by Sarah Gazitt | Mar 18, 2024 | Torah Reflections
Pekudei Exodus 38:21 – 40:38 With parashat P’kudei, the Book of Exodus comes to a close. On the surface, these past weeks have told the story of our liberation from Egypt (Mitzrayim) and our experience at Sinai; yet at a deeper level, the text speaks of a...
by Sarah Gazitt | Mar 8, 2024 | Torah Reflections
Vayak’heil Exodus 35:1 – 38:20 The construction of the Tabernacle is about to begin in earnest, and the people are eager to start, but first Moses calls them together to issue a strict command from the Eternal: even during the construction of...
by Sarah Gazitt | Mar 3, 2024 | Torah Reflections
Ki Tissa Exodus 30:11 – 34:35 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him: Arise, make us a god who will go before us, for that fellow Moses—the man who brought us from the...
by Sarah Gazitt | Feb 25, 2024 | Torah Reflections
T’tzaveh Exodus 27:20 – 30:10 The title of this Torah portion, T’tzaveh, is usually translated as “Instruct!” or “Command!” The word t’tzaveh has the same root as mitzvah, which also is usually translated as “commandment.” But a mitzvah is more than a...
by Sarah Gazitt | Jan 26, 2024 | Torah Reflections
B’Shalach Exodus 13:17 – 17:16 When we approach biblical stories as myth, we no longer read the text literally but see it, instead, as the expression of a universal spiritual unfolding. Thus, the opening phrase of this parashah, “Now when Pharaoh let the...
by Sarah Gazitt | Sep 22, 2023 | Torah Reflections
HaAzinu Deuteronomy 32:1 – 52 Chutzpah. Whether Jewish or not, almost everyone knows this Hebrew/Yiddish word. The dictionary defines it as “unmitigated effrontery or impudence, gall, nerve, courage bordering on arrogance.” But there is a much deeper...
