Planting Seeds of the Divine: Torah Commentaries to Cultivate Your Spiritual Practice

Smith, an instructor at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies (Forty Years in the Wilderness), provides unconventional analyses of all 47 Torah portions. She structures each analysis around a “middah,” a virtue or character trait that illustrates how readers can “ ‘show up’ in the world with more... intention.” For example, Shemot, in which God instructs Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, illustrates the middah of “overcoming habitual behaviors”; just as Moses initially hesitates to accept God’s mission, readers must grapple with their “inherent... resistance to change” when seeking “internal liberation” or connecting with the divine. Other discussions are less intuitive; the middah of “spiritual protest” is illustrated in Hayyei Sarah, which begins with the biblical Sarah’s death—her own form of protest, a 20th-century Polish rabbi once argued, against God’s command to sacrifice her only child, Isaac. According to Smith, Sarah’s death gives readers permission to challenge God in their own moments of suffering (“Scream at the Creator that you cannot live like this anymore!”). While such links can feel tenuous, Smith makes a valuable case for using scripture to unlock a more “personal and intimate” dimension of Jewish spirituality. Readers will find this a thought-provoking companion to their Torah study. (June)