Sometimes received religious traditions fail to hear the voice of suffering.  Even worse, received traditions can suppress the voice of suffering. It happens because every religion, by definition, titrates high principle through inherently limited and flawed human capacity. What is our duty in response? By Rabbi David Evan MarkusVayishlah 5786 (2025)Past Divrei Torah on this portion:• On Mideast Peace: Is… Continue reading Hearing the Unheard: P. Vayishlah

Believers might readily embrace the spiritual prospect of asking God a question and receiving a response (whether with a knowing or feeling beyond self, or an inner sense within).But how about disbelievers?  In a rational world of left-brain logic, can suffering and brokenness drive a rational response that is spiritual?  Indeed they can, and the… Continue reading Rational Spirituality Beyond Belief (P. Toldot 5785)

When we think of a "pause that refreshes," most modern Jews will think of Shabbat.  For sure.Turns out that a daily "pause that refreshes" is good for the soul, and for work efficiency, and physical health.  And it's very Jewish.Read on, with a bonus spotlight on R. David's learning at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.… Continue reading The Pause that Refreshes (P. Chayei Sarah)

When the going gets tough, some of us have an instinct to pull in – to self-isolate, even conceal our tough times. Maybe we resist drawing attention to ourselves or our difficulties.  Maybe we feel that stoicism and privacy are the best parts of valor.  We cleave to normalcy like it's nobody's business. For deep reasons, Jewish spiritual… Continue reading Sick Visits (P. Vayera)

t's okay to be afraid during times of uncertainty, especially when much is at stake. But when we let fears rule us without lovingly questioning them, we tend to make what we fear more likely to impact us. ​And then who are we really? By Rabbi David Evan MarkusLekh Lekha 5786 (2025)​Recent Divrei Torah on this portion:• Wresting a Blessing (2023)• Where… Continue reading Trust and Verify (P. Lekh-Lekha)

The Torah Cycle begins again.  As our ancestors have done for thousands of years, the turning of Torah's scroll aims to teach us partly by eliciting our questions.But for many centuries, one question apparently was too dangerous to the patriarchy for most to ask – which is why we must. By Rabbi David Evan MarkusBereishit 5786 (2025)Recent… Continue reading The Courage to Buck the Patriarchy (P. Bereshit)

In this first Torah portion of the new spiritual year, traditionally read between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur during most years, Moses prepares our spiritual ancestors for transition into new leadership (Joshua) and a new journey (into the Land of Promise).His way of doing so speaks to us exactly now, as we begin this new… Continue reading Be Strong and Courageous (P. Vayelekh)

For whom do you stand?  I don't mean physically (though we'll get to that shortly).  I mean existentially: for whom do you stand?This week's Torah portion rehearses a pivotal "Stand Together" moment we will experience on Yom Kippur.  Now over 700 days post-October 7, its call lands on me very differently.  By Rabbi David Evan MarkusNitzavim 5785 (2025)… Continue reading For Whom We Stand (P. Nitzavim)

What we do matters: our choices and behaviors have consequences even if we pretend not.With Selihot approaching this weekend, Torah bellows this truth like a shofar blast, as if to rivet our attention to the truths of our lives and our power to renew our lives for goodness. By Rabbi David Evan MarkusParashat Ki Tavo 5785 (2025) Isaac… Continue reading Truth or Consequences (P. Ki Tavo)

Sometimes time is against us and we must act urgently – climate change, hunger, unjust wars and more.  Other times, time can be our hidden partner, inviting us to watch time so that our negative impulses can abate when not immediately indulged.

Each year I inwardly buzz at this week's Torah portion, which is named "judges" and centrally concerned with justice.  My identity, my secular career and my efforts to walk in the world mirror back at me.  It presses me, in one of Torah's famous urgings (Deut. 16:20), צֶ֥דֶק צֶ֖דֶק תִּרְדֹּ֑ף / tzedek tzedek tirdof – "Justice!  Pursue justice!" 

"...Hospitals usually aren't serene places.  From inbound ambulance to bedside telemetry, lights flash, sirens wail and monitors beep.  Late at night when I leave the hospital, the metronome of nighttime crickets evokes the beep beep beep of hospital time..."

Open any Torah and you'll see in the first word of Leviticus a letter written in tiny superscript.  It teaches us about what healthy humility is really all about. By Rabbi David Evan MarkusVayikra 5785 (2025)​Open any Torah scroll to the first word of this week's Torah portion, Leviticus, which launches the third of the Five Books of… Continue reading A “Small” Teaching on Humility for the Chosen (P. Vayikra)

As we round the corner toward Passover, in Torah the Mishkan is finished and activated as Western life's first holy place crafted with human hands. What first made the Mishkan holy wasn't God. What first made the Mishkan holy was a human act.  Which begs the question about what "holy" is, and how we humans… Continue reading The Sense, and Senses, of Making Holy (P. Pekudei)

As our Northern Hemisphere enters the weeks of fastest increasing daylight and we accelerate into the oncoming spring (not a moment too soon!), this week's Torah portion opens with a command to make eternal light.The command aims at all of us, and the sudden absence of Moses underscores the message at this important moment. By Rabbi… Continue reading Lights On! (P. Tetzaveh)

Ten Commandments.  We've read them.  We've seen the art.  We've seen the movie.Jewish continuity, ethical purpose and spiritual becomingness all trace back to the pivotal sense-scrambling scene at Sinai.  It is said that each of us was there, the roots of our souls joined in the creation of our collective covenant.  On the Ten Commandments… Continue reading The Eleventh Commandment (P Yitro)

We all have emotional and psychological vested interests in seeming externally to be our best selves.  Most of us, we hope, respond to these impulses by actually trying to be our best selves in the world.  Our insides aspire to match our outsides.For others, the optics of manipulated perception are the primary reality or even… Continue reading Come to Narcissist – P. Bo

No liberation is easy.  Each begins with a promise that seems too good to be true.  Even a promise can seem fanciful during the squeeze of hurt or bondage – like a fantasy, or a delusion.  If there's a moral arc at all, at first it can seem out of reach. So it was for Dr. King.  So it was for Moses.  So it is for every liberation and transformation.

Who (or What) is God?  It's a question (perhaps the question) of the ages, and no blogpost can fully do it justice. ​Yet it is exactly the subject of Moses' first encounter with the One we call God: how should the Children of Israel name their liberator? And nothing has been the same ever since.

At some point (maybe many points), life teaches us that what we see depends on how we see.   So it is with our perspective on life itself.  Few of us go through life deeply inhabiting the ultimate truth of our own mortality.  But once we do, the very limits of our lives can help imbue them with greater richness and meaning. ​  If we let them.