Chayye Sarra and the Dance with Torah

Welcome to my new blog!

This week, Jews around the world read from the Torah the section known as Chayei Sarra, literally “the life of Sarah.”  Thirty years ago, I read from this story at my Bat Mitzvah.  It is a fascinating segment of the book of Genesis, which in fact begins with the death of the great matriarch, Sarai cum Sarah.  

The more involved story in Chayei Sarra, however, is the story of Sarah’s son Isaac receiving a wife.  More to the point, it is the story of Rebecca as a woman of valor, a woman who is strong and beautiful and kind and generous, and who because of all of these things finds herself in the position of becoming the second matriarch of the Jewish story.  It is far less about Isaac, about whom I am discovering as I reread the Torah year by year we actually know very little.

I find myself thinking of Sarah and her son Isaac -- as I and my son both turn a year older this weekend.  Who was Isaac to Sarah?  He was her son, her only son, her beloved -- the child of her old age.  When she heard she would have a son she laughed.  Was it disbelief?  Was it joy?  A little bit of both?  And how did she experience her son once he was born into this world?

This is a beginning for this blog (you can see previous blog entries on my workplace website), and it needed a name.  I am taking a phrase from my almost-two-year-old’s greatest desires -- “Dance with Torah?” he pleads nearly daily since celebrating Simchat Torah a month ago, and I have tried to find ways for him to do so.  Confession: I am a rabbi, and Torah, as text and in the broad sense of Jewish tradition, is my life.  Yet my son inspires me to deepen the joy I take from Torah, to dance with it physically, intellectually, and spiritually.

It is my hope that this blog, in which I will share about Judaism, tradition and innovation, and general spiritual pursuits, will inspire and support others in the age-old yet stunningly contemporary Dance with Torah.