Torah 5782 – Page 2 – Rereading Torah Towards Liberation

Bent Word of the Week

In the spirit of noticing words with a meaning related to “bending,” here are some notes on the root bet-reish-chaf (barakh; berekh)

Purposes and Purpose: Ecclesiastes and Babel

This post looks at the contrast between “every purpose” and “common purpose” in Ecclesiastes and the Babel story and some related matters of language and poetry.

Faith Resources from Gender Spectrum

Among the many useful resources at Gender Spectrum, is this set of responses to “clobber passages” in sacred text, Jewish and Christian. https://www.genderspectrum.org/articles/faith-resources-clobber

Every Purpose, Everywhere, All Day, All Genders

Our brains tend to create a continuum of experience between birth and death, laughing and weeping. Why, then, are we stuck with the binary, with no spectrum, when it comes to male and female?

What God Has Twisted: Sukkot Addendum

“Who can straighten what God has twisted?” The Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), which many communities read during the Shabbat of Sukkot or at other points during the festival, tells us: Consider God’s doing! Who can straighten what [God] has twisted? So in a time of good fortune enjoy the good fortune; and in a timeContinue reading “What God Has Twisted: Sukkot Addendum”

Haazinu: Crooked, Twisted, Bent, and Wet

Maybe crookedness is, contrary to Moses’ perception, part of how we survive, retain, and share essential aspects of Torah and divinity.

Experiment 5782

Not sure where this is going, but launching a new set of Torah explorations with Haazinu, near the end of Deuteronomy, and looking back/ahead to Breishit, at the start of the reading cycle. While the writing is mine, the thoughts are informed and inspired by Tzedek Chicago Torah study, a weekly on-line communal dive intoContinue reading “Experiment 5782”

Haazinu (Deut 32:1-52)

“Haazinu” means something like “Give ear!” The Torah portion, Haazinu is comprised of Deuteronomy 32:1-52, and most of it is set as poetry. This makes the penultimate portion of Deuteronomy, which closes out the desert story, a kind of bookend to the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18), which marks the crossing over into theContinue reading “Haazinu (Deut 32:1-52)”