Michele Braun is currently studying for an MA in Jewish Education at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is also an art student and practices the ancient craft of tapestry making. She and her family are currently members at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NY, where she occasionally leads Torah study.
Focusing this contemporary lens on Deborah and Yael reveals a story of women acting so outside of expected norms that I stand in awe and am compelled to magnify their adventures for our own times.
In a scant 19 lines, Genesis Chapter 22 reports that God once instructed Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering. This notorious incident, known as the Akedah or the Binding of Isaac, is read every Rosh HaShanah and has inspired an unknowable number of sermons, essays, artworks, and interpretations.
Friday’s sunset could be no different than Thursday’s, a time marker notching off another day or another week, but Shabbat requires us to mark a more substantial difference, Regularity is key to keep track of our lives between other Jewish times and when days blur into each other.
As I was leading Torah study at our synagogue nearly a year ago, an evil man murdered my friends and co-religionists because to him, Jews are strangers and dangerous.
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