When I was younger and still figuring out what religion meant to me, I went to synagogue most Shabbats. I loved the rhythm of the service, the sense of belonging, the melodies that felt familiar and ...

Reading can cause many different emotions. For some people, beginning a new book produces excitement about where the narrative will take them. Then there’s the pleasure of the plot itself, watching ...

Simchat Torah. It’s the Jewish holiday that comes after all the important Jewish holidays — Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot — this time of year. At the end of one Torah-reading cycle and the ...

A new translation and commentary. After the Shoah—and after modern secularism’s fall from privilege—it is time for Jews to return to reading the Torah as God’s guiding word to them. It is time for ...

On this special Shabbat, Shabbat HaChodesh, the new month, we read from two Torahs. The additional special reading reminds us that we are entering the “first of months” and is apropos because it is ...

We are living through a period of plagues, floods, wildfires and other biblical events. In the Torah, such catastrophes often follow poor human behavior — times when we ignore the word of God. You can ...

The parsha of Bamidbar is generally read on the Shabbat before Shavuot, z’man matan torateinu, “the time of the giving of our law,” the revelation at Sinai. So the Sages, believing that nothing is ...

At a unique crossroads between religion and cuisine, the holiday of Shavuot, which begins this year at sunset on Sunday, June 1, and concludes at nightfall on Tuesday, June 3, celebrates the Giving of ...

Before she had language to understand herself as a transgender person, Joy Ladin did not feel represented or at ease in the physical world she inhabited. While reading the Torah as a child, Ladin ...

Simchat Torah is about more than beginning to read the Torah all over again. It’s about the need to reexamine what we think we know, over and over again. The Jewish holiday known as Simchat Torah, ...

Samuel L. Boyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

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