• The Jewish Perspective on Truth and Governance

    The Shulchan Aruch, Code of Jewish Law, states that if three identical pieces of meat, one which is unkosher and two which are kosher, become mixed together in one container, we are permitted to eat all of them.  We know that one of these pieces is not kosher, and yet as we pull each one…

  • Understanding Sacrifices: Perspectives from Torah and Tradition

    In this week’s Torah portion, Tzav, the torah continues its description from last week of the sacrifices and their rituals.   For us who live in the current period of time in the Western world animal sacrifice is fairly foreign and seems in many respects barbaric.   To us perhaps reading about the sacrifices in the Torah…

  • The Danger of Self-Control Without Purpose

    In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes the Sotah, the unfaithful wife and the priestly ceremony that she could voluntarily undergo to be exonerated if she were innocent.  This is followed by the Nazir, the nazarite who electively enters an ascetic state forbidding wine upon himself, as well as refraining from cutting his hair and…

  • Breaking Free from Narrow Thinking

    Our era, ironically, has been called the age of communication.  When I was young, making a phone call from Israel to the United States cost a great deal and was not simple, so one might speak to their relatives abroad only rarely.   When my oldest was in Israel about 5 years ago calling was…

  • Abraham’s Nature and the Path of the People

    This week’s torah portion, Lech L’cha begins with God telling Abraham to leave his homeland and go, “to a place which I will show you.”   According to the Ramban God took Avrom traveling for a long time from land to land.  Why?   As Rashi says, “in order to make your nature, (your personality), known in…

  • Exile, Manna, and the Journey to Self-Realization

    In this week’s torah portion, Ekev, Moshe reviews some of the people’s time in the desert over the last 40 years and speaks several times about the mannah they ate in the desert.  When Moshe speaks about the mannah though, he connects it in our parsha, more than once to pain. “Remember the long way…

  • Awakening to God: The Journey of Seeing and Changing

    This week’s parsha is our first introduction to Avrohom, the first Jew. We know very little about him except what God tells him: “Go for yourself, from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I…

  • From Manna to Harvest: Remembering God in Our Success

    It all begins with an idea.

  • Overcoming the Yetzer Hara: A Pathway to Divine Connection

    In this week’s parsha, Be’halot’cha, we find two verses which are considered by many commentaries to be a separate book of the Torah, leaving us with seven books instead of the usual five, (a good thing to know for parsha quizzes!).  These verses are set aside by an upside down form of the letter “nun”…

  • Building the Jewish Future: Kesher Israel’s Mission of Connection

    “And God said to Avram, go for yourself from your land, your birthplace, and from the house of your father, to the land which I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. And…

  • Becoming a Vessel

    This week’s Torah portion is Lech Lecha in which God tells Abraham to leave his land, his family and his birthplace, and “go to a land which I will show you.”   Why, ask the commentaries, doesn’t God just tell him where he is being led; to the Land of Israel?  Why all the mystery?  The Sefat…

  • The Power of Letting Go in Community Building

    This week’s Torah portion is Lech Lecha, in which God tells Abraham to leave his land, his family and his birthplace, and “go to a land which I will show you.” Why, ask the commentaries, doesn’t God just tell him where he is being led – to the Land of Israel? Why all the mystery?…

  • A Reflection on Free Will and the Role of Perspective

    The ten plagues in last week’s and this week’s Torah portions present us with the age-old philosophical dilemma: How can God punish Pharaoh if God has hardened Pharaoh’s heart?  Justice dictates that reward and punishment can only be for violations or merits which are the product of one’s free will. Maimonides takes the Torah at…

  • A Contrast Between the Mayans and the Jews

    This past week Sara and I were in Mexico touring the Mayan ruins; royal houses, city centers, ancient ball courts, and temples, spanning over a thousand years from the 5th century BCE until the 10th century CE. Though there is not much rain during half the year and these ancient cities were not generally built…

  • How Humility Shapes Our Relationship with God

    This week’s parsha, Ekev, begins with Moshe’s words of warning to the Jewish People:  V’haya ekev tishmaun, “And it will be, ekev, (“since” or “because”) you will heed these ordinances and keep them, that the Lord, your God, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers.”   The word…

  • The Power of Hands and Heart in Blessing

    This week’s Parsha, Shemini, tells the story of what happened on the eighth day of the Tabernacl’s existence, the day following the seven day process of inaugurating the Kohanim, the Priests, to prepare them for Temple service.   On this eighth day, one of the first acts as Kohen Gadol, High Priest, that Aaron performs…

  • 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…