• Shabbat HaGadol (Shabbat before Passover)

    This Shabbat, the Shabbat before Pesach, is called Shabat HaGodol, the “Big Shabbat”.  Four days before the Seder, the 10th of Nisan, the Torah commands that one must choose a lamb for the Passover offering and tie it up in preparation for the Seder.  The commentaries explain that the year the Jewish people left Egypt…

  • Passover 2021

    The Midrash says that this Shabbat, the Seventh day of Pesach, commemorates the day on which the Jewish people crossed the sea.   Thus, the Torah reading is the splitting of the sea and Az Yashir, the Song at the Sea.  The Talmud  has three opinions as to the mechanics of the way in which…

  • Passover 2020

    Maimonides writes the following about the seder in the Mishnah Torah, Laws of Chametz and Matzah, Chapter 7: “We should make changes on this night so that the children will see and will ask: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” until we reply to them: “This and this occurred; this and this…

  • Passover 2019

    The Talmud writes that in the month of Nisan the Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt and in the month of Nisan they will be redeemed in the future (Rosh Hashanah 11a).   In Judaism, time is not just a measure of movement, but has unique textures.  Nisan is a time of freedom and redemption,…

  • Passover 2018

    At the end of this past weeks Torah portion is a very strange juxtaposition of ideas.  After the firstborn in Egypt are killed the Jewish people are told “therefore you use sanctify the firstborn of the Jewish people,” animals should be given to the temple and human beings are redeemed five coins.  But what does…

  • Passover 2018-2

    This Shabbat, the Shabbat preceding Passover is known as, Shabat HaGadol, “The Great Shabbat”.   What is so great about it? The Torah writes,  And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron…Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take everyone a lamb, according to the house…

  • Interpersonal Commandments

    Abraham welcoming the three men Recently I was in a community populated by older people.    After davening I was sitting in the passenger’s seat of a car and moved to the back to accommodate an older man who walked with a cane.   His friend, an older holocaust survivor, who has lived for all…

  • Why are we so Childish when it Comes to Yom Kippur?

    Yom Kippur will arrive this week and thousands of Jews will attend synagogues.  Why is it that so many attend synagogue on Yom Kippur, but not the rest of the year?  What is it about Yom Kippur that draws us?  No doubt because it is a holy day, we want to be present.  But many…

  • For Crying out Loud!

    In a few days, on the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, many of us will fulfill the once a year commandment of hearing the sound of the Shofar.  The mitzvah of the Shofar, as reflected in the blessing we make upon it, is not to blow the shofar, but to hear its sound. There are primarily…

  • The Highest and the Lowest

    The Rambam writes in the Laws of Tishuvah (return) about this season before the holidays that, “All people should see themselves as half guilty and half meritorious, if they do one sin now they tip themselves and the entire world with them to the side of guilt and cause destruction, if they do one mitzvah…

  • Tishuvah-Return

    We call the process of repentance tishuvah or “return”.   This is very telling.  The process we engage in during this Jewish month of Elul and through Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot is not a process of becoming someone we are not, but rather a more organic process of getting in touch with who we really are…

  • Prostitutes, Rabbis and Teshuvah (Return)

    The Talmud tells two stories of Rabbis visiting prostitutes and subsequently doing Tehsuvah (return, repentance).  A comparison of the two stories yields deep insights about our own work of Tishuvah at this time of the year.   A good and inspiring Month of Ellul to all. Story #1 (Babylonian Talmud, Minachot 44a) Once a man,…

  • Takes Many Spiritual Tools to Connect to an Infinite God

    On Prayer and Meditation My first post on Morethodoxy, entitled “Openness and Passion,” outlined what I perceive to be an important process in living the Torah, being able to adopt the strengths one finds in each community and in the so many different approaches to mitzvoth and Torah, even if they are not our own…

  • Were our Avot Perfect? (part 1)

    Often we limit the Torah.   We project onto it our own ideas and feel it can not defend itself or be of value as it is.  We fashion seatbelts for Torah that ultimately detract from it.  We limit Torah by projecting onto it what we think we already understand, what we think it should…

  • Did Abraham Fail his Final Test?

    Over Rosh Hashanah I thought a lot about the akedah, the binding of Isaac, since the story is so central to Rosh Hashanah.  I contemplated some of the central questions that are asked out it. What gave Abraham the right to offer his child with out asking Sara since Isaac is her child also, as…

  • The Central Temple Service of Yom Kippur

    This month of Elul leads up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  It is a time of reflection and tishuvah, return, but with what should we emerge from this process?   Elul, Rosh Hashanah, the 10 Days of Tishuvah and Yom Kippur culminates in a service performed once a year on Yom Kippur itself, on the…

  • Yom Kippur

    Two Goats that Teach the Central Lesson of Yom Kippur In ancient times Yom Kippur was quite a different experience than it is for us today.  The entire Jewish people would gather at the Temple in Jerusalem to watch and listen as the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, performed the Temple service, and on this…

  • Rosh Hashanah

    The Talmud states:  “We anoint kings next to a spring of water so that their kingship should continue to give forth like a spring…Rabbi Ammi said, “If one is about to engage in business and wishes to know whether he will succeed or not, let him get a rooster and feed it; if it grows…

  • 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…

  • Purim 2020

    In our era the glue which used to hold families together, interconnect members of communities, and unite nations, is dissolving.  I do not believe the Coronavirus is the cause of these ailments, but these hard times hold up a mirror to us.   Worldwide catastrophes exerts pressure, testing the bonds we may have thought were…