Kol Ramah

Parashat D’varim [Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22] is the opening parashah of the Book of Deuteronomy. Having reached the eastern border of the Promised Land, Moses addresses the people for the last time in a series of discourses, culminating in his death alone atop the mountain, to be buried by God in a place unknown to any human. We spent over half our conversation discussing Moses as prophet and leader at...

Bunk A17 Nitzanim stops by the Kol Ramah studio to visit Rotem and tell us all about life at camp!

Bunk A14 Tzeirim stops by the Kol Ramah studio to visit Rotem and tell us all about life at camp!

Bunk A10 Tzeirim stops by the Kol Ramah studio to visit Rotem and tell us all about life at camp!

Today we hosted the Camp Together program! Teens from Isreal are joining Camp Ramah and are here to tell us about themselves and their experiences.

Parashat Mattot-Massei [Numbers 30:2-36:13] is a double parashah which concludes the Book of Numbers. It is one of the longest readings of the year, even for those who use the triennial cycle. Our focus this week was the curious story about the tribes of Gad and Reuven, and the half-tribe of Menashe. As the Israelites’ forty-year journey is coming to an end, with the entrance into the Land of Isra...

Join us for the nitzanim show! We invited our hofa'a staff for a visit, and they told us all about their work on the musicals at camp. Featuring: Arielle , Raviv , Naama Yael, Hazel and Annabel . And our staff: Rotem Shimony with Stacy Greenblatt, Jojo Adams and Mika Sayag.

Parsha Talk Pinchas - a Kayitz favorite! Parashat Pinchas [Numbers 25:10-30:1] is probably best known for the holiday calendar in chapters 28 and 29, from which the maftir is taken for the Yamim Noraim [the Days of Awe, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur], for the Shalosh Regalim [the three pilgrimage festivals, Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot], and Rosh Chodesh [the beginning of the Hebrew month]. In addit...

Listen to our guests from bunk a10! A live recording from 7/17 with tzeirim campers telling us about themselves and choosing some fun music:) Featuring Adin, Micah, Jona, Noam, Wesley, Seymour, Louis, Liaml, Asher, Charlie, Nolan, Ben.

Parashat Balak [Numbers 22:2-25:9] primarily tells the tale of Balaam the seer, who is commissioned to curse the Israelites, of whom Balak is deathly afraid. Balak’s plan does not go as planned, as God has other plans for Balaam, one of which involves the famous talking donkey, a precursor to the perhaps more famous Mr. Ed. According to the rabbis, the mouth of the donkey was created on the eve of...

Soundtrack of this year's fantastic Fourth of July extravaganza! Featuring Landon Braverman and the Tzevet Hofa'a Band!! Special thanks to Mike Schatzberg and Rotem Shimony for recording. Edited and mastered by Yaniv Morozovsky.

Shorashim bechira project - Tiyul Shorashim Join us for a trip around camp with Edat Ha'Shorashim and hear what the campers have to tell!

Parashat Chukat [Numbers 19:1-22:1] is perhaps best known for the story about Moses & The Rock, for which Moses and Aaron were denied entrance into the Land of Israel. Aaron will die later in the parashah, and Moses’s death is recorded in the last chapter of the Torah [Deuteronomy 34], read on Simchat Torah morning. The other well-known chapter is Numbers 19, which is the maftir reading for Shabba...

Parashat Korach [Numbers 16-18] primarily relates the story of Korach’s rebellion. Modern biblical criticism suggests that the text is perhaps an amalgam of as many as four different rebellions. Our conversation focused on the rebels and on what they were actually rebelling against. How should we characterize Korach, and Dathan and Aviram? Did they have legitimate complaints? Or are they best desc...

Parashat Sh’lach [Numbers 13-15] is predominantly devoted to the episode of the spies, the 12 tribal leaders, men of renown, who entered the Land of Israel to scout it out and come back with a report to B’nai Yisrael, the Israelite community. The devastating consequence of that report was God’s decree that no one over twenty, save the two who rejected that bad report, Caleb and Joshua, would be pe...

