• 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…

  • How Each Generation Contributes to the Rebuilding

    The Talmud says, “ Any generation for which the Temple is not rebuilt, it is as if it was destroyed in their days.” The Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, asks how this could be so?  There have been many generations in which there were very righteous people, is the Talmud saying that…

  • Tisha B’Av as a Path to Redemption

    This week we begin the nine days, an intensive time of mourning for the destruction of the Temple and the exile from Israel.   Rabbi Solovetchik pointed out that this process of national mourning proceeds in the opposite direction to personal mourning.   Personal mourning of the passing of a loved one begins with very…

  • Exile, Manna, and the Journey to Self-Realization

    In this week’s torah portion, Ekev, Moshe reviews some of the people’s time in the desert over the last 40 years and speaks several times about the mannah they ate in the desert.  When Moshe speaks about the mannah though, he connects it in our parsha, more than once to pain. “Remember the long way…

  • From Manna to Harvest: Remembering God in Our Success

    It all begins with an idea.

  • A Contrast Between the Mayans and the Jews

    This past week Sara and I were in Mexico touring the Mayan ruins; royal houses, city centers, ancient ball courts, and temples, spanning over a thousand years from the 5th century BCE until the 10th century CE. Though there is not much rain during half the year and these ancient cities were not generally built…

  • How Humility Shapes Our Relationship with God

    This week’s parsha, Ekev, begins with Moshe’s words of warning to the Jewish People:  V’haya ekev tishmaun, “And it will be, ekev, (“since” or “because”) you will heed these ordinances and keep them, that the Lord, your God, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers.”   The word…

  • Opening Your Hand: The Real Impact of Tzedakah in This World

    “If there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in any of your settlements in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman.  Rather, you must surely open your hand and lend him sufficient for their needs,…

  • Charity, Reward, and the Power of Our Actions

    Perhaps the greatest religious conflict, especially for Jews, is that between God’s infiniteness and God’s intimacy.  God is radically One, as the mystics put it, Ayn od milvado, “There is nothing besides God.”  So impossible and dangerous is it to anthropomorphize God, to take the risk of limiting God or pretending to know God’s essence,…

  • The Jewish Journey Through History and Holidays

    What are the Jews?  Not a religion, for there are many who would say they are Jewish but are not religious; not a nation, for a nation is identified with its land and shared culture and Jews have not had a land for most of their history and do not share cultural identities such as…

  • Blessing and Curse: Seeing the Divine Life Force in All Things

    This week’s Torah portion Re’eh-“See” begins “See I place before you today blessing and curse, the blessing that you will listen to the Mitzvot….”  The Midrah on these verses quotes the two additional verses to bring to bear on our portion, “The mitzvah is a candle and Torah is light” and “The human soul is…

  • Finding the Balance Between Nature and the Divine

    In this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, we find two commandments about trees.  (1) Do not cut down a fruit tree even in war, and (2) Do not plant  an ashera trees near the altar. The commandment not to cut down a tree is a warning against wanton destruction which in jewish law is forbidden by…

  • Love Your Neighbor: A Call to Action in a World Full of Tragedy

    What should our response be to living in a time in which we are aware of so many tragedies around the world as they happen?  The seminal book of Musar, Misilat Yisharim, writes that we must always ask, “Mah chovati baolami”, What is my obligation in this world?”  Everything which happens is a test for…

  • Beyond Social Distancing

    We are blessed with a community that is vibrant and diverse.  Many Shuls would be overjoyed to have the liveliness that hundreds of young professionals bring to a community, the wisdom of dozens of accomplished thinkers and politicians, and the commitment that many vatikin, those who have been members of the community for decades, bring.…