Teachings of the S’fat Emet on Hanukkah

5 December 2012 / 21 Kislev 5773

Dearest Chevre,

This week, I’m passing on to you all a Hanukkah gift I’ve been thinking about for at least a decade. I suppose the idea began to take shape when I was looking for a Hassidic teaching on Hanukkah to share with B’nai Or of Boston (or so my notes indicate). I found that teaching in the S’fat Emet, the collection of the teachings of the Gerer Rebbe R. Yehudah Aryeh Leib. The S’fat Emet is, I believe, a uniquely organized Hassidic text because not only do the teachings follow the annual Torah reading cycle, but they are subdivided by the years in which they were given. And what I noticed is that the Gerer Rebbe gave nineteen teachings between the years 1870 and 1903, eighteen of which begin with the same citation from the same midrash and the first, while not citing that particular text, sets the themes for those that follow.

Triennial Cycle of Weekday Torah Readings

Dear Friends,

In the summer of 2011, I taught a course called Synagogue Customs and Practices. At one point, we were learning the three basic principles for dividing a Torah reading into aliyot. I realized that, while most liberal congregations in North America were reading Torah on a triennial cycle, weekday readings were still organized only on the annual cycle. I suggested that as a practical application of what we were learning, we divide up the year’s readings and design a triennial cycle of weekday readings to match the Shabbat cycle.

I am pleased to offer you the product of that joint effort. Much of the good work you will see here was done by the students. Any errors or places you might disagree are my own doing, since I made the final decisions.

I would like to thank the following people for participating in this project: David Abramowitz, Binah Block, Kellie Scheer, Beth Cohen, Jessica Shimberg, Elana Jagoda, Annie Gilbert, Heena Reiter, Dara Lithwick, Michael Rosenblum, Eva Sax-Bolder, Shifrah Tobacman.

To view and download this triennial cycle for free, please visit the ALEPH ReSources Catalogue elsewhere on this site.

 

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