Blessing for the Month of Shevat

By Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, Hebrew College President

We need places for silence in our lives, places where we can quiet the noise all around us and listen to — listen for — the still, small voice within. But we also know that silence has its own perils. Returning to the Exodus narrative, we can understand and empathize with Moses’ reticence and fear, and yet it is his speech — however faltering and imperfect – that God demands. Over and against the Pharoah-who-does-not-listen is the God-Who-Hears. This is the God who summons Moses, again and again, to move out of speechlessness and into speech, out of isolation and into relationship. This is the God who summons us to do the same, with all the bravery, honesty, and love we can muster.

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Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld

SEVENTY FACES OF TORAH
The Lost Art of Listening

By Rav Rachel Adelman, PhD, Hebrew College Associate Professor of Tanakh

Parshat Va'era (Exodus 6:2-9:35)

Pharaoh’s obduracy leads him to impose even harsher decrees upon the Israelites. The straw that binds the bricks would be withheld, so the slaves would be forced to keep up their quota of brickmaking while gathering straw for themselves. In exasperation, Moshe turns to God and complains: the Let-My-People-Go mission has only made it worse for them (v. 23). God assures the prophet, “You shall see what I will do to Pharoah…”; he will be compelled, “Because of a greater might to drive them out of his land” (6:1). The showdown between God and Pharaoh has just begun! It entails not only the claim of an enslaved people clamoring for their freedom and a return to their homeland, but also a theological struggle between the God who listens and takes notice (see Exod. 2:23-24) and Pharaoh who refuses to listen.

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SAVE THE DATE! SPRING ART EXHIBIT OPENING

A Journey on Wonder: A Visual Dance with the Hebrew Holiday Calendar

Please join us on Sunday evening, March 29 at Hebrew College for the opening of our spring art exhibit “A Journey on Wonder: A Visual Dance with the Hebrew Holiday Calendar” with works by artist Deborah Feinstein (right), chair of the Hebrew College Arts and trustee of the college. The exhibit features paintings that celebrate and correspond with the Jewish calendar cycle, inspired by the medieval illuminated manuscripts that she studied as an art historian.

The evening will include a special signing of Feinstein’s recently-published companion book and a celebratory performance by Hebrew College Artist-in-Residence Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer `14, and Hebrew College student musicians.

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