TINW Torah Study

Reading about the anger displayed by both God and Moses in the Golden Calf episode, Rabbi Jaech reflected on the anger we have been seeing across America today and looked for words of wisdom from our ancient sages about anger.

Rabbi Janet Roberts led us in an exploration of Jewish law in regards to organ donation.  

This week's Torah portion goes into great deal about the portable sanctuary that was carried by the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness for forty years in the 13th century BCE. But scholars have determined that, while the setting of the story was the 13th century, it was actually written no earlier than the 6th century BCE. The writers were trying to make a point about the portability of the sanctuary. With the help of research from Rabbi Isaac S.D. Sassoon, we delve into what that could have been.

The world can be a scary place.  It could also be scary in biblical times, and our ancient sages debated what responses are appropriate when a person is concerned for their personal safety. They even went so far as to say, "If someone comes to kill you, rise and kill him first." This week we discussed measures of protection, some of which have been instituted by our own congregation in an effort to keep members safe.

The god in the Hebrew Bible can be scary who demands blind obedience to His laws. But the Judaism we practice today is based upon rabbinic teachings, not Torah law, and free will of people is acknowledged. The god of the rabbis is a mensch.

This week's Torah portion includes the phrase, "a darkness that can be touched." As this pandemic lingers, Rabbi Jaech found these words to be apt as  many people struggle with isolation and loneliness. This week we explored the wisdom of the sages about dark times.

Inspired by research from Dutch scholar Karel van der Toorn, Rabbi Jaech led us on an exploration of New Year observations in and around the ancient Near East.

This week our Torah Study session fell on Christmas morning, so our scholar-in-residence, Professor David Sperling, led us in a look at what classical Jewish sources had to say about Jesus.

Public reading of passages from the Torah date back at least to the 1st century, but likely is hundreds of years older than that. The pandemic may have upended how some synagogues offer their public readings right now. Rabbi Janet Roberts led our group in a discussion of what we know about public readings of the Torah and what we might think about them today.

Our sacred text is grounded in human experience. For most of our history, Jews have lived in exile. The biblical tales of many of our heroes show weathering the trauma of exile and, ultimately, thriving. These stories provide hope for us and for a better future.