• Sukkot 2020

    The Talmud writes: “Rabbi Eliezer says:  “Just as you can not fulfill your mitzvah of lulav on the first day of Sukkot with someone else’s lulav, so too you may not fulfill your obligation of Sukkah in someone else’s sukkah.”  The Rabbis say: Although a person does not fulfill his obligation on the first day…

  • Miracles or Relationship? Finding God Within Us

    In this week’s parsha, Bishalach, the Jewish people witness the splitting of the sea, manna from heaven and water from a rock, and yet at the end of the parsha they seemingly have the audacity to ask, “Hayesh Hashem bikirbenu, im ayin?,”  “Is God in our midst or not?”  (Exodus 17:7).  God clearly is doing…

  • Lessons from the Jewish People’s Recoil at the Promised Land

    In this week’s Torah portion, Shelach, the Jewish people have completed the short trek from Mount Sinai to the Land of Israel.  God tells them to send the heads of each tribe as spies to spy out the Land of Israel.  After 40 days the spies return. Ten spies bring a bad report of the…

  • Finding Passion and Creativity in Jewish Prayer

    Is prayer an essential part of Jewish observance?   On the one hand organized thrice daily prayer is something fairly “new” in Judaism, instituted to take the place of the sacrifices which were lost with the destruction of the Temple.   On the other hand prayer goes all the way back to our ancestors who…

  • Opening Your Hand: The Real Impact of Tzedakah in This World

    “If there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in any of your settlements in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman.  Rather, you must surely open your hand and lend him sufficient for their needs,…

  • Hidden Treasure: Spiritual Growth in a Time of Isolation

    This Shabbat we read the double portion of Tazria and Metzora which discuss the different kinds of impurity resulting from Tzaraat, a Biblical skin disease seen by our sages as a physical manifestation of spiritual malady.  The Torah commands that  if Tzaraat affects a house, the house must first be shut up for seven days…

  • Charity, Reward, and the Power of Our Actions

    Perhaps the greatest religious conflict, especially for Jews, is that between God’s infiniteness and God’s intimacy.  God is radically One, as the mystics put it, Ayn od milvado, “There is nothing besides God.”  So impossible and dangerous is it to anthropomorphize God, to take the risk of limiting God or pretending to know God’s essence,…

  • Empathy Beyond the Surface

    This week we read the Parsha of Shelach.  The Jewish people send spies into the land, and they return with a bad report.  The people accept the report and as a result must spend 40 years traveling through the desert.   Why do the spies, who are princes of their tribes, give a bad report?…

  • Ego vs. Desire: The Two Sins of Saul and David

    I have often been perplexed by the very different reactions The torah has to the sin of King David and the sin of King Saul.  King Saul failed to fulfill the Torah’s command of wiping out Amalek in his war with them.  He let Agag the king of Amalek live.   Shmuel the profit takes…

  • When Normality Becomes Evil

    In this week’s parsha, Vayera, we read the story of Sodom. After Avrohom unsuccessfully argues with God to spare its inhabitants, Avrohom and the two angels go to save Avrohom’s nephew, Lot, from Sodom: “The two angels arrived in Sodom in the evening, as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them,…

  • Outspokenness and Obedience

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vayerah, God tells Abraham that he is going to destroy the city of Sodom.  Abraham’s response is, “Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked?  Perhaps there are 50 righteous people in the city…far be it from You, to kill the righteous with the wicked…will the judge of the entire…

  • The Jewish Journey Through History and Holidays

    What are the Jews?  Not a religion, for there are many who would say they are Jewish but are not religious; not a nation, for a nation is identified with its land and shared culture and Jews have not had a land for most of their history and do not share cultural identities such as…

  • Lessons from Vayera on Humility and Unity

    “The signature of God is truth.” -Talmud Shabbat 55a “It is better to be kind than to be right.” -Anne Lamont In this week’s Parsha, Vayera, the Master of the Universe tells a lie: “Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I in truth bear a child, old as I…

  • Adapting Leadership for a Changing World

    Several Parshiot ago when God appears to Moshe at the burning bush and asks him to take the Jewish people out of Egypt, the following conversation ensues: “Moshe said, “What if they do not believe me and do not listen to me, but say: The LORD did not appear to you?”   The LORD said…

  • Building a Culture of Community

    Every shul describes itself as “warm and welcoming.” All too often though this means that communities work hard to welcome those they want to welcome, those that fit in. A culture of welcoming is one in which welcoming is so ingrained and lauded that it is viewed as the most important Jewish characteristic. That anyone…

  • Abraham and Sara’s Tent

    In the beginning of this week’s Torah portion (Vayara) we find Abraham talking to G-d. Suddenly he sees three nomads coming toward him. Immediately Abraham runs out to greet them, brings them into his open tent and cooks them a meal. (It is this preoccupation with over feeding people that deems him the first Jew.)…

  • Blessing and Curse: Seeing the Divine Life Force in All Things

    This week’s Torah portion Re’eh-“See” begins “See I place before you today blessing and curse, the blessing that you will listen to the Mitzvot….”  The Midrah on these verses quotes the two additional verses to bring to bear on our portion, “The mitzvah is a candle and Torah is light” and “The human soul is…

  • The True Test of Abraham’s Faith

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vayera Avrohom faces the most difficult of his ten tests, to sacrifice his child.  The Akedah is perhaps the most perplexing chapter in the Torah.  How could Avrohom agree to do what was forbidden?  When Cain killed Abel it can be argued that Cain did not know it was wrong.…

  • The Passing of a Divine Tradition

    This week’s Torah portion, Chayeh Sara, “The life of Sara”, begins with Sara’s death which follows the story of the akedah, binding of Isaac, at the end of last week’s portion.  Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, known as RASHI, a famous 11th century French commentator on the Torah is bothered by the strange juxtaposition of the almost…

  • Eliezer’s Sign and the Role of Divine Guidance

    In this week’s Torah portion, Chayeh Sarah, Avrohom’s wife has died.  Avrohom buries her, and then sends his servant Eliezer to the eastern side of the Jordan River where Avrohom is from, to look for a wife for Yitzchak.  Eliezer famously makes a deal with God, a sign by which he will know the right…