Rabbi Lauren Tuchman

Tag: Torah

  • Behar 5780

    Behar 5780

    This week marks the tenth Shabbat since I have been in shul, davening with a minyan. Each Shabbat morning as I arise, put on my tallit and prepare to pray the morning or Shacharit service, I cannot but feel the absence of friends, the silence without melodious harmonization, and the…

  • A Teaching On Parashat Emor and Pesach Sheni

    A Teaching On Parashat Emor and Pesach Sheni

    A Teaching On Parashat Emor and Pesach Sheni

  • Rabbi Lauren Tuchman interviewed by the Women Rabbis Talk Podcast

  • Baalotecha 5779

    Our parsha this week is Behaalotecha, the third parsha in the Book of Numbers. We are introduced this week to the second Passover or Pesach Sheni which falls on the 14th of Iyyar, exactly one month after Passover. Pesach Sheni allowed those who were unable to offer the Passover sacrifice…

  • Behar 5779

    Parashat Behar, our Torah reading for this week, introduces us to the Shmita year. Every seven years, Leviticus/Vayikra instructs us that the land must lie fallow—no agricultural or food production is permitted and there are a number of other restrictions put into place as well. The number seven holds great…

  • Emor 5777

    Author’s note: This commentary was written in May, 2017, in the Jewish year 5777 and was significantly updated in 5779. The LORD spoke further to Moses: Speak to Aaron and say: No man of your offspring throughout the ages who has a defect shall be qualified to offer the food…

  • Kedoshim 5779

    It has become something of a cliché in the circles I run in these days that when a teacher of Torah or a clergyperson from any religious tradition, for that matter, sits down to write a sermon, the sermon they often write is that which they most need to hear.…

  • Pesach 5779

    One of the central obligations of Pesach, as we read in the Haggadah is that we each, individually, have the obligation to see ourselves as though we ourselves went out of Egypt. The story of the Jewish people’s liberation, then, becomes a collective, national retelling beyond time, space and generation.…

  • Shemini 5779

    In our parsha this week, Parashat Shemini (Leviticus 9-11), we have one of the most famous episodes in all of Torah. Aaron, the High Priest and brother of Moses, has four sons, and two of them—Nadav and Avihu—priests in their own right—approach the altar and make an offer which G-d…

  • Our Covenant Includes All: Thoughts on Deuteronomy 29

    Our chapter is largely concerned with HaShem telling the Children of Israel what will befall them if they stray from the covenant which, it is emphasized, includes everyone, those who are there on that day and those who are not. If the Children of Israel uphold our covenant with HaShem…