Rabbi Amy Schwartzman

Rabbi Amy Schwartzman

Rabbi Amy Schwartzman served as vice-chair of the Task Force on the Experience of Women in the Rabbinate and is senior rabbi at Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Virginia.

The Jewish People Comes of Age

D'Var Torah By: Joseph A. Skloot

The author Anita Diamant boldly pronounced, "This is a generation who have no use for the closeted Jew; the polite, blandly American and only privately Jewish Jews. No more Seinfeld; this bunch is Jewish inside and out" ("Minhag America," HUC-JIR graduation ceremony, April 30, 2008). Her words have not lost any of their resonance in the intervening years. Alongside her words, we might place those of Rashi, as our Torah commentator of record, on this week's Torah reading, Parashat Chukat. Chukat begins with an explanation of the parah adumah, "red heifer," ritual. In short, the Israelites are commanded to produce a "red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid" (Numbers 19:2), slaughter it, burn it, and transform the ashes into a special "water of lustration" (19:9), used to render what has become impure, pure again.

Hidden in Plain Sight

D'Var Torah By: Evan Moffic

Several of our commentaries have focused on the power of words. In the Torah, words are a means of creation and revelation; of producing the world, as in Genesis 1-3; and of revealing truths about humanity.