Mindful Torah...and more

The following is not a comment ary on the Torah or other Biblical text .  Rather, i t consists of my musings about the nature of time and its role in our lives. -----------------------------------------------------------  This past weekend we celebrated the festival of Purim.  Purim celebrates the victory of the Jews over their Persian enemy Haman, viceroy to King Ach a shverosh.  The story is told in the biblical Book of Esther, because the Jewish Queen Esther is the heroine of the story. Purim usually occurs in March.  But these year, for the first time I can remember (though my memory is not what it once was) it fell on the evening of the 23rd of February.  This is indeed quite early!  As a matter of fact, all of the holidays for the remainder of 5773 on the Jewish calendar (the end of August) through Hanukkah of 5774 will be “very early” this year. As a matter of fact, for the first time in history (and the last time until about 400 year...

This week's Torah parasha /portion is Terumah ( Shemot /Exodus 25:1 - 27:19).   In it , God begins instructing Moshe on how to construct the Mikdash (Tabernacle) , or portable des ert sanctuary .   A key concept can be found in the beginning of the parashah when God says to Moshe, "And let them make Me a sanctuary/holy place that I may dwell among them" (25:8).   The Hebrew word for "I may dwell" is the single word v'shakhanti .   The root of this word is the same as for the word Mishkan , the other name used in the Torah for the Tabernacle.  It appears from this verse that the Mikdash / Mishkan is to be built so that God can dwell in the presence of the people.   Yet isn't God to be found everywhere?   Nahum Sarna, in the JPS Torah commentary, points out that the verb sh-kh-n connotes a temporary, nomadic dwelling, not a permanent home.   In other words, as we find later in the Torah, God dwells periodically in the Mikdash / Mishkan .   ...

The week's parashah is Yitro ( Shemot /Exodus 18:1-20:23). It begins,  "And Yitro (Jethro), father-in-law of Moses, heard all that God had done to Moses and to Israel his people, that God had taken Israel out of Egypt." The parashah then continues with Yitro's advice to Moses that he not take on the duty of judging the people's grievances alone, but appoint judges to help him. Finally, it  reaches a climax with the central event of our religious mythology, the giving of the law/Torah at Sinai. It is at Sinai that the ragtag bunch of former slaves finally covenant themselves to God as a people. At Sinai the nation/people of Israel is born. Whether or not one believes in Sinai as an historical event, does not concern me. For what matters is not the historical veracity of the narrative, but rather, the "Truth" within; the spiritual message that it is meant to teach. I believe that the ancient rabbis too cared more about the ...