1/ Chevre, there is no parsha this week. It’s Chol haMoed Pesach (Passover). The big thing this week is that we’ll read Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs). This is a love story. Kind of like a poem or song.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Tzav (צו) and Shabbat HaGadol. Shabbat HaGadol (the Great Shabbat) is the Shabbat before Pesach (Passover). So you’ve been warned. This week’s parsha goes into detail around the sacrifices offered in the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and Temple.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayikra (ויקרא). We are starting a new book, yesterday was Rosh Chodesh Nissan, we are starting a new month. And outside of the Parsha, we are deep into the preparations for Pesach (Passover) along with a lot of worry and optional plans for ...

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayakel-Pekudei (ויקהל-פקודי) and Parshat HaChodesh. This week we finish the Book of Shemot (Exodus). We already learned about the plans for the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and that everything was built according to the plans. This week, the Mishkan is assembled.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Ki Tisa (כי תשא) and Parshat Parah (פרשת פרה). The main focus of the parsha this week is The Sin of the Golden Calf. HaShem tells Moshe to go down to his people. He drops or throws the original tablets, smashing them. And then we have the aftermath of the sin.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Tetzaveh (תצוה) and Zachor (זכור). A good chunk of the parsha is a deep dive explanation into the clothing worn by the Kohen HaGadol, the inauguration, followed by some of the daily offerings.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Terumah (תרומה). We now get into the instructions for building the Mishkan (The Tabernacle) which is sometimes referred to as the portable Mount Sinai because the holiness that was present at Sinai is now invested into different pieces of the Mishkan.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Mishpatim (משפטים). Last week we recieved the Torah at Sinai. This week we do a deep dive into the details of the laws. Civil Laws, Slavery, Murder, Murder of a Slave, Injury, Death by Animal, Danger of a Pit, Damages, etc etc. Lots and lots of details.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Yitro (יתרו). There are some major things that happen in this week’s parsha. Yitro comes, this is Moshe’s father-in-law. And he sees Moshe sitting all day giving judgements to the people. And he tells Moshe that he can’t continue like this. It doesn’t scale.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is BeShalach (בשלח). This is also called Shabbat Shirah because of the song in the middle of the parsha. Paro changes his mind, again, about letting the Israelites go and sends his army after them. The people are between the sea and the oncoming army and start to panic.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Bo (בא). This week’s parsha starts off with the final 3 plagues. Locusts, Darkness and death of the firstborn. The plague of Locusts is that they come and eat everything. In the cloud world we would call this a customer or user.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayera (וארא). You’ve been given a task to do, maybe we’ll call it Mission Impossible. You are to get the Jewish people out of Egypt, failure is not an option, you may not say no. This message will self destruct in 10 seconds.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Shemot (שמות). We start with a Paro that doesn’t know Yosef and what he did for Egypt. The Jews are enslaved and forced to do labor. The males are to be killed.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayechi (ויחי). This week we finish Sefer Beresheit. Yaakov is about to pass on. He has Yosef bring Menasheh and Ephraim to him and he gives them berachot. He puts his right, stronger hand, on the younger.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayigash (ויגש). The parsha starts with the brothers (most of them) standing in front of Yosef, who is the manager of Egypt. And we see Yehuda, have some backbone and disagree with Yosef. He tells Yosef that they did everything he asked.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Miketz (מקץ) and it’s Shabbat Chanukah AND it’s Rosh Chodesh Tevet. Our family usually goes Shabbat Chanukah to cousins that live on a Moshav outside of Teveria.

1/ Chevra, this week’s parsha is Vayeshev (וישב). This week the parsha takes a deep dive into a number of family problems within the family of Yaakov. We have Yosef’s dreams, the hatred of the other brothers towards him, the whole plot to throw him into a pit and ...

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayishlach (וישלח). This week we have Yaakov about to meet up with Esav, his brother. He prepares his family and splits them up. He sends gifts to Esav ahead of time. He’s done everything he can to get ready and then it’s the night before they’ll meet.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayetze (ויצא). This week we have a deep dive into Yaakov’s life. He flees his brother and goes to Haran. He meets Rachel, but marries Leah by accident. By the way, this is why Jewish Weddings have a Bedekin, where the groom verifies the woman is the right woman.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Toldot (תולדות). This week we have a lot of family drama. We have the birth of Yaakov and Esav. Esav sells his birthright to Yaakov for a bowl of lentils (soup). And we have the deception of Yitchak.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Chaya Sarah (חיי שרה). There is an interesting passage toward the end of our parsha. Avraham remarries a woman who is named Keturah. The meforshim (the commentators on the Torah) disagree if he remarried Hagar or if this is a different woman.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayeira (וירא). The parsha starts with the 3 visitors, we can call them VPs or VIPs, they show up in the middle of Avraham recovering from his Brit Millah (Circumcision), the important people always show up at the worst times.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Lech Lecha (לך לך). The idea of leaving your home and going to your homeland makes this parsha very special to Olim. For me this week, this is a very poignant parsha. I was reflecting on my path of Teshuva.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Noah (נח). HaShem destorys the world this week. Seemed like something similar happened on Monday. The sign that HaShem won’t destroy the world again is the rainbow. The sign that AWS will do it’s best to not do the same is the public 6-pager explaining what happened.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Beresheit (בראשית). Again we have the story of the creation of the world. There is a Midrash (I found Midrash Tehillim 90:13 in my internet searching) that talks about the creation of over 900 worlds.

