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Showing posts from June, 2012

The Perfectly Imperfect Red Heifer - A Drash on Parashat Chukat

(Presented at the ACC-GTM Convention, June 2012) Do me a favor, please. You can close your eyes or leave them open; it’s up to you. We're Reform. I’m going to ask you to think of a word. Just one word, the first one that comes to your mind when I ask you to name a part of your body that you absolutely adore. (Now I’m asking the first word that comes to your mind when I ask you to name a part of your body that you really dislike and would love to change. Hold on to those thoughts.  I don’t want to get all Debbie Downer on you, but I need to say up front that I offer this drash in memory of a woman who was a huge influence in my life in the past few years: Nora Ephron, who died on Tuesday night. That's because she taught me what we're going to learn from parashat Chukat: that imperfect perfection is the perfect kind of perfection.  The red heifer. God’s idea of a sense of humor. Even the great and wise King Solomon couldn’t figure out what was up with that cow