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…

The Talmud, Avoda Zava 8a, states: Our Sages taught: When Adam the first man saw that the day was progressively diminishing, as the days become shorter from the autumnal equinox until the winter solstice, he did not yet know that this is a normal phenomenon, and therefore he said: Woe is me; perhaps because I…

Yosef is called Yosef HaTzadik, Joseph the Righteous.  He is the ancestor who lives in a foreign, idolatrous land, becomes well integrated into its structure functioning there as a great leader, and yet retains his Israelite religious values.  Yosef’s ability, in the face of Egyptian culture, to not only retain his values and religious outlook…