Ki Tavo 5783 September 17, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
It is an unpleasant fact that if you want to have friends or create a business relationship with someone, you can never talk about politics or religion. These issues are too fraught with so much personal and passionate thinking that it is best to keep the conversation on safer and more generic topics. Everyone loves to talk about the weather. Everyone loves to talk about...Read more...
Ki Tetze 5783 September 10, 2022
Shabbat Shalom,
We are quickly nearing the end of the book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, and this week our Parsha is indeed kind of a miscellaneous collections of laws that are only loosely connected. There are some 74 mitzvot in this one parsha alone making this the largest collection of mitzvot than any other parsha. Last week there were many rules regarding...Read more...
Shoftim 5783 September 3, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
Parshat Shoftim begins with a declaration that we should always pursue Justice. Almost every commentator focuses on the calls for judges to act justly; to have no favor for either the rich or the poor, to be beyond reproach in their personal lives, to never take bribes and to treat all who appear in their courts as guilty when they arrive and as...Read more...
Re'eh 5783 August 27, 2022
Shabbat Shalom.
After the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God assigns a curse to both the first man and the first woman. For Adam, growing food will be hard work, no more easy pickings in the Garden but only through sweat and labor will the earth bring forth its bounty. For Eve, the curse is that childbirth will not be easy, it will be hard and...Read more...
Ekev 5783 August 20, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
In our Parsha this week we find Moses making a keen observation not only of the Israelites he is leading, but also an observation about all humanity. We read in Devarim, Chapter 8: 7-14: “For your God (Adonai) is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and...Read more...
Devarim/Hazon 5783 August 6, 2022
Shabbat Shalom – It is good to be back; it was no fun at all being sick.
My good friend and colleague, Rabbi Mordechai Silverstein of Jerusalem reminded me of a calendar quirk that I have not thought about for some time. He reminded me that the first day of Pesach and the fast of Tisha B’Av always fall on the same day of the week. This year Pesach began on Shabbat and today is the Ninth of Av, but the fast,...Read more...
Balak 5782 July 16, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
“May you live in interesting times” is said to be an ancient Chinese proverb. Although, things you discover when you are looking things up, it really is not a Chinese proverb at all. It is from a British diplomat Joseph Chamberlain who was the father of future Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. His speech in 1898 was reported in “The...Read more...
Hukkat 5782 July 9, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
There is a lot that we do not understand about Parshat Hukkat. The biggest mystery of the parsha is the whole concept of the sacrifice of the Red Cow. This purification offering seems to make pure anyone who comes in contact with its ashes but those who prepare it themselves become impure. It is only in modern times that the Biblical scholar,...Read more...
Korach 5782 July 2, 2022
Shabbat Shalom,
There certainly have been lots of things in the news that are worth talking about. We can start with the Supreme Court and its sudden shift to the right. What will it mean for Judaism if a football coach can pray at the 50-yard line after a high school game? What are the implications for Jewish schools if the State of Maine has to provide...Read more...
Shelach Lecha 5782 June 25, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
We like to think that the entire Jewish world is always on the same page in the Torah. We can look on a calendar and know what the parsha will be anywhere in the world. That is usually true, but not always. There are times when, due to a glitch in the Jewish calendar, Israel can move one parsha ahead of the rest of the world. It does not happen...Read more...
Beha'alotcha 5782 June 18, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
We read in the 18th chapter of Exodus; the people of Israel arrived at Mt. Sinai. There, with much smoke and noise, the Torah was revealed to the people. A people who was recently freed from Egyptian slavery now had a law that would guide their society as they strived to become a nation dedicated to the God who had made them free.
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Shavuot II 5782 June 6, 2022
Hag Sameach.
What makes Shavuot and the giving of the Torah important is the fact that it was not given in secret. The Zohar was revealed to Rabbi Moses De Leon in private. Other famous religious texts were revealed to “prophets” who then turned and taught it to those who would follow what had been revealed. But the Torah was given in public. In front of more than two million...Read more...
Shavuot I 5782 June 5, 2022
Hag Sameach
We might think that the day when the Torah was given to the Jewish people would be one of the most important holidays on the Jewish calendar. Most rabbis will tell you that Shavuot is one of the most forgotten holidays on the calendar. It is one of the big three pilgrimage festivals but, unlike Pesach and Sukkot, Shavuot is a virtual afterthought....Read more...
Bamidbar 5782 June 4, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
A couple of years ago, BC (Before COVID) our children were coming to stay at our home for a few days. Michelle and I took out an old jigsaw puzzle and spread the pieces on a table in our family room. We got a good start on the puzzle before our children came and they would stop by the table and sit for a while and work on the puzzle. As the puzzle...Read more...
Behukotai 5782 May 28, 2022
Shabbat Shalom,
In the ancient Near East, it was the custom, when a ruler would publish a list of laws for all the people to follow, a list of crimes and their punishments, the law code would end with a list of curses addressed to those who would think to disobey the rule of the king. It is not surprising that we see the same format in our Torah, a list of laws...Read more...
