Sermonette: Fringes
There is only so much dissonance the human brain can absorb at any given moment and more wisdom (and rage) may filter through the recesses of our consciousness in days to come.
There is only so much dissonance the human brain can absorb at any given moment and more wisdom (and rage) may filter through the recesses of our consciousness in days to come.
I cannot offer you a nechemta, dear brothers and sisters, dear siblings.
Please allow me to start this sermon with oversharing. One of the weirder trivia about me is that I had three children in three different countries.
‘Feeling like a Passover Pariah? You’re not alone!’ This was the kind of New York Times headline that immediately grabbed my attention.
The meaning of Tazria – of both the woman after childbirth and the ‘metzora’ (the person afflicted by tzara’at, a skin condition affecting the individual) – is the implicit and explicit reality of rest and healing.
Our world has shifted on its axis again and we try to find new footing.
Lea Haravon Collins’ D’var Torah for Parashat Tetzaveh
Two weeks ago, I had the intention on starting a new sermon series. It was Parashat Bo, and two years – according to the Hebrew calendar, that is – since I had first preached on a ‘novel coronavirus’ that had put a Chinese city in lockdown.
Exactly two years ago, according to the reckoning of the Hebrew calendar, that is, I preached a sermon on the ‘new coronavirus’ that had put a Chinese city, Wuhan, into lockdown.
The baby is born, fragile and innocent. Lovingly swaddled, she nurses him at her breast but then knows what needs to be done. The wicker basket has been prepared and she gently lowers him into it.