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Rosh Hodesh Iyar | ראש חודש אייר
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Welcoming Iyar
As we welcome the new Hebrew month of Iyar, we invite you to read, listen, and share the words of Torah in this newsletter—bringing your lives to Torah and Torah to your lives. We again thank Nireh Or Instagram Project founders Rabbi Hayley Goldstein`19 and Lizzie Sivitz for their words and artwork.
This new month of Iyar is known in the Torah by its Hebrew name Ziv, meaning radiance. In addition to being the month in which the radiance of the sun comes into full view, we are told that Iyar is the month that the light of healing shines brightest. The Rabbis ascribed an acronym to the letters of Iyar, standing for Ani Hashem Rofecha, “I am Hashem your healer.” In this month, the Sages teach us, we have access to the radiant light of healing, which we need now more than ever. In a time where we’re surrounded by illness, how can we contribute to one another’s healing?
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Cyring Out for Help; Crying Out for PrayersParashat Tazria-Metzora (Leviticus 12:1-15:33)
By Rabbi Avi Stausberg `15
Director of National Learning Initiatives at Hadar in Washington, D.C
This past year has been a reckoning with isolation. As a result of the pandemic, many of us have been cut off from friends and family and forced, at worst, to go it alone, and at best to band together with a small group of family and friends until we are able to re-emerge on the other side of this. We have had to celebrate joys, mourn sadness, and struggle with illness without the support of the communities upon which we hold dear. The hope for many of us, however, is that this period of isolation, however painful and strange and long it has been, is temporary, and that soon, we can return to each other.
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Why We Say "70 Faces of Torah"
The ancient rabbinic expression “70 Faces (or Facets) of Torah” is a simultaneous call for epistemological humility and interpretive creativity. It is a reminder that only the Divine possesses ultimate truth and that as finite seekers, we need the contributions of many distinct voices. Torah can be compared to a precious gem that refracts differently based on one’s perspective. We, must, therefore, “turn it and turn it” in the company of passionate and compassionate teachers, students, and peers, who each bring their own unique gifts—“faces”—to the ongoing search for light and life.
By Rabbi Or Rose (above), Director of the Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership at Hebrew College & Founding Editor of the Hebrew College Seventy Faces of Torah blog
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Stop Making Sense
"The more we can move toward this poetic sense of reality, breaking up received notions about the world, I think that’s going to release the potential of our humanity across the board, whether we’re talking about young children in education, and rabbis or anyone else. I think it’s that ability to break up received notions, to explode them, that allows the kind of truly creative energy to come into being." — Anne Germanacos
In this episode of Speaking Torah, Rabbi Mónica Gomery `17 reflects on Moses’ poem Ha’azinu. In her d'var, she looks at the truth and the falseness of poetry, how our identities and experiences aren’t fixed, and how that expands our sense of what’s possible. Writer, activist, and educator Anne Germanacos reads her d'var.
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Torah For This Moment
We invite you to visit our On Torah page to read, watch and listen to the words of Torah on holidays, music, social justice, spirituality and more that are emerging from our students, faculty, and alumni. We hope they inspire you to draw more deeply on the well of Torah in your own life.
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Hebrew College is an innovative national institute for Jewish learning and leadership based in Newton, Massachusetts. We are dedicated to Jewish literacy, creativity, and community, and a world of dignity and compassion for all. Our students are future rabbis, cantors, and educators, and people at every stage of life who love to learn. Together, we are infusing Jewish life with substance, spirit, beauty, imagination, and a sense of purpose. Please join us and support our work with a tax-deductible gift.
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