Rabbi Miriam's Vayetze sermon - delivered Shabbat 29th November 2025 What does it look like to have a safe home? The home is usually the place where we expect to “switch off” our threat responses. A place where you are physically protected, but also one with psychological safety. If home doesn’t feel safe, the body can stay in a chronic stress state and never truly relaxes.  On the other hand, a home with good physical and psychological safety has long-term positive effects o

Rabbi Miriam's Toldot sermon - delivered Kabbalat Shabbat 21st November 2025 Our parasha is Toldot, which contains the story of Yaakov and Eisav’s brotherly wranglings. It all starts with the twins wrestling in utero, which leads their mother to ask the existential question: “לָמָּה זֶּה אָנֹכִי” “if so, why do I exist?” In a time before obstetricians, she speaks to God via an oracle or teacher and is given a prophecy that the older twin will end up serving the younger - th

This year, Rabbi Miriam is one of 5 rabbis and Jewish educators writing the Jewish Chronicle’s parasha column. “The daughters of...

This year, Rabbi Miriam is one of 5 rabbis and Jewish educators writing the Jewish Chronicle’s parasha column. “Miriam spoke, and Aaron,...

This year, Rabbi Miriam is one of 5 rabbis and Jewish educators writing the Jewish Chronicle’s parasha column. “When a person commits a...

This year, Rabbi Miriam is one of 5 rabbis and Jewish educators writing the Jewish Chronicle’s parasha column. “And the priest Jehoiada...

This year, Rabbi Miriam is one of 5 rabbis and Jewish educators writing the Jewish Chronicle’s parasha column. “Yet Pharaoh hardened his...

Rabbi Miriam's sermon - delivered Shabbat 18th January 2025 In 2020, I was lucky enough to have a Zoom call with Rabbi Dr Burt Visotsky,...

This year, Rabbi Miriam is one of 5 rabbis and Jewish educators writing the Jewish Chronicle’s parashah column. Parashah of the Week:...

This year, Rabbi Miriam is one of 5 rabbis and Jewish educators writing the Jewish Chronicle’s parasha column. We’re delighted to share...

Written by Rachel Harris Delivered Shabbat 13th July 2024 Shabbat Shalom The story I read today is a famous one – the Israelites in the...

The legendary comedy troupe Monty Python (who I am proud to call fellow Brits), in their take on Second Temple life in The Life of Brian,...

I love when the Jewish library offers a scavenger hunt. A trail of connecting texts across Torah, Tanach and Rabbinic writing which comes...

Saw you at Sinai? Regular readers of this parasha blog will know that I don’t often take up an explicitly feminist theme. Sure, I’m...

When Harris and I watch Netflix, it’s generally in ten minute chunks, snatched here and there amidst busy lives. On the odd occasion...

Hagar Part II - or the Akeidah of Ishmael Last week we looked at Hagar’s first exile in the desert, and this week she’s there again -...

It’s Shabbat shuva - the shabbat of repentance - and our days before Yom Kippur are slipping away. Very resonant therefore, is our...

The scene is a famous one. Yaakov, on his deathbed, asks to bless Efraim and Menashe, the two grandsons he only came to know at the end...

What is one moment which captures a picture of your resilience in the past two years? Have this question in mind as we learn together....

Boiled eggs, free will and the Hogwarts Sorting Hat Like the hard boiled, burnt egg on our seder plate, with each successive plague...