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PARSHA POSTS: VAERA

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Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Jan 23, 2026, 8:57 AM

Joseph, Moses, Environmental Damage, Political Revolution

The Israeli government just announced that it is considering withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change and other international environmental bodies -- and this a mere week after its Environmental Ministry warned of rising sea levels causing salty...

Jan 21, 2026, 1:28 AM

“Honor/Kavod” – the narcotic of little men. (Bo-Beshalah)

Parshiot Va’era, Bo and Beshalah are a triad, a single symphony with well defined movements. The conundrum regarding God’s ‘hardening’ Pharaoh’s heart, and yet making him take the rap for a recalcitrance that is then not his fault has been...

Jan 20, 2026, 7:00 PM

Rev. Dr. MLK Jr. and the Practice of Resilience

@timmossholder on Unsplash

I. Saturday Morning: Breaking Down Fences and Defenses I logged onto the livestream of Shabbat morning services at B’nai Jeshurun, a 200-year-old, non-affiliated synagogue in New York City. (Side note: I was one small degree of separation from BJ when...

Linda Pardes Friedburg

Jan 19, 2026, 9:28 PM

‘David, the Servant King’: An Ode to our Poet Warrior Generation

Some years ago, I attended a performance of "King David" by Gesher Theater, with a group of new Russian-speaking Olim. My initial excitement to see this play turned sour after the first few scenes, and at intermission I found myself...

Jan 18, 2026, 1:23 PM

Vaerá 2026 — The era of the hardened heart

Vaerá 2026 — The era of the hardened heart We do not live in a time of ignorance. We live in a time of hardening. That is the brutal turn that defines our age. For centuries the human being could excuse himself by...

Andy Blumenthal

Jan 18, 2026, 4:14 AM

A Listening Heart: Guarding the Jewish Future

In the wake of October 7, 2023, the Jewish world finds itself caught in a global "mishearing" of staggering proportions. Across the streets of world capitals, narratives of "occupation" and "resistance" are weaponized to drown out the explicit genocidal...

Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Jan 17, 2026, 11:43 PM

Parashat Va’era – God does not exist. So, let’s serve Him!

Some strange things happen with God’s name at the beginning of Sefer Shemot. In last week’s parasha when Moshe asks for the name of God, God responds with the famous words: “Ehyeh asher ehyeh”, that is “I shall be what...

Richard Diamond

Jan 17, 2026, 11:37 PM

The Problem with Halacha

The Problem with Halacha: Responding to Life’s Complexities by Multiplying Fences Halacha is one of Judaism’s most astonishing achievements: a living legal civilization that carried a people across continents and centuries. It preserved identity without a state, continuity without power,...

Jan 17, 2026, 6:27 PM

Parashah Vaerá — Existential lessons

Parashah Vaerá — Existential lessons Revelation does not always bring relief: sometimes it brings collision. Vaerá destroys the childish fantasy that “if God speaks, everything improves”. Here the opposite happens: God reveals Himself, and the world hardens. Light appears before...

Jan 16, 2026, 6:29 PM

Vaera—The light that insists in the closed heart

Parashah Vaerá — The light that insists in the closed heart The story did not close. It opened as a wound. Moshe obeyed and the world collapsed a little more. The people stopped listening to him because pain stole their air,...

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