Judaism is the living expression of the Jewish people's encounter with Torah and how we responded to that encounter over the generations. Some of that interchange can be found in history books. More often, the history of that interaction is recorded in our legal tradition. The selling of hametz is one such example.

Another news item caught my attention in recent days. A computer recently beat the world Go champion. Go is the Asian equivalent of chess, and far more complicated than chess, where the machines already outpaced us twenty years ago. That's when IBM's Deep Blue defeated the reigning world champion, Garry Kasparov.

It has been a sad and tough week for our congregation. At least two of our own have lost their jobs. Three have lost their lives, a number of people are critically ill. I know our hearts and prayers are directed to these families. It seems that in communities, deaths tend to cluster together.