1/ Chevre, we are currently ending Sukkot and tonight will enter Simchat Torah. Just as our hostages this morning came out of the field out of captivity into the joyous embrace of their families, Am Yisrael will come out of their Sukkot, back into their homes and ...

1/ Chevre, there is no parsha this week. But it is Shabbat Chol HaMoed Sukkot, we will read from the Torah and from Nevi’im. And we will read Megillat Kohelet. I’ve been reading Zot HaBracha this week in preparation for Simchat Torah, mid next week.

1/ Chevre, tonight starts Chag Sukkot (סוכות). We leave our comfortable homes and sit in booths as a reminder to what our ancestors did on their journey to Eretz Yisrael. This is the first time in many years I had to extricate the succah from the attic and put it up by myself.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Haazinu (האזינו). In case you didn’t have enough shul yesterday, we’re back to shul (every day), but we are heading into Shabbat. And, of course, next week is the start of Sukkot. This is the last full parsha of the Torah.

1/ Chevre, we have arrived at Yom Kippur. While this is the peak of the Teshuva season, it’s not the end. We say LeDavid (Psalm 27) from Rosh Chodesh Elul (a month before Rosh Hashanah) until Hoshanah Rabbah (the last day of Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah is a different holiday).

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayeilech (וילך). I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve been going through the parsha, like normal, but I’m really not connecting with it this week. It’s extremely short and nestled inbetween Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

1/ Chevre, tonight and for the next 2 days it’s Rosh Hashanah (רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה). I learned recently why we don’t bless the new month in Elul before Rosh Hashanah. Of course, there are many reasons, but the one I liked the most was that the whole year relies on Rosh Hashanah.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Nitzavim (נצבים). The parsha this week is pretty short and a lot of the focus of Am Yisrael at this point is on Rosh Hashanah, which is next week.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Ki Tavo (כי תבוא). Last week’s parsha started with going out to war. This week’s parsha starts with “when you come into the land”. We will be blessed with new fruits and we will bring them as an offering to the Mishkan and later The Temple.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Ki Teitzei (כי תצא). A huge part of the parsha this week is talking about relationships. There is one section on marriage and divorce. It says that if someone no longer loves his wife, he can divorce her.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Shoftim (שופטים). This week’s idea came from Becky Weiss. Thank you. At the very end of the parsha we have the Egel Arufah. This is the case where a corpse is found in the wilderness between 2 cities.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Re’eh (ראה). There is a lot of discussion with Re’eh and the blessings and curses on Har Gerizim and Har Eival. What is striking, having been there, is that 1 mountain is lush and green with trees and the other, right next to it, is empty and barren.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Eikev (עקב). There are a bunch of interesting things in this week’s Parsha, many of them I’ve spoken about in years past. Toward the end of the Parsha, there is a section that talks about you seeing the miracles that HaShem performed for the Jewish People in Egypt ..

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is VeEtchanan (ואתחנן). I’m writing a day early this week because I’m going on vacation and didn’t want to bring my laptop with me.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Devarim (דברים). We always read this parsha before Tisha BeAv (the 9th of Av), which is Sunday. Tisha BeAv marks a number of calamities in Jewish History including the destruction of the 2 temples (which happened on the same day of the Jewish Calendar), ...

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Matot-Masei (מטות-מסעי). I heard an interesting Dvar Torah this morning that I’m going to build on. My wife’s uncle started sharing videos by Noam Jacobson (www.youtube.com/@Noam.jacobson) which

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Pinchas (פנחס). We pick up where we left off last week, right after Pinchas killed some offenders in front of the Mishkan. Pinchas, the grandson of Aaron, is made a Cohen (priest) along with all his offspring. A new census is taken.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Balak (בלק). Balak was the king of Moab and they saw what happened to the Amorites and were afraid. So Balak went to a prophet Bilaam to request Bilaam to curse Am Yisrael. Bilaam refused several times until finally saying I can only say what G-d puts in my mouth.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Chukat (חקת). The parsha starts with the laws around The Red Hefer. Miriam dies and there is a lack of water followed by the error of Moses and Aaron along with their punishment. Amalek attacks and the parsha ends with the battles of Sihon and Og.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Korach (קֹ֔רַח). Last week we had the scouts and the story of them coming back with the ill report on Eretz Yisrael. And the punishment of 40 years in the desert.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Shelach Lecha (שלח לך). The majority of this week’s parsha is taken up with the scouts and the fall out from their, mostly, ill report. I heard this week a Dvar Torah that talked about the word ממנו, usually translated as from us.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is BeHaLotcha (בהעלותך). In light of what is going on in the world (writing this Friday the 13th of June 2025, Israel attacked Iran last night), I’m going to try to find some positive things to share.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Naso (נשא). In the parsha this week we have the priestly blessing. In Israel this happens in shul at least once a day, outside of Israel, this happens only during the holidays.

1/ Chevre, tonight and tomorrow is Shavuot (שבועות). We celebrate the receiving of the Torah. There are no dietary restrictions (like there are for Passover or Sukkot, what to eat or where to eat it). It is a strong Minhag to eat dairy on Shavuot. There are a number of reasons for this.

1/ Chevre, this week’s parsha is Bamidbar (במדבר). I have been at AWS for over 7 years and to say that we are a data driven company would be a understatement. The parsha this week starts up again where we left off at the end of Shemot. The Mishkan has been built and we are continuing our story.