It’s 4:54 on a wintery afternoon. I walk into my study, which has windows facing west. It’s been a typical day, some work, some errands. Nothing special. My attention is grabbed by spectacular colors outside the window.

"Alan!" I yell to my husband. "It’s the most amazing sunset. Grab your coat and let’s run outside before it changes."

It was the most amazing sunset- shocking bright pinks and subtle purples, in colors and shades I had never in my sixty-one years seen before. How is this possible?

by Rabbi Alexis Roberts

In Parshat Toldot, we have a familiar story and a familiar question arises from it: Do we control our own lives, or is everything pre-ordained? The answer is…yes. Here we find people struggling and scheming to bring about what God has foretold. Are they helping or hindering by trying so hard ? Are they promised abundance and given life experiences full of doubt, drought, and jealousy just to test and develop their characters? Is the abundance the real gift, or the faith to trust in it despite appearances? The answer is…yes.

by Rabbi Jill Hammer

The purpose of this monthly d'var Torah is to alert us to the most hidden and obscure female presences in the Torah, named or unnamed, and to use these hidden voices to understand our inner truths.

"Esau realized that the Canaanite women [he had married] displeased his father Isaac.
So Esau went to Ishmael and took to wife, in addition to the wives he had, Machalat
the daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, sister of Nevayot."

by Rabbi Jill Hammer

The purpose of this monthly d'var Torah is to alert us to the most hidden and obscure female presences in the Torah, named or unnamed, and to use these hidden voices to understand our inner truths.

“And they blessed Rebecca and said to her:
Our sister, may you grow into thousands!
May your children inherit the gates of their enemies!”
Then Rebecca and her maids arose,
mounted the camels, and followed the man.
So the servant took Rebecca and went his way.”
 

by Batya Yisraela

Upon preparing for my dvar torah, I came upon a woman worth recognizing and that was Lot’s wife, and I wasn’t about to put a pillar of salt on my bat mitzvah invitation. During my dvar torah you will learn why she is my hero and why she is so important in my heart. Then you will stop focusing on her being nameless, but realize the great deed she has done.

by Rabbi Shefa Gold

 

The Blessing

The 13th century Biblical commentator, Hizkuni, explains that Avram (he was not yet called Abraham) had already left his homeland Ur of the Kasdim and was living in Haran. Therefore he was told to leave his land- Haran, and not to go back to his birthplace, Ur, AND to leave his father’s house, and to go where G-d would guide him.

Quite a journey! Leave where you are, don’t go back to where you were, and separate yourself from your parents’ home. Go- and G-d will show you the way.

By Rabbi Shefa Gold

The Blessing

by Chaia Kaplan

A girl just east of Eden
faced west with winged eye
and roamed around the honey
combing crevices of sky

“perhaps some place
- perched somewhere past
these frightful foreign flights
aloft, just west of Everplain,
a nestling in the heights…”

and at her westward window
(which she elbowed as she gazed)
her eyes upturned to paradise
an azure will to raise