Dvar Torah

It seems fitting that Parashat Acharei Mot, which we read this week, is also read in the synagogue on Yom Kippur.  Beyond the obvious connection that the portion describes the rituals that took [...]

This week’s Torah portion, Metzora, is a challenging one, to say the least. It begins by describing steps that must be taken by the priests when they learn that someone has leprosy. The leper has [...]

Perhaps the most important test of a real community is how it handles differences, particularly the ones that are difficult to understand and may feel threatening. This week’s Torah portion [...]

You may have heard a joke that goes something like this: God: Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk. (first found in Exodus 23:19) Moses: OK, God, so keep all meat food away from all dairy food? [...]

In any Jewish sacred space, our eyes will be drawn in some way upward to the ner tamid, the eternal light. A symbol of God’s eternality, nearly every Jewish sanctuary will have some kind of [...]

As a child, one of my favorite Jewish stories was “The Letter and the Crown” by Ted Gross, which retold a midrash called Otiot de-Rabbi Akiba (“The Letters of Rabbi Akiba”) about the [...]

Hopefully by now you know a little bit about Matan’s Dvar Torah Project. We are sharing a weekly dvar torah (word of torah) on this blog that links the parasha (torah portion) to disability [...]

Sometimes building something backwards is the most logical choice. In education, teachers often design their exam first and then create lessons that will guide students to learn the correct [...]

No Torah portion stresses the potential of each human being’s contribution to the community more than Vayekhel. Filled with details of the desert Tabernacle’s trimmings, embellishments, and [...]

Like many people who are committed to inclusion, I like to share success stories. I like to talk about synagogues working to make their buildings more accessible or share stories about rabbis who [...]