In this week’s parashah, Korach, Moses’s cousin, and his followers lead a rebellion against the leadership of Moses and Aaron. God punishes the rebels by burying them and their families alive. The people blame Moses and Aaron for bringing death to the rebels. Once again, God brings a plague on the people and so the chief of each tribe deposits his staff inside the Tent of Meeting. Aaron’s staff brings forth sprouts, produces blossoms, and bears almonds. The Kohanim and Levites are established and assigned the responsibility of managing the donations to the Sanctuary. This is the third time that I have delved into the story of Korach and this time, I found different meaning about how to handle conflicts and reach a consensus that works for all.

by Denise Levine Parashat Sh’lach L’cha tells the story of the twelve scouts that Moses sends into Canaan to report on what they see. In Numbers 13:1, God instructs Moses to send one representative from each tribe into the land and report back. Moses asks the scouts to go into the hill country “and see what kind of country it is. Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not?” Upon their return, we learn that they view the same situation very differently, just like our sisterhood members could view what we do through different lenses.

by Janet Buckstein This week’s parashah is B'haalot'cha (Numbers 8:1-12:16). While there are three distinct sections, essentially each has a common theme: the often difficult burden of leadership, which many of us encounter in sisterhood, in WRJ, at work, or in another organization. • In the first section, the Israelites are provided with rules and guidance for travel preparation. Their leader, Moses, prepares them for what will be a physical and spiritual journey. God provides Moses with “assistants” (the Levites), to help reduce the burden of responsibility.

Regifting in ancient Israel was a big problem (or at least that is what we can surmise from this week's Torah portion, Naso, which literally means ‘lift up’). The Israelites were wandering through the wilderness in an effort to create sacred community while struggling to reach the promised destination (with no cell phones or GPS!). In Parashat Naso, we are instructed to ‘lift up’ the heads of the Levites and count them… count them separately and independently from the counting that occurred in last week’s portion as it teaches that each individual–as part of a tribe–can provide unique gifts. Each tribe can contribute these gifts on different days, with different intentions, and often with diverse outcomes. Yet, the entire community benefits and is strengthened.

by Marci Delson On the first day of the second month, in the second year following the exodus from the land of Egypt, the Eternal One spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of Meeting, saying: “Take a census of the whole Israelite company (Numbers 1:1-2)..." I was a young mother of two when my husband and I decided we needed to join a temple in Columbus, OH. My family had been life-long, two-generation members of Isaac M. Wise Temple in Cincinnati, OH, so I knew nothing about how to find a temple. It was before Google, Bing, and Yahoo were around for searching on the net. So what did we do? We asked friends who were already members and did some temple shopping. After visiting two temples, we decided to take our friends advice and join the “big” one, as that’s all I knew in Cincinnati. I wanted to be a part of a Jewish community, wanted to count in the census of Jews.

by Sue Berne The Parashot B’chukotai at the end of the Book of Leviticus, God promises blessings to the people of Israel if they follow the law and curses that will occur if the laws are not followed. A few weeks ago a gunman shot and killed three people in my community. The attacks took place at the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom, a retirement community, which is directly across the street from my temple. The attack could have easily taken place during religious school and for whatever reason the gunman chose Village Shalom instead. The gunman was obviously anti-Semitic but what he did not realize at the time is that none of the three people killed were Jewish. This act of violence should make us all realize that each decision we make has consequences.

by Natalie Berhumoglu When first thinking about how I would approach the writing for this week’s Torah portion, I believed I could simply read the Parashat B’har, ruminate on it a bit, and crank something out, no problem. After giving it the once-over, however, I saw I didn’t completely understand it with its mention of jubilee years, letting the land lay fallow, fair purchase prices, and such. So, I thought I had better do some research and see what other people had to say on this portion so I wouldn’t look like some uninformed fool. Big mistake! Now my head was teeming with ideas—which one(s) should I use? I settled on three: allowing oneself to “lay fallow,” being generous and having the spirit of welcoming, and appreciating God’s gifts and blessings.

by Nicole Villalpando For almost two years, I have had the pleasure of studying Parashat Emor with my son Ben, who will become a Bar Mitzvah tomorrow. There are a lot of things that are fascinating about this portion, including the guidelines for holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. But the part that has fascinated Ben the most has been what can disqualify a man—and yes, they were all men—from becoming a priest and whether he could be a priest.

by Lizabeth McOsker Years ago, when I taught 7th and eighth grades in my congregation’s religious school, I wanted my students to know that in Judaism, God cares at least as much about how we humans treat each other and the world around us as God cares about our relationship with God. The text I used was the reading from Yom Kippur’s afternoon service, which is drawn from this week’s Torah portion, K’doshim. I was discussing this with one of my colleagues who told me that this portion is physically located in the exact center of the Torah scroll and as a parashah of the week, falls roughly midway between one Yom Kippur and the next. So, because nothing is without significance, the physical and temporal location of this portion must mean that there are important thoughts here.