• 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…

  • Is unity a Good?

    “Politics has stopped being about how to govern a shared country and is more about a naked, “Lord of the Flies”-style struggle for power.”     -Henry Olsen, The Washington Post, 1/1/2021 This week’s Torah portion, Noach, describes a society which works well, seems unified, and can build great towers, but fails because it is…

  • Elevating the Physical Through Shabbat

    “Noah is Shabbat” – Tikuney Zohar, 138b The seventh Rebbe of Lubavitch, the great Tzadik, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson taught (in Maamar Bati L’gani) that the place of God’s most intense dwelling in this world is the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, and the beams which hold up the Mishkan are called in Hebrew, “kerashim.” He said…

  • The Power of Prayer

    This week’s Torah portion is Noah.  Many of the commentaries on this portion focus on Prayer.  But what does prayer have to do with Noah and the flood?  The answer I think lies in a question that is often asked about Noah: Was he really a righteous man compared to Abraham, or only righteous compared…

  • Bridging the Divide

    We have just finished the High Holidays, culminating with Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret. Over the course of the holiday of Sukkot, we offer 70 bulls in the Temple, corresponding to the 70 nations. On the 8th day, Shemini Atzeret, we bring one bull for the Jewish people. Jews are not xenophobic. We believe that the…

  • The Jewish Perspective on Truth and Governance

    The Shulchan Aruch, Code of Jewish Law, states that if three identical pieces of meat, one which is unkosher and two which are kosher, become mixed together in one container, we are permitted to eat all of them.  We know that one of these pieces is not kosher, and yet as we pull each one…

  • Breaking Free from Narrow Thinking

    Our era, ironically, has been called the age of communication.  When I was young, making a phone call from Israel to the United States cost a great deal and was not simple, so one might speak to their relatives abroad only rarely.   When my oldest was in Israel about 5 years ago calling was…

  • Abraham’s Nature and the Path of the People

    This week’s torah portion, Lech L’cha begins with God telling Abraham to leave his homeland and go, “to a place which I will show you.”   According to the Ramban God took Avrom traveling for a long time from land to land.  Why?   As Rashi says, “in order to make your nature, (your personality), known in…

  • Awakening to God: The Journey of Seeing and Changing

    This week’s parsha is our first introduction to Avrohom, the first Jew. We know very little about him except what God tells him: “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 I…

  • Building the Jewish Future: Kesher Israel’s Mission of Connection

    “And God said to Avram, go for yourself from your land, your birthplace, and from the house of your father, to the land which I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. And…

  • Becoming a Vessel

    This week’s Torah portion is Lech Lecha in which God tells Abraham to leave his land, his family and his birthplace, and “go to a land which I will show you.”   Why, ask the commentaries, doesn’t God just tell him where he is being led; to the Land of Israel?  Why all the mystery?  The Sefat…

  • The Power of Letting Go in Community Building

    This week’s Torah portion is Lech Lecha, in which God tells Abraham to leave his land, his family and his birthplace, and “go to a land which I will show you.” Why, ask the commentaries, doesn’t God just tell him where he is being led – to the Land of Israel? Why all the mystery?…

  • Ego vs. Desire: The Two Sins of Saul and David

    I have often been perplexed by the very different reactions The torah has to the sin of King David and the sin of King Saul.  King Saul failed to fulfill the Torah’s command of wiping out Amalek in his war with them.  He let Agag the king of Amalek live.   Shmuel the profit takes…

  • When Normality Becomes Evil

    In this week’s parsha, Vayera, we read the story of Sodom. After Avrohom unsuccessfully argues with God to spare its inhabitants, Avrohom and the two angels go to save Avrohom’s nephew, Lot, from Sodom: “The two angels arrived in Sodom in the evening, as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them,…

  • Outspokenness and Obedience

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vayerah, God tells Abraham that he is going to destroy the city of Sodom.  Abraham’s response is, “Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked?  Perhaps there are 50 righteous people in the city…far be it from You, to kill the righteous with the wicked…will the judge of the entire…