• Celebrating Amid Grief

    This year the High Holidays from Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah are different from last year. On the one hand, we cannot allow the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people to quash our joy of celebrating the holidays and keeping the Torah, but on the other hand, the resonance of October 7th leaves us…

  • Bringing Torah to the Thirsty

    Studies show that members of the American generation now coming of age, Gen-Z, are both more likely than the generations before them to be depressed and anxious and at the same time interested in spirituality more than other generations.   I believe this paradoxical state of affairs creates an important obligation for religious communities which…

  • Worthiness as the children of the Lord our God

    In this week’s parsha, Re’eh, the Torah writes, “You are children of the Lord your God, do not cut yourself (out of anguish) when someone dies.” Rashi comments: “Do not cut yourself when someone dies, as the Amorites do, since you are children of God and it is fitting that you should look nice and…

  • Grace or Gratitude? Understanding God’s Gifts in Love and Merit

    Last week’s parsha began with Moshe beseeching God to let him cross into Israel, “V’etchanan el Hashem,” “I pleaded with God at that time, saying…Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan…” Rash”i comments that the word va’etchanan (to plead or beseech) means to request…

  • Mourning the Temple in the 21st Century

    This week we commemorated Tisha B’av, the ninth day of the month of Av, the saddest in the Jewish year, on which we recall the destruction of the Temple and the exile. Our state of being for 2000 years was exile. Until 1948 we took exile for granted, and awaited the messiah to come and…

  • Lessons of the Three Weeks for a Polarized World

    Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. This coming week, with the fast of the 17th of Tamuz, begins the Three Weeks of mourning for the destruction of the Temple and the exile. The Talmud tells us that destruction comes to the Jewish people when they are divided, when there is hatred among us. This turns out to…

  • Disagreement and the Search for Truth

    This week, we are in the midst of the nine days of diminished joy leading up to Tisha B’av, the day which commemorates the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people from the land of Israel. The Talmud writes (Yoma 9b): “Due to what reason was the First Temple destroyed? It…

  • 21st century Zionism

    Sara and I return to Washington this week after a very interesting and inspiring month in Israel. Witnessing Israel’s internal strength has been especially instructive. Though its divisions were pronounced and Israelis are not the type to politely agree, when it comes to the things that matter, they are unified.    For instance, a few nights ago…

  • Cooperation and Competition

    This coming week, with the fast of the 17th of Tamuz, begins the Three Weeks of mourning for the destruction of the Temple and the exile. The Talmud tells us that destruction comes to the Jewish people when they are divided, when there is hatred among us. This turns out to be true of all…

  • Trust and Gratitude

    Greetings from Jerusalem! In this week’s Torah portion, Moshe screams at the Jewish people and hits the rock and due to this, is unable to enter the Land of Israel. The Jewish people at this time are standing on the eastern banks of the Jordan river. For almost 40 years they have received water and…

  • Torah and the State of Israel

    Shalom from Israel, where I am learning for the month with other rabbis at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.    Sara and I spent this past Shabbat in Ranana with several close friends of ours. Just after Shabbat, we turned on our phones to read that a 20-year-old boy from Ranana, Yair Avitan, was killed fighting…

  • Remember the “Why”

    In this week’s Torah portion, Shelach, Moshe sends the heads of the tribes to spy out the land and report back—10 of the 12 come with a bad report, saying they do not think it can be conquered. Two of the spies come back with a good report and reassure the people that they can…

  • Leaving Sinai and Taking Sinai

    In this week’s Torah portion Beha’alotcha, there are two verses (Vayihi Binsoah Ha’aron) which are bracketed by an upside down letter nun before and after:  “When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: “Advance, O God, May Your enemies be scattered, And may Your foes flee before You!” And when it (the ark)…

  • Counting on Balance

    Liberals and conservatives disagree about so much in our polarized society, yet there is one thing the extremists on both sides seem to agree on, and that is hatred of Jews and Israel. Who could have imagined that we would see the day when, in a blink of an eye following October 7th, progressive students…

  • Why do [] things happen to [] people?

    This week’s Torah portion, Bechukotai, brings up the profound and long standing philosophical question of theodicy, of justice and why bad things happen to good people: “If you walk in my ways, and guard my commandments, and do them, I will bring the rain in its time…”  The parsha then continues to tell us the…

  • From Selfie King to Savior: Yosef’s Glow-Up in the Pit

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeshev, Yosef is 17 years old and quite self-involved. He is a dreamer and, as Rashi tells us, constantly coming his hair, and overly concerned with his outward appearance. He seems haughty, declaring his dreams to his family, which are perceived by his father and brothers as being about Yosef’s …

  • Lessons from the Kohen and Moshe

    In this week’s Torah portion, Emor, we read of the Kohen and the many rules to which he must subscribe, above and beyond those of a regular Israelite. In addition to not becoming impure by a dead body and limitations on who he can marry, the Torah says: “Speak to Aaron and say: No man…

  • From Destruction to Strength: Rethinking Yom HaShoah’s Message

    This week, Kesher Israel held a beautiful Yom Hashoah commemoration. An energetic Holocaust survivor in her 90s spoke about her experiences, memorial candles were lit by children and grandchildren of survivors and victims, and I spoke about the need to remember so that it will never happen again. “Never Again” is the Holocaust memorial refrain.…

  • From Bergen-Belsen to Redemption

    I have often wondered why in the text of the four questions of the Passover Haggadah and the original text of the four questions in the Talmud (Pesachim 116a), it says, “On all other nights, we eat leaven and matza, but on this night only matza,” whereas when the Haggadah describes the bitter herbs it…

  • Birth, Death, and the Mikvah

    Tazria begins by telling us of the postpartum mother who is considered tameh, ritually impure, and therefore can not enter the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. Most sources of impurity in Judaism are associated with death, such as a dead body, the greatest source of impurity, or even a potential life that did not come to fruition,…