On the Weekly Torah Portion of Va’era
I am late in posting this d’var Torah on the parashah of va’eira (Exodus 6:2 – 9:35) since I spent the last week on a silent retreat with Rabbi David A. Cooper. Rabbi Cooper and his wife, Shoshana, have been offering this retreat for the past 18 years, and this was the last time they will offer it.
During the retreat, however, the Coopers passed the mantle on to two young successors who will continue with this retreat: Dr. Jay Michaelson (who was, on that occasion, ordained as a rabbi by Rabbi Cooper) and Beth Resnick-Folk, to whom Shoshana passed on her mantle as a Sufi teacher (into which Shoshana herself was inducted by her teacher, Asha).