Writing a dvar Torah

Writing a dvar Torah – argh!

Writing a dvar Torah is like writing fiction. Act one, you get your cat up the tree. Act two, you increase, somehow, the suspense and danger to the cat. And then, in act three, your job is to get the cat DOWN from the tree.

So I am about two acts into my dvar Torah for this Shabbos, and it’s great, but I cannot, cannot for the life of me, see a way to get the cat – or, in this case, the navi sheker – down from the tree.

The whole thing is written; I even have a great, stirring conclusion that is guaranteed to drive listeners to new heights of spiritual resolve. I just have two gaps in the middle with question marks where I have to, with spontaneity and grace, finagle that darned cat down.

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