Published by the Israel Religious Action Center, 2012. This week is the first of seven weeks between Tisha B’Av and Rosh HaShanah. On the previous three Sabbaths leading to Tisha B’Av, the Haftarahs are traditionally called Haftarahs of Admonition during which the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah admonish the Jewish people for straying from their religious and spiritual responsibilities. The Haftarahs of Admonition are read in anticipation of observing Tisha B’Av as a day of mour

Dvar Torah on Parshat Noah Published by the Israel Religious Action Center, October 15, 2012 This week’s parshah contains the story of Noah. Noah built an ark. He brought in two of each animal, one male and one female. Noah’s wife and three sons and their wives all entered the ark. It rained for forty days and forty nights. Then God placed a rainbow in the sky as a sign that there would never be another event that would destroy human and animal societies in one fell swoop. So

This d'var Torah was originally published in The Pluralist of the Israel Religious Action Center for the week of January 12, 2015. In this week’s Torah portion[ 1 ], the Egyptians and Israelites suffer the first three plagues: blood in the water, frogs on the land, and lice on the body. Then the Egyptians suffer four more plagues while the Israelites are spared. These are the plagues of wild animals invading the neighborhood, cattle disease, boils and hail. During next week’

Parshat Tetzvah A Midrash in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of becoming bat mitzvah by Rabbi Pamela Frydman

Written for Shalom Bayit, Jewish Women Working to End Domestic Violence. In this week’s parsha, it says that when you build a new house, you should make a guardrail for your roof, so that you will not cause blood to be spilled in your house. This is very a practical teaching. In ancient times, people used their roof the way we use a patio or backyard today. There was a danger that people would be relaxing or studying or socializing on the roof, or that children would be play

by Rabbi Pam Frydman (in honor of the memory of her mother Perel bat Chayyim v'Geetscha on the occasion of her third yahrzeit) It says in the Gemara (Megillah 14a) תנו רבנן: ארבעים ושמונה נביאים ושבע נביאות נתנבאו להם לישראל Our Rabbis taught: “Forty-eight prophets and seven prophetesses prophesied to Israel.” In the second aliyah of this week’s Parsha, Miriam dies and as we know, Miriam was a נְּבִיאָה (prophetess), and her prophetic ability was acknowledged not ju

A Teaching on Parshat Toldot By Rabbi Pam Frydman Once there was a king who had four advisors. When the king asked for advice, each advisor would give the king a different answer and the king didn’t know what to do, so he went home and asked his wife, the queen. The queen said, let’s show the advisors that everyone sees things differently and that’s why they each give you different advice. If they can learn to see from each other’s point of view, maybe they can get together a

By Rabbi Pamela Frydman In this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Vayera, G-o-d decides to tell our father Abraham that the cities of Sodom and Gomora are going to be destroyed.[ 1 ] This is an instance in which Abraham displays an uncanny ability to negotiate with G-o-d as though he and G-o-d were friends. This is the story: G-o-d tells Abraham that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are committing grievous sins by victimizing one another. G-o-d says that the victims are crying o

By Rabbi Pamela Frydman, Congregation P'nai Tikvah It says in the Torah that during the time of Noah, there was corruption in the world. G-o-d regretted creating the world, because life in the world had become corrupt. So G-o-d decided to bring a flood to destroy everything that was standing. In other words, the flood would destroy everything that was not in the ark or swimming in the flood waters. G-o-d also committed to beginning life again after the flood, and to start tha