Parashat B-ha’alot’kha [Numbers 8:1-12:16] has a number of different topics, including the story where Miriam and Aaron apparently malign Moses and Miriam is punished with tza’ra’at [commonly translated as leprosy] and Pesach Sheni, the provision for the observance of Passover a month later for those who were too far from Jerusalem or were ritually impure when the holiday was supposed to be observ...

Parashat Naso [Numbers 4:21-7:89] contains, among other things, the longest chapter in the Torah, Numbers 7 which describes in detail the gifts of each of the tribal chieftains to the Tabernacle. Each chieftain gives the exact same gift, which is faithfully recorded, accounting for the length of the chapter. There are other things of note, including the rite of the suspected adulteress [sotah], an...

Parashat B’midbar [Numbers 1:1-4:20] is the first parashah of the Book of Numbers. As befitting a book called Numbers, the parashah is filled with numbers, in particular, the number of men of fighting age in each tribe. An additional feature of the parashah is the tribal names of each of the tribes, which can provide interesting information for those who enjoy studying such things. Censuses, for m...

Parashat B’har-B’hukotai [Leviticus 25-27], a double parashah, the third in four weeks for those keeping score, is the concluding reading from ספר ויקרא [the Book of Leviticus]. Leviticus is the shortest book in the Torah, only 27 chapters, and with all the double parashiyot this year, is finished in only seven weeks. In his JPS Torah Commentary, Baruch Levine divides the reading into 3 sections:...

Parashat Emor [Leviticus 21:1-24:23] is perhaps best known for chapter 23, which describes the holidays and is the Torah reading on the 2nd day of Passover and the first 2 days of Sukkot. It is surrounded by laws related to the priesthood [including restrictions on contact with the dead and whom priests are permitted to marry] and a collection of laws which features one of the few narratives in Le...

Parashat Acharei Mot-K’doshim [Leviticus 16-20] is another double parashah. Acharei Mot is mostly known because it is read on Yom Kippur, chapter 16 about Yom Kippur in the morning, and chapter 18, traditionally, about the forbidden sexual relationships in the afternoon. K’doshim is perhaps best known for what Rabbi Aqiva recognized as the great principle of the Torah, v-ahavta l-rei’akha kamocha,...

Tazria-Metzora [Leviticus 12-15] is the first in a series of doubled parashiyot in the Book of Leviticus. With its emphasis on afflictions of the body, some caused by disease and some caused by natural processes, it has been a test for those seeking to find homiletical material connected to the text. It has been well said that doubling up makes the task easier in that there is only one difficult w...

Parashat Sh’mini [Levitcus 9-11] is the third parashah in Levitcus, and features the culminating ceremony for the inauguration of the mishkan, what Baruch Levine calls “The Initiation of Formal Worship” in his JPS Commentary on Leviticus. It culminates with the tragic deaths of Nadav and Avihu, which we discuss at some length. We also touch upon Yom HaSho’ah, Holocaust Remebrance Day, which is obs...

This shabbat is shabbat/yom tov sh’vi’i of Pesach, the shabbat that coincides with the 7th day of Pesach, which is a holiday. In Israel, where Eliot is for the birth of his 2nd granddaughter, it is the last day of Passover. In the Diaspora, Sunday [April 20th] is the 8th and concluding day of Passover. For the rabbis, the 7th day of Passover was the day when the Israelites crossed the Sea of Reeds...

Parashat Tzav [Leviticus 6:1-8:36] picks up where Parashat Va-yiqra leaves off, with a presentation of the principal individual sacrifices, only this time from the priest’s point ot view. Chapter 8 begins the inauguration cermeony of the priests, with its tragic denouement next week, with the deaths of Nadav and Avihu. We decided to leave Tzav for a future year’s discussion and discuss Passover [b...