparation of his reunion with his brother Esau, whom he believes might kill him. After sending his wives and children in one direction, Jacob himself goes for a little walk in a different direction and ends up wrestling with … someone. There are a lot of...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Chayei Sarah, in which Sarah dies, Abraham purchases his first piece of land in Ha’Aretz, and Isaac gets married off to a woman he’s never met. I know I say this a lot, but there’s a lot happening in this parasha. There’s also a lot happening in the...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom. This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Lech Lecha, the beginning of our people’s covenant with God, when Abraham (still Abram) first heeds God’s call. It also tells us of Sarai’s difficulty in getting pregnant, and her “giving” her maidservant Hagar to Abram as a surrogate. However, once...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom. I have never before spoken about Israel from the bima, but I have felt devastated this week, and I cannot keep silent. I was heartbroken and worried for my people on Saturday and Sunday, alongside the rest of the Jewish world, after hearing about the largest single massacre of...Read more...