Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19) Torah Reading 2/21/26: Offerings about Antisemitism
“Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved” (Ex. 25:2).)
This Sunday afternoon (4-5:30 pm), we will gather to share experiences of antisemitism with each other. We have invited Jews from the region to join us, so we will welcome them as well. A couple of non-Jewish clergy members will also join to listen with us.
Can this kind of sharing of experiences be considered a gift? Daring to share a painful experience and how it has impacted us can be healing for the ones sharing as well as for those listening. We can feel less alone, more accompanied and understood, and in the telling, we may also gain perspective on the experiences that are harder to attain when they live only in our own hearts and minds.
Antisemitism dehumanizes Jews, painting false and limited pictures of who we are, and using them to cause harm. Like racism, sexism, and other oppressions, antisemitism is embedded in our larger culture, and to heal from it requires facing how it has impacted us. This includes recent and distant experiences, those that form dramatic stories and those that seem “small” but hurt us nonetheless.
With the instruction to bring gifts to build the tabernacle (to house the Torah) comes the clarification that even though God is calling for these gifts, what is invited are gifts from the heart. Different from other offerings, which are expected for various reasons, this one is motivated by each person’s desire to give.
You are invited to share an experience and/or to listen to others. This listening space will be sacred and confidential. If you would like to share something you heard or learned, you may do so without sharing identifying information about the person who shared it. We will ask each person who chooses to speak to keep their sharing to 3 minutes, and we invite you to prepare your sharing in writing or notes in order to be able to cover what you hope to say.
“And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them” (Ex. 25:8). By building a sacred space for sharing and listening, we will invite the presence of the Source of healing and connection to dwell and grow among us, just as God described and calls for in our Torah portion.
Emor (Leviticus 21:1-24:23) Torah Reading May 2, 2026
April 29, 2026 by Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller • D'var Torah, Julie Saxe-Taller
One of the interesting things about the Torah is that it is not organized by topic. Before we could look everything up on the internet, if you wanted to learn everything the Torah has to say about Shabbat, you had to read most of the Torah to make sure you didn’t miss anything. There is no single chapter covering Shabbat or other major topics. Instead, topics such as Shabbat, holidays and various ethical and civil laws are found throughout the five books, sometimes repeated, and interspersed with the narratives from Genesis through Deuteronomy. Genesis is mostly narrative but Jewish scholars show us that it too has legal material.
How does weaving the Torah’s ritual, ethical and legal expectations into our narrative impact us as readers? What if we had received a text with only the stories and their beloved characters, and a separate set of volumes that was only the laws? (Later, of course, our scholars did create such volumes of Jewish law, extracted from the Torah and combined with legal interpretations and further teachings.)
At this point in the year, we are in the midst of reading the book of Leviticus, which is mostly laws and less story than the previous books. But still, it is helpful to remember that even Leviticus is a set of communications from a God with a personality we have learned about from the narrative, to a people in the midst of our journey from slavery toward building a new society. This week, in the middle of our Torah reading, we read, On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a sabbath of complete rest, a sacred occasion. You shall do no work; it shall be a sabbath of the Holy One throughout your dwelling places. (Lev. 23:3)
How different is it to read this verse keeping in mind the context of leaving slavery, from reading it without the story that led to it? How different is this kind of reading from that of a dry rulebook, and what difference does it make for you?
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller