Personal Parsha

Chayei Sarah

In this week's parsha, Chayai Sarah, we find out what it takes to make it into Abraham's family.

What would it take to make it into YOUR family? What traits define your family and what are you looking for in any new future members? Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, who is on a mission to find Issac a wife, has an idea as to what quality this woman must possess. Do you know what it is? What kind of woman would fit perfectly into Abraham’s family?
 

In this week's parsha, we encounter Avraham. There is so much we can learn from Avraham, even though sometimes we imagine him to be larger than life! Let's look at some of the stories, trials and tribulations from this week’s parsha and ask ourselves:

1. Do you have (or have you had in the past) some form of a similar experience in your life?
2. How do you think Avraham felt and what would YOU have done?
 

In this week’s Torah reading, Noach is asked to build an ark and save himself and his family while the rest of mankind is killed in a flood.

Bracha Krohn's latest Parsha series, Personal Parsha, is introducing us to different personalities in each week's Torah reading. In this week's parsha, Beraisheet, we meet Adam HaRishon, the first human. He is given the beautiful Garden of Eden as a home, a wife to be his partner and so many trees from which he can pick fruit. What a life!

In this week's Torah reading, the opening verse seems to contain double language: "Say to the priests and say to them…" Why is Moshe being told "say it" twice?

In this week’s parsha, we have a tragedy that defies our understanding. After the week of orientation/inauguration for the tabernacle, the priests, Nadav and Avihu – Aaron’s sons – do something wrong (it is not clear whether they violated a rule, or just did something not commanded or overstepped their role) and God strikes them down. They die on the spot. Everyone’s in shock and Aaron, their father and THE High priest is just silent (see Chapter 10, verse 3).

In this week’s Torah reading, we learn about a very interesting mitzvah, called Terumat haDeshen (see 6:3), the removal of the altar’s ashes each morning.

The kohain would start the day by sweeping and removing the ashes from the altar, from all of the sacrifices offered the day before, whose fats and limbs were burning through the night.

And do you know, the priests used to race up the ramp of the altar to be the first one to do this job?
 

In this week's Torah reading, we read about the korban chatat, sin-offering, that one must bring to the altar if he/she commits a sin. The interesting thing about this offering is that it is brought when a transgression was committed by accident – unintentionally. Why should someone have to bring a sacrifice (and spend a lot of money too!) if it was "just by accident"? Why are we punished for a mistake?

The tabernacle, mishkan, was worked on for a few months and dedicated on the first of Nissan. The last parsha in Exodus is read this Shabbat, and in it this big project is described - vessel by vessel.

This week's Torah reading, Parshat Titzaveh, seems obsessed with clothes! Aharon is told to wear very fancy expensive clothes when he was doing the service in the Tabernacle. He wore 8 different articles of clothing, and the regular priests wore four. That is some uniform! And the punishment for not wearing them or for even changing something on one part of the uniform, was karet – death.

This week's Torah reading is about the commandment to build the mishkan, the tabernacle, i.e. a sanctuary for God. How can God fit into a home? Clearly this is meant to be a symbolic representation of His dwelling in our midst.

In this week’s Torah reading, we learn that as Jews who have been through persecution and who know what it feels like to be victimized, we should have a high level of empathy. We cannot mistreat any of OUR workers and we cannot abuse the helpless in our communities.

In this week's Torah reading, we begin by hearing about Yitro, Moses's father-in-law. The Torah tells us that he heard everything Hashem did for Moses and His nation…

Imagine this: The Jewish people have just crossed the Red Sea and they’re singing with Moshe, as is recorded in this week’s Torah reading (Chapter 15). Then Miriam takes an instrument and begins to sing too. And all the women follow her and take their instruments and sing with her.

Imagine you are a Jewish slave, and you are so excited about Moses’s plan to take you out of Egypt in 2 weeks! Moses explains all of the rules for the Pascal lamb sacrifice (has to be done on the 14th of Nissan, roasted whole, blood painted on the doorposts, etc.) and then he mentions that you cannot break the bones (to suck marrow or lick every inch) as you eat it. That seems very specific! Why is there such a prohibition? What would you think is the significance of that detail?

In this week's Torah reading, Pharoah makes a conscious effort to ignore the awesome display of power that God brings to Egypt via Moshe and Aaron. Right after the plague of blood, in Chapter 7 verse 23 we are told that Pharoah “turned away and went into his house and did not pay attention to” – literally “place his heart” – to this plague.

In this week’s parsha, we meet two extraordinary women, two midwives. They defied Pharoah because they believed that his decree - to kill all baby boys born to Jews – was immoral and against God’s values and plan for the world.

Define “a blessing.” How would you bless your child or your parent?

In this week’s Torah reading, Jacob gathers his children around his deathbed and gives them blessings – each son/tribe receives his own individual and fitting blessing. But if we take a look at some of his remarks, they don’t, at first glance, seem to be blessings – at least not according to the classic definition.
 

After weeks of “keeping a secret,” Joseph can’t do it anymore! In this week’s parsha, Joseph (finally) reveals himself to his brothers.

In this week’s parsha, the butler, 2 years after his release from jail, finally remembers to tell Pharaoh about Joseph. After no one succeeds in interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams, the butler tells him about Joseph who interpreted his and the baker’s dreams successfully.

In this week's parsha, Judah, brother #4, tries to stop his brothers from leaving Joseph to rot in a pit. After the brothers had followed Reuben's idea and thrown Joseph into a pit, Judah sees merchants traveling by and says (Chapter 37, verse 26) that they should sell Joseph to these traveling salesmen and make some money. "Why kill him?" Maybe that's too extreme, after all…

What does it take to get recorded in the Bible? How does one get his or her name into this eternal book of history, lessons and law of the Jewish People? Although we are never told the names of Noah’s wife, Lot’s wife, or Aaron’s wife, we ARE told the name of the wet-nurse that Rebecca had, the woman who helped raise Jacob. Her name was Devorah, and her death is told to us in Chapter 35, verse 8. She was buried in Beit-El, under a big tree (maybe a famous landmark) and that tree was called “The tree of weeping” forever after!
 

If you were Rachel and your husband Jacob tells you it’s time to leave your father’s house and go join the family of your in-laws, the monotheistic Abrahamic family, how would you say goodbye? What could Lavan, Rachel’s father, really understand about what it’s like to answer a call from G-d? So how would you explain it or say goodbye?

How do you think you deal with life's disappointments? Go around the table and give an example of a disappointment you experienced this week.

In this week's Torah reading, we see Esau facing a huge disappointment: his father gave his brother, Jacob, HIS blessing! Isaac asked Esau to prepare a meal for him to eat, after which he will bless him. But then Rachel tells Jacob to go prepare the meal and get that blessing instead!