Repair the World

Torah Tidbit: A Taste of This Week’s Portion Vayeshev 5772

This Torah Tidbit is brought to you by Repair the World and our grantee-partner American Jewish World Service (AJWS). Check out the full dvar tzedek on which this excerpt is based at AJWS.

Sometimes, it feels all too easy to get discouraged. Bad news flashes across newspaper headlines, our television sets and our Facebook feeds. Taken together the world’s problems can feel insurmountable, leaving us feeling small and ineffectual – and like our actions don’t really matter.

But, as this week’s dvar tzedek author, Wendi Geffen writes, “Parshat Vayeshev offers a counter-text to the perceived futility of one “ordinary” person’s efforts.” The parsha tells the story of Joseph (yes, the owner of of the amazing technicolor dreamcoat). It describes a chance meeting Joseph has with a man – a stranger – that ends up completely changing the path of his life, as well as the course of the Jewish people’s future.

Torah Tidbit: A Taste of The Week’s Portion Vayishlach 5770

This Torah Tidbit is brought to you by Repair the World and our grantee-partner American Jewish World Service (AJWS). Check out the full dvar tzedek on which this excerpt is based at AJWS.

In Hollywood, happy endings are pretty much guaranteed. In life – not so much. This week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, tells the story of Jacob and Esau: two feuding brothers meeting for the first time in years. (The reason for the rift? Jacob stole first-born Esau’s blessing and birthright from their father Isaac. Kind of a big deal.)

At the meeting, Jacob brings his brother lots of apology gifts – camels, goats, cattle you know, the usual stuff – in hopes that the bounty will make up for everything he took years before. But, as this week’s dvar tzedek author, Leil Lebovitz writes, “In putting together his gift, it doesn’t occur to Jacob that his brother—who he knows had, since their last parting, grown wealthy and powerful—might have no use for all these animals. Jacob isn’t thinking rationally; he just wants the problem to go away.”

Leil goes on to say how this story of Jacob and Esau’s reunion can offer insight to those of us concerned with global hunger. Read on to find out how:

Torah Tidbit: A Taste of the Week’s Portion Vayetze 5772

This Torah Tidbit is brought to you by Repair the World and our grantee-partner American Jewish World Service (AJWS). Check out the full dvar tzedek on which this excerpt is based at AJWS.

What responsibility do we have to the Earth? Is it possible to value the earth as a sacred space? How do we balance our need for resources with the environmental degradation that too often results from our consumption? Are the stakes different when we’re talking about food or a smart phone?

This week’s Torah portion, Vayetze, offers insight into these challenging questions. It tells the story of Jacob fleeing form his home and encountering God through his dreams while in the wilderness. (Remember the whole “Jacob’s ladder” story? Yeah, that’s this one.) Jacob’s encounter sets up a binary that puts God and heaven in a sacred context and the earth below in a mundane context.

According to this week’s dvar tzedek author, Adina Roth, that binary can cause problems with how we view and respect the Earth. Read more from this week’s dvar tzedek author, Adina Roth, below the jump.

Torah Tidbit: A Taste of the Week’s Portion Chayei Sarah 5772

This Torah Tidbit is brought to you by Repair the World and our grantee-partner American Jewish World Service (AJWS). Check out the full dvar tzedek on which this excerpt is based at AJWS.

What do we do when tragedy strikes? How should we react – both to the tragedies we experience personally, and one’s we see from afar? Sometimes it seems like everyday the news has another sad story to share – of famine or war, injustice or environmental degradation. When we hear about these things, is it better to get riled up with anger and outrage, or numb ourselves to the pain and carry on?

This week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, asks just that. It tells the story of Sarah’s emotional death following the near-sacrifice of her son Isaac, and of her husband Abraham’s response (according to the sage Rashi) to marry Isaac so that his lineage lives on.

Read more from this week’s dvar tzedek author, Wendi Geffen, below the jump.

Torah Tidbit: A Taste of This Week’s Portion – Vayera 5772

This Torah Tidbit is brought to you by Repair the World and our grantee-partner American Jewish World Service (AJWS). Check out the full dvar tzedek on which this excerpt is based at AJWS.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayera, is the stuff of Hollywood movies – an epic tale of right and wrong, and the story of one man fighting against the odds to stand up for what he believes in. Vayera recounts the story of Abraham (played here by a bedraggled George Clooney, naturally) trying to convince God not to destroy the people of Sodom and Gomorrah for their moral corruptness. In doing so, he puts his own relationship with God – not to mention his own life – on the line.

