Parshat Nitzavim, which we read every year before Rosh Hashanah, contains what is known as the parsha of teshuva (תשובה - repentance): a beautiful, poetic, and moving description of the Jewish people’s return to their covenant with God and their commitment to His Torah, along with a parallel return from exile, to where they have been banished for failing to keep the mitzvot, to the land of Israel.

As a teacher, I am often called upon to explain the Biblical and Rabbinic roots of Zionism. Questions such as Is it a Mitzvah (commandment) to live in Israel?, or Haven't Jews always lived in the Diaspora, after all, the Babylonian Talmud, the textual cornerstone of Jewish life and law, was written in Babylon, wasn't it? Why is it important to live in Israel? Moses never even got to Israel, the Torah was given in the desert, lots of religious Jews have lived and continue to live outside of Israel, right? are asked all the time.

I recently read in the New York Times that Donald Trump is getting a good deal of support for his presidential bid from Evangelical Christians. The author of the piece found this to be strange, and I agree. And it’s not only Trump. For years now, the Christian right has been embracing Republican candidates who argue against  what I always thought were the Christian virtues – in theory, at least - of charity, compassion, and a commitment to help the poor.

One of the major points around which many of the current disagreements in the Jewish world seem to revolve is the question of the authenticity, or lack thereof, of a given idea or value. Is the value or concern being championed really a Jewish one? Is egalitarianism “Jewish”? Is Feminism? Democracy? Liberalism? Conservatism? Many communal leaders seem to feel that by labeling a principal or idea as non-Jewish in origin they have succeeded in excluding that idea from what can be acceptable to the halacha or the tradition, and thereby won their argument.

Recently, a number of Rabbis have been quick to drop the H (heresy) bomb. Anyone who is seen by these people to be on the wrong side of their understanding of the  halacha, of what these self-appointed guardians of the faith see as what Jewish traditions and values demand of us, is automatically ostracized as being beyond the pale. Those who think a bit differently than them, or behave a bit more leniently, are quickly labeled as “rebels”, “heretics”, “beyond the pale of Orthodoxy and tradition”, "anti-Torah", etc.

This week’s first parsha, Matot – we also read the following one, Masa’ay – begins with laws pertaining to making and breaking oaths. This is an area of Jewish law that is pretty much out of commission today, as we do not make oaths the way they used to. The Torah is talking about things like getting mad at someone and swearing to never speak to or eat with them again, or swearing to never do a certain thing, using God’s name in the process. These oaths are taken very seriously by the Halacha, and one must keep them. However, there are mechanisms for nullifying these oaths.

In this week’s parsha, Pinchas, the Jewish nation is near the end of their 40-year trek in the desert, and getting ready to enter Israel. Issues of conquest and division of the land are being discussed. At this stage, the five daughters of the deceased Tzlafchad approach Moshe with a pertinent and practical question. The laws of inheritance are all about sons inheriting the property of their fathers. What about us, they ask. Our father died leaving no sons, only daughters. May we inherit his portion of the land of Israel, once we actually get there?

We all live in a new reality, very different from the way the world was only a few years ago. The ubiquitous nature and tremendous variety of online communication, through facebook, twitter, text messaging, etc., has changed the way we “talk”; reconfiguring our schedules and our focus, with most of us now spending a very large amount of our time and energy communicating online with people we know, sort of know, or don’t know at all.

In Parshat Chukat, we read the tragic story of Moshe’s fatal mistake – his hitting the rock, rather than speaking to it, to produce water in the desert for the thirsty people of Israel. Traditionally, there have been two basic ways of understanding what this sin, the punishment for which was to deny Moshe entry to the Promised Land, was really all about.