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LGBTQ+ and Halachic Change
This past week, a young man from the Atlanta Orthodox community, a recent alumnus of Yeshiva University, committed suicide. According to newspaper reports: “Many believe — based on their conversations with [Herschel] Siegel, his social media posts and their own experiences — that Siegel had considered that there may have been no place for him…
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The Randomness of Life and the Choice for Holiness
The first of this week’s Torah portions, Acharei Mot, details the Yom Kippur service in the Tabernacle. The entire Jewish people would gather at the Temple in Jerusalem to watch and listen as the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, performed the Yom Kippur service, and on this one day a year entered the Holy of…
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Humility and the Cure for Lashon Hara
In this week’s Torah portion, Tazriah-Metzorah, we read about the biblical ailment of tzaraat, a skin disease which, the commentaries say, comes from speaking lashon hara, slander about others. But why is this sin singled out to produce a physical manifestation for all to see? Why is lashon hara so bad that the Talmud tells us one…
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Sacrifice, Devotion, and Progress
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 foreign and seems, in many respects, barbaric. Reading about the sacrifices in the Torah, imagining the most central…
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Why We Need Israel
Moses, the paradigm of Jewish leadership, is singled out for one characteristic: humility. Humility in leadership is vital because it helps a leader to always remember that leadership is not about them but about the honor, welfare, and flourishing of those being led. This is especially crucial in political leadership which, due to all the “politics” involved,…
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Theater, Art, and the Divine Drama: Replacing the Golden Calf
In this week’s Torah portion, Vayakel-Pikudeh, Moses commands the Jewish people to give gold and silver and other materials for the building of the Tabernacle. The Torah tells us that the Jewish people were so enthusiastic that they gave more than was needed. The Midrash (Shemot Rabah) compares this to their donations of gold jewelry for the…
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What Makes Israelis Unique: Reflections on a Trip to Israel During the Hamas – Israel War
I spent the last week in Israel on a YU/RCA/Mizrachi trip for rabbis. Before I left, I was worried. I thought to myself, we are all feeling so much doom and anxiety and to fly to the heart of it will, no doubt, be deeply disturbing. But just the opposite was true. Instead of hopelessness…
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Unicorns and Redemption
This week’s Torah portion, Terumah, begins: “God spoke to Moses, saying: Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved. And these are the gifts that you shall accept from them: gold, silver, and copper; blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen,…
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Mishpatim 2023: The Altar and the Sanhedrin, Different Ways to Peace
In last week’s Torah portion, the Torah was given at Mount Sinai to the Jewish people. At the end of that parshat, the Torah tells us about building an altar: “Make for Me an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your sacrifices of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every…
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Civil Rights Alabama Trip
I traveled to Alabama last week with a group of Rabbis under the auspices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. It was a powerful trip exploring the places which were pivotal in the civil rights movement and talking to the people who organized it, led it and marched in it. I learned a great…
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Reflections on Faith and Freedom from the Civil Rights Trail
This week I traveled with the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington to Alabama with 20 rabbis from the DMV. (I suppose I should entitle this week’s email: “Letter from a Hotel in Montgomery”.) We went to Birmingham, Selma, and Montgomery; we visited Dr. Martin Luther King’s parsonage, the Rosa Parks Museum, and other important spots on the…
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Insights from Maimonides on Prayer and Free Will
This week’s Torah portion, Bo, opens with a theologically perplexing verse: “God said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart…’”. The question we have all asked is how God can punish Pharaoh if God has hardened Pharaoh’s heart to prevent him from freeing the people. After all, without free choice, it would…
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Pharaoh’s Pride and the Plagues
In this week’s Haftorah for Parshat Vaera, God says to the prophet Yechezkel: “Turn your face against Pharaoh King of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Speak these words: Thus says the Lord, I am going to deal with you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the big Tanin, who crouches in the Nile…
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The Dual Metaphors of Jewish Proliferation in Egypt
This week’s parshat, Shemot, states that the Jewish people were fruitful in Egypt and multiplied: “And the Jewish people were fruitful and multiplied and swarmed and very much increased and became robust, and the land was filled with them.” This term, “vayishritzu”, “swarmed,” as a noun means “insects” and as a verb means “to reproduce,” in…
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George Washington and the Spirit of Chanukah in Washington
Chanukah in Washington is a time of parties and gatherings, since it’s a city in which relationships, connections, and shared ideas are so central to the culture. Though I am not political by vocation or nature, D.C. is, as they say, a company town. Thus, it is part of my role as Rabbi to attend many…
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Thankgiving
In Hebrew, the term for being thankful is hakarat hatov, recognizing the good that is done for us. We primarily do this through the recitation of blessings which are so ubiquitous in an observant life. These are really about recognizing that we construct very little of our own lives. Much of who we are —…
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Living Together: The Torah’s Call to Support the Stranger
There was a time, recorded in this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sara, when we were the stranger, the minority, dwelling in the Land of Israel. As Abraham says to Ephron at the beginning of the Torah portion when he buys land to bury Sarah, “I am a stranger and a sojourner among you, give me…
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Israel’s Role in Modern Jewish Identity
Some people say that denying the Jewish people the right to return to the Land of Israel, and the right to national self-determination, is not anti-Semitic; that Israel is not an essential part of being a Jew, since the Jewish people have been religious Jews for 2000 years without sovereignty in the Land. The counter-argument is…