Sh’ma Blog: For what purpose do we read the Akedah on Rosh Hashana, and do we begin discussing it all through Elul?

BY: AMITAI ADLER
For what purpose do we read the Akedah on Rosh Hashana, and do we begin discussing it all through Elul?
A midrash, and then a thought on the matter.
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And it came to pass after these things that God put Avraham to the test. [Bereshit 22:1] Said Hashem Yitbarach, “I will test my servant Avraham, [...]

Sh’ma Blog: “Bound” a Video by Yoni Oppenheim

BY: YONI OPPENHEIM

Sh’ma Blog: A New Understanding of Faith

BY: ZOE JICK
My favorite class during college, “Philosophy of Religion,” methodically scoured through Western texts in order to examine issues such as the existence of god, ethics and faith. When I encountered Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling” in this syllabus, which discusses “The Sacrifice of Isaac,” or Akedat Yitzchak, I thought I was golden. An easy [...]

The Story of the Akedah

Janet Hadda
Once upon a time, in the old country, there was a magid, an itinerant preacher, who went from shtetl to shtetl making his living with his spellbinding rhetoric.  This magid was unusual, though, in that he only had one drash: the story of Korakh.  A rebel against Moses and Aaron’s authority, Korakh was punished [...]

Your one wild and precious life

Rabbi Chai Levy
As many of you already know, when you lose a parent or another loved one, everything changes. As I discovered this year, with the death of my father and of so many in this community, you realize how short life really is. It’s not that you didn’t know before that we humans are [...]

Parashat VaYeira: Seeing the Other

© Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Senior Sermon 5761/2001

I’ve been told that I look like my father. In fact, at this very moment, I probably resemble my father more than any moment before today. Because, 26 years ago, my father delivered his senior sermon. Today probably looks a lot like that day. A young bearded man sharing [...]

Sh’ma Blog: Child Sacrifice: Playing Sarah

BY: JAKE GOODMAN

I understand the Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac, in the context of a people beginning to break away from an age-old tradition of child sacrifice. To gain a sense of control over the chaos of life, people sought to appease the gods through child sacrifice. Somehow, a shift occurred. People decided that they were no longer willing to sacrifice their children to the gods and re-framed the narrative. Today, we still practice child sacrifice when we reject our queer family members.

Akedat Itzak

Andrea Zanardo
I must confess that the whole story of Akedat Itzak, the binding of Isaac, that we have just read, is a bit disturbing to me. And I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way.
It is an inhumane story: God commands to a father to kill his son. Even summarizing [...]

Isaac’s Shofar

“Happy are the people that knows the shofar’s sound, they walk in God’s light.”
What does it mean to “know the shofar’s sound? How can we walk in God’s light? What is a worthy life? These are among the questions we face today.
In rabbinic literature, the sounds of the shofar and today’s Torah reading are connected [...]

Sh’ma Blog: The Binding of Isaac – A New Jew’s Perspective

BY: ERIKA DAVIS
The Akeidah or Binding of Isaac is one of Torah’s most difficult pieces of text.  In the chapters that proceed Genesis 22 we learn that Abram’s family leaves their home country to live in another.  Abram and his wife are re-named by God when Abraham makes a covenant with God.  Abraham and Sarah [...]