• 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Do “clothes make the man”?

    Our parsha, Vayeshev, is filled with deception facilitated by clothing.  Joseph’s clothes of many colors are used by his brothers to deceive their father into thinking Joseph is dead, Tamar hides her face under a veil so Judah does not recognize her and takes her for a prostitute, and the wife of Potefar uses a…

  • Seeing God in “The Place”

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vayetzey, Jacob runs away from his brother Esav who wants to kill him for taking the blessing.   He goes toward Charan, the home of his uncle Lavan.  Then, “Vayifga b’makom,”- Jacob “bumped into the place.”  The Rabbis comment that this was indeed “the place” -Mount Moriyah- the place Abraham…

  • 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 —…

  • Exploring the Spiritual Risks and Rewards of the Firstborn

    In this week’s Torah portion, Toldot, we read about Yakov and Esav, twins who are very different from each other.  Esav is a hunter- red, powerful, and hairy.  The Torah casts Yakov as the opposite-calm, tent-dwelling, and smooth.  Yitzchak their father loved Esav and wanted to bless him.  What was it about Esav which caused…

  • Strength and Caring for the Stranger

    Our brethren in Israel have elected a government which some predict will enact laws which will negatively impact many people who are non-Jewish citizens of the State of Israel.   There was a time, recorded in this week’s Torah portion, Chayeh Sarah, when we were the stranger, the minority, dwelling in the land.  As Abraham…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Abraham’s Journey to Truth

    This week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha, begins, “God said to Avrom, ‘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 bless you, and make your name great and you will be a blessing……

  • From Passivity to Action in the Work of Repair

    In this week’s Torah portion, the people of the world are drowned and Noach — the one tzadik, righteous person — is saved from death in a tevah, an ark. Noach is not the only person in the Torah to be saved from death in a tevah; the other is Moshe, who is floated down the Nile in…

  • Yom Kippur 2022

    The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is a week away.  Generally, achieving atonement takes work through engagement in the process of teshuvah, return.  One must admit their sin, ask forgiveness of those they sinned against, and change their ways. But there is one mechanism that facilitated atonement even without teshuvah — the Sair Hamishtaleach —the scapegoat, which was…

  • Rosh Hashanah 2022

    This coming week is Rosh Hashanah, the “birthday of the world,” as it is called in the Musaf liturgy.   But Rosh Hashanah, the first day of Tishrei, is not the first day of creation but the sixth day of creation, on which, according to the story in Bereshit, the human being was created.    On…

  • Blessings in the Midst of Curses: Finding God in Life’s Extremes

    In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, we read of the great blessings the Jewish people will receive if they listen to God, and the terrible curses the Jewish people will suffer if they do not listen. The Jerusalem Talmud states (Megillah 3:7): “When reading the section of the curses in the Torah, One does…

  • The Justice of Democratic Leadership

    In our parsha, Shoftim, the Torah writes about the legal equality of individuals:   “You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice.  You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take…

  • The Danger of Partial Judaism

    In this week’s Torah portion, Ekev, Moshe continues his words of strength and warning to the Jewish people to ready them for their  entry into the land and their start as a nation.   In the last verse of last week’s parsha Moshe tells them to guard the, “mitzvot, the chukim and the mishpatim.”  The…

  • Embracing Change and Returning to God

    This week, with Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort, we read the first of the seven haftorahs of comfort which will link us from this shabbat to Rosh Hashanah.  With this shabbat we transition from the mourning of the three weeks to the process of teshuvah and the Days of Awe. Tisha B’av is the…

  • The Role of Speech in Our Spiritual Journey

    This week’s parsha, Divarim, is always read on the shabbat  before Tisha B’av.    Its title is “Divarim”, “Words”, since it begins:  “These are the words which Moshe spoke…”   After which Moshe commences an almost book length speech.  It is ironic that the Torah ends with a book of words spoken by the law…