Adina Roth

Adina Roth

Adina Roth, a native of Johannesburg, South Africa, is a clinical psychologist who holds dual master’s degrees in literature. A co-founder of the Johannesburg Egalitarian Chavurah, Adina runs B’tocham Education—a bar and bat mitzvah program that prepares pre-teens for their rites of passage, and organizes Women’s Torah and Megillah readings. She has co-chaired Limmud Johannesburg for three years and has studied Bible and Talmud at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, in Jerusalem, and Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, in New York City. Adina lives in Johannesburg with her husband, daughter and son, and is interested in creating creative and diverse community spaces within the Jewish community and beyond. Adina can be reached at adinzi@mweb.co.za.

Shmini

Whom Do Our (Good) Deeds Serve? Parshat Shmini describes the sacrifices that concluded the ritual marking the installation of Aaron, the high-priest, and his sons. Aaron’s delicate attention to the ritual facilitates a powerful spiritual epiphany for the entire people. We are told that God’s glory and fire appears, ‘And all the people saw and …

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Yitro

The Space In Between the Same and the Other Parshat Yitro opens with an unexpected visitor’s arrival to the Israelite camp. Yitro, priest of Midian and father-in-law to Moshe, hears an account of the Israelites’ travails and liberation and is sufficiently moved to come see for himself. Upon seeing Moshe’s style of judging the people, …

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Vayetze

Indigenous Ancestry: The Sacredness of Above and Below In the daily Amidah prayer we address God as Elohei Avraham, Elohei Yitzchak vE’lohei Ya’akov.[1] Many have suggested that the repetition of the word Elohim in relation to each patriarch indicates that each one had a unique understanding of and relationship to God. Today too, our individual …

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Lech Lecha

The Loftiness in Leaving and the Rigors of Return Parshat Lech Lecha opens with God’s command to Avram to leave everything that he has known—his birthplace, family and the pagan culture he grew up with—and move to a land “asher arekha—that I will show you.”[1] Avram is asked to leave behind familial binds and unwanted …

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