Read more from this week’s dvar tzedek author, Leil Leibovitz, below the jump – but be warned, there are some serious spoiler alerts in there.

Weekly Torah: Parshat Balak 5771

This post is part of a weekly series of Torah commentaries presented by the American Jewish World Service. It was contributed by Rachel Travis.

A specter of violence and conflict hangs over Parshat Balak. Fearing attack by the approaching Israelite nation, Balak, king of Moab, hires the prophet Bilaam to curse the Israelites. Balak entreats Bilaam: “come then, put a curse upon this people for me, since they are too numerous for me… for I know that he whom you bless is blessed indeed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”

In Balak’s day, this request was neither metaphorical nor symbolic: his was a society deeply entrenched in sorcery and magic, where benedictions and imprecations were thought to tangibly and powerfully impact the physical world. Balak’s attempt to curse Israel was therefore a calculated decision with powerful resonance for his people. Understood thus, the nature of his request is striking. Given the option of strengthening his own nation or cursing his rivals, he prefers a malediction.

Weekly Torah: Parshat Chukkat 5771

This post is part of a weekly series of Torah commentaries presented by the American Jewish World Service. It was contributed by Dani Passow.

We read in Parshat Chukkat about the death of Miriam: “Miriam died and she was buried there. There was no water for the assembly, and [the Children of Israel] gathered against Moshe and Aharon.” This odd and disjointed sequence of verses is puzzling, and leads the Talmud to connect Miriam’s death with the disappearance of water: “From here we learn that all forty years [in the desert, the Children of Israel] had a well because of Miriam’s merit.”

The trauma of losing Miriam and the water is clear: the people become angry, and Moshe needs to act. But in his haste to try to help the community regain this essential resource, he fails to listen to the higher wisdom offered by God to speak to the rock and instead he hits it. Though he does manage to meet the people’s need, the waters that he supplies are called Mei Meriva—waters of strife.

Weekly Torah: Parshat Korach 5771

This post is part of a weekly series of Torah commentaries presented by the American Jewish World Service. It was contributed by Jimmy Tabler.

“…and we argued passionately but always rested assured that our arguments were indeed ‘for the sake of heaven.’”

These words, used to close the graduation ceremony for my cohort from Brandeis University’s Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program, struck me as especially thought provoking. The quote references a passage in Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Ancestors, which reads: “Any dispute for the sake of heaven will have enduring value, but any dispute not for the sake of heaven will not have enduring value.”

Weekly Torah: Parshat Shlach 5771

This post is part of a weekly series of Torah commentaries presented by the American Jewish World Service. It was contributed by Shira Fischer.

For many of us, the situation in Sudan feels hopeless. In Sudan’s western region of Darfur, a genocide has continued for eight years, claiming the lives of more than 450,000 people and displacing millions of others. Meanwhile, decades of civil war between the North and South had finally ended in 2005, only to suffer repeated flare-ups like the latest clashes in Abyei, which threaten this fragile peace.

So many people have died already in this conflict that sometimes it is hard not to feel like our efforts to pursue peace are futile. Lately, when I receive e-mails urging me to take action about Sudan, I often give in to my feelings of hopelessness and do nothing at all.

Weekly Torah: Parshat Beha’alotcha 5771

This post is part of a weekly series of Torah commentaries presented by the American Jewish World Service. It was contributed by Rachel Travis.

For years I kept a Jewish calendar on my wall. It was my weekly guide to Shabbat times and my monthly reference for Jewish holidays. Now I have a Jewish calendar app on my phone and refer to Chabad.org each Friday to check candle lighting times. The technology has changed, but the fact that much of Jewish observance is embedded in time remains the same.

Holidays, Shabbat, fast days and special Torah readings are all inscribed in the Jewish calendar. And if we miss an observance during its appointed time, there is generally no making it up. If we fall ill on Yom Kippur and must eat, none of us would try to compensate by fasting the next day. Anyone who has scrambled to finish Shabbat preparations on a Friday afternoon understands that the circumscribed nature of time-bound mitzvot imbues their practice with a sense of urgency. It’s a do-it-or-lose-it system.