Behar 5782 May 21, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
We hear about all kinds of denominations in Judaism. There is Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, Reconstructionist, Humanistic, Hasidic, Lubavitcher, several distinct types of Sephardic Judaism, and Spiritual Judaism. Each group practicing Judaism in their own way. But when I was in Rabbinical School, quite a while ago, we were taught that there were...Read more...
Emor 5782 May 14, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
We hear about all kinds of denominations in Judaism. There is Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, Reconstructionist, Humanistic, Hasidic, Lubavitcher, several distinct types of Sephardic Judaism, and Spiritual Judaism. Each group practicing Judaism in their own way. But when I was in Rabbinical School, quite a while ago, we were taught that there were...Read more...
Kedoshim 5782 May 7, 2022
Shabbat Shalom.
Since all that anyone is talking about this week is the first draft of a Supreme Court decision about abortion rights in the United States, I take this opportunity to teach a bit on Jewish Law and how Judaism approaches this hot button, culture war issue. Let me begin by saying that neither the Supreme Court nor any other court in this country...Read more...
AchrayMot 5782 April 30, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
In Judaism we like to think we have a blessing for everything. There is a blessing when you meet a great Torah Scholar. There is a blessing to recite when you meet a person with worldly wisdom. There is a blessing to be recited when you meet a head of state. There is a blessing to recite when you meet someone of exceptional beauty. And then...Read more...
Pesach 8 5782 April 23, 2022
Shabbat Shalom and Hag Sameach
Today is a good day to have a conversation about Moses.
From the very beginning of the book of Exodus to the very end of Deuteronomy, there is no single person who is as critical for the story of our people as Moses. The Torah records his birth and how he came to the palace of...Read more...
Pesach 7 April 22, 2022
Hag Sameach.
The man sitting next to me, upon discovering that I was a rabbi, wanted to know if I were like the rabbis in Crown Heights who believed that God would protect them from COVID. I replied, “I do believe that God protects us from COVID, that is why God gave us the knowledge and the intelligence to create the vaccines.”
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Pesach 2 5782 April 17, 2022
Hag Sameach
What do you think is the most important part of a Pesach Seder? Is it the Four Questions? Is it the Seder songs? Is it the festival meal? Is it the reading of the story of the Exodus? What do you think? What do you think your grandparents, or your ancestors might consider to be the central part of the Seder?
...Read more...
Pesach 1 5782 April 16, 2022
Shabbat Shalom and Hag Sameach
Today is Jewish Independence Day. Not Israel’s Independence Day, which will be on the fifth day of Iyar, next month. This is the day that the family of Jacob, the People of Israel, the people who were slaves in Egypt, woke up in the morning, after a tense night of watching, to discover that Pharoah had not only freed them from...Read more...
Metzora 5782 April 9, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
Jewish Law is called halacha, a Hebrew word meaning “the path” and it is designed to be the path where we can walk to practice our Judaism. Law is an important part of human society. Law is the way we can understand what our responsibilities are to each other and what we can expect from others to help us live our lives. Jewish Law is no...Read more...
Tazria 5782 April 2, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
Every person in this room, who has ever been a parent knows the plaintive cry of the young child asking, “But why?!” From our earliest childhood, we all have a need to understand the world and to see how it all works, even behind the scenes. It is this question, “Why?” that has moved humanity forward in history. Most animals just take the...Read more...
Shemini 5782 March 26, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
This week, wedged in between stories of the war in Ukraine, were the hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be elevated to the United States Supreme Court. I find hearings like this to be a rather strange dance. Three of the Senators are using the hearing as a soapbox for their own presidential ambitions. Several others have dredged up all the complaints they had...Read more...
Tzav 5782 March 19, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
I am having my doubts about self-driving cars. My current car is already telling me what I should do when I am driving. It is one thing to let me know that a door is open. But my car tells me when something is too close to my car. It tells me when it thinks I am too close to the car in front of me. It tells me when there is a car in my blind...Read more...
Vayikra 5782 March 12, 2022
Shabbat Shalom
In the play and the movie, “Fiddler on the Roof” Tevye often talks to God, and when he does he lifts up his eyes and addresses the sky. God is in heaven and Tevye turns toward heaven when God becomes part of the conversation. It is a very common move. We look at each other when we are in conversation and so we look up when we include God in...Read more...
Pekudey 5782 March 5, 2022
Refugee Shabbat
Shabbat Shalom
What kind of a world do we live in where a whole people are forced out of their homes and out of the country of their birth with the choice of leaving or being re-educated to fit in with everyone else? Give up your cultural heritage or get out of our country; what kind a choice is that. The point here is that I am not...Read more...
Vayakel 5782 February 26, 2022
Dear Israel: End the Occupation or Force A Generation of Jews to Abandon Zionism
Sophie Balmagiya Feb. 12, 2022, 1:09 am – from The Times of Israel Blogs
Growing up as a Jewish girl in New York who has...Read more...
