Tag Archives | weekly parasha

Parashat Vayeira | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on November 9, 2017 in JOFEE Fellowship

by Brittany Feldman – Hazon – Detroit, Michigan This week’s Torah Portion, Vayeira, discusses circumcision, birth, destruction, disobedience, and devotion. With so many themes in one portion, I’m choosing to focus on one that stood out to me the most, disobedience. In this particular text, “Abraham pleads with G‑d to spare the wicked city of Sodom. Two of the three disguised angels arrive in the doomed city, where Abraham’s nephew Lot extends his hospitality to them and protects them from the evil intentions of a Sodomite mob. The two guests reveal that they have come to overturn the place, and to save Lot and his family. Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt when she disobeys the command not to look back at the burning city as they flee.” I found the last line of this text to be extremely powerful in many ways. For me, it brought up thoughts about destruction and violence- if something bad happens should we choose to just move on with our lives without looking back? Although Lot’s wife disobeyed G-d’s command can her decision be justified? I started thinking about why she would choose to disobey this command. Was it just out of […]

Learning Limits: Parashat Emor | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on May 11, 2017 in JOFEE, JOFEE Fellowship

by Leora Cockrell – Camp Tawonga – San Francisco, CA This week’s Parsha, Emor, discusses priests, purity, prioritization and perfection. The specifics of which are either largely outdated (I haven’t recently checked to make sure my livestock’s legs match before sacrificing them, have you?) or offensive (judging people’s worthiness based on their bodies). But as a fellow F ellow taught me, sometimes you can read the Torah like an arrow…where is the message trying to take us given the context of the world it was written in? As the Jews wandered the desert, wrestling with their new identities as free people, they could have felt caught between the “world was their oyster” sensation and “too many choices are overwhelming” paralysis. Learning to live a different rhythm of life traveling in the desert, getting along with your fellow travelers (some of whom had just been your enslavers), and finding what was more meaningful to them than the comforts of what was known was a big task. And understandably, a few rules, regulations, and rituals could have done a lot to smooth over tensions and build a collective sense of purpose. I have made a journey to the unknown wilds myself, recently. After spending […]

Parsahat Acharei Mot | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on May 3, 2017 in JOFEE, JOFEE Fellowship

by Becca Heisler, Wilderness Torah – Berkeley, CA Parshat Acharei Mot, in the book of Vayikrah (Leviticus), brings a follow-up to the deaths of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, who were consumed by fire before G-d for offering an unholy sacrifice. As a result of this misdeed, Aaron is tasked with atonement: first, he is commanded to make special sacrifices. Then, he bequeaths all of the transgressions of the Israelites upon a goat (the “scapegoat ”) and sends it into the desert. These rituals are the origins of our modern Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. My reactions to Acharei Mot were scattered: fascination, apathy, confusion, sadness, curiosity, anger. Underlying all of those reactions was a question: what brings us back every year to study the commandments, laws, and rituals of Vayikrah that no longer govern our daily lives? We read this parshah during the fourth week of counting The Omer . Each week of the Omer corresponds to one of the lower seven sephirot (attributes or emanations of G-d), and this week is the week of netzach (Endurance). Each day is an exploration of the relationship between netzach and another sephirah – First is chesed (love), next gevurah (boundedness), then […]

Parashat Tazria-Metzora | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on April 25, 2017 in JOFEE Fellowship

by Margot Sands, Ekar Farm – Denver, CO This week’s Torah portion, Tazria-Metzora, continues to outline specific laws of purification for newborns, mothers, and sufferers of leprosy such as circumcision, immersing in the mikvah, and solitary confinement. Leprosy? Why is this disease addressed alongside the beautiful cycle of life? These different states of being appear together as forms of distractions that prevent us from fully engaging in spirituality. Newborns might be physically distracted from their new existence in the world; new mothers are distracted by on-going pains and stresses of labor and taking care of infants; leprosy is also a physical distraction as an irritating skin ailment. The laws instructed in this text aren’t necessarily targeting these groups of people as dirty, unclean, unwanted, but rather as folks who have barriers to accessing the divine. While we read this parsha throughout the week, we are also tasked with “Counting the Omer,” an active 49-period of time between Passover and Shavuot. An omer is a measurement of barley that was offered to the Temple in Jerusalem in biblical times everyday until Shavuot as a reenactment of the Jewish people wandering in the desert after being liberated from Egypt. In present times, we […]

Parashat Sh’mini | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on April 19, 2017 in JOFEE, JOFEE Fellowship

by Ren Feldman, Eden Village Camp – Putnam Valley, NY Last week many of us made a trek to our family’s, friend’s or parent’s home. Exiled from our ‘normal’ lives, we may have felt like slaves to the lurking particles of chametz, doing their best to afflict our Pesadic kashrut, to the pyramids of dirty dishes that plagued the sink, to our seders, where we sat for hours, the outside world shrouded in darkness. As much as we may love our families and friends, we may have felt exceptionally free as we left the houses we grew up in, the livelihood in which we find comfort, and wandered to our potentially uncertain, independent lives. Over here on Dennytown Rd, our very own Eden Village Farm-Educator Apprentices are definitely wandering into uncertainty. Four farmers who have never been to Eden Village, potentially never ‘slaved away’ under the sweltering sun before- acres of shadeless beds surrounding- have just arrived to spend 40 squirrel years (6 months) doing just that! After some faith and sweat, their manna will grow up from the earth, as it did many years ago when I was a farm apprentice. And that, dear reader, brings us to the […]

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