Claude Debussy said, “Music is the silence between the notes.”

Perhaps, but when I think of the absences and the possibilities for expression in Judaism today, I tend more toward an admonition and a musical instruction from another composer, John Cage: “Begin anywhere.”

An...

“See I have made you as a god unto Pharaoh.” (Exodus 7:1) 

“Pharaoh was one of four men mentioned in scripture who declared themselves gods, and thereby ended up emasculating themselves.” (Midrash Genesis Rabbah 5:2) 

This week’s Torah reading begins the grand and...

At the end of the book of Genesis the sons of Jacob, for whom Israel’s tribes are named, hear blessings from their father that are not just poetic, but oracular. The patriarch’s expressions are more than mere appreciations – and, in some instances, critiques – of...

Our Torah reading this week is of dreams, and our prophetic reading of heavenly visions.

We live in a sometimes most un-dream-like world, and sometimes may doubt whether the ambitions and intentions that most shape it are in any true sense...