sarah in nyc

When I first looked at this parasha in preparation for giving this d'rash this line in the Torah reading (Numbers16:15) חֲמ֨וֹר אֶחָ֤ד מֵהֶם֙ נָשָׂ֔אתִי I have not taken the ass of any one of them So reminded me of the following line from the haftara (1 Samuel 12:3) אֶת־שׁוֹר֩ ׀ מִ֨י לָקַ֜חְתִּי וַחֲמ֧וֹר מִ֣י לָקַ֗חְתִּי   Whose ox have I taken, or whose ass have I taken? I was  so familiar with this text because my older sister read this haftara in 1975. She was the first woman to read haftara on Shabbat morning at Temple Beth El in Quincy, Ma. As the first woman reading a haftara on Shabbat morning, my sister needed to be perfect. She used to ask me to listen to her practice. There are lines from this haftara that I could chant by heart even if you woke me from a deep sleep. I am grateful for the time I spent listening to my sister practice in her clear, beautiful voice because in reading Moshe's reply---I heard the words of Samuel rising and falling in...

This is the d'var torah I gave yesterday at Ansche Chesed about the robes of the High Priest. Shabbat Shalom! When Jeremy asked me to give today’s d’var torah, it seemed like a perfect fit. This parasha describes the clothing worn by the Cohen Gadol, and as some of you know, I make Jewish ritual objects in fabric, including garments like tallitot and kittles. So when I started to think about this dvar torah, the first question I asked myself was the most basic – what did the Cohen Gadol’s garments actually look like? We all have some idea in our head about what the Cohen Gadol wears, ideas generally influenced by pictures we have seen in our Hebrew School textbooks and haggadot. We know there is some kind of a hat, either like a pope’s pointy hat or like the turban worn by the   machberet RAMBAM, as well as a breast plate, various layers of robes, and his hem is decorated with pomegranates and bells. Okay. So, to get a better idea, I went to Google Images and s...