Cantor's Corner

Right now we are counting the Omer. Day by day we move forward from the liberation of Pesach toward the fulfillment of Shavuot. This counting is agricultural – the Jews of old had planted their wheat, and were awaiting (with hope and fear) the “First fruits” – the crop that would either sustain them for the year to come, or not. Here in Wisconsin, farmers are watching a dry winter turn into a flooded spring, and no doubt wondering the same thing! The count is also spiritual –

It is said that the Torah has seventy different faces – Shiv’im panim laTorah. The rabbis intended us to understand by this that there are, in fact, limitless interpretations – and no one is more right than another. The haggadah and the seder (order) of Passover are also subject to numerous interpretations. The seder has endured many permutations, keeping its essential character, because we can look it in so many ways. On the other hand, it strikes me that we can categorize t

I’ve known many people who dislike the holiday of Purim. They object to the glorification of violence at the end of the Megillah, where in Chapter 9, verse 5, we read, “And the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto those that hated them.” They are uneasy about the raucous, uninhibited nature of the holiday, which seems to be a pure expression of what Freud called the “id”, expressing our hun

One of the primary values in Judaism is hachnasat orchim – welcoming guests. In our siddur (pg. 107) we find a passage from the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Kiddushim 39b) that lists hachnasat orchim among several things that reward us in our lives and in “the world to come”. Tradition holds that Abraham modeled hachnasat orchim when he welcomed the three strangers who came to tell him that Sarah would have child (Gen. 18) He was sitting at the opening of his tent, they tell u