• Simcha shel mitzvah

    In this week’s Torah portion, Bo, Moshe and Aaron go to Pharaoh, who appears to acquiesce to letting them go to the desert to serve God. Pharaoh asks who is going and Moshe and Aaron reply that everyone must go since it is a festival to God. Pharaoh argues back that only the adult males…

  • Bal Tashchit and Tu Bishvat

    This Shabbat, we will bless the new month of Shevat. According to the Mishnah, the 15th of Shevat is the New Year of the Trees. We have several Jewish new years: for people, on Rosh Hashanah, the day we are judged; for Kings, by which to date documents; for animals; and for trees, to determine…

  • Name and Number

    Our parsha, Shemot, begins with names: “And these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt…” Why does this parsha, the parsha of the Egyptian exile, begin with the names of the Jewish people when the Torah already counted all 70 Israelites by name in last week’s parsha? Rashi is bothered…

  • Building More Than Walls: The Purpose of a Shul and the Heart of Community

    What is the role of a Jewish community and a shul?   Human beings develop via three pathways, the intellectual, the emotional and the social. Sufficient nurturing, education and guidance within our families of origin help us to do this. As Jews, we also must develop ourselves as spiritual and religious personalities. This is the primary…

  • Celebrating Amidst Anxiety

    This week is the Fast of Esther and the holiday of Purim. There is a joke that our holidays consist of, “They tried to kill us, they did not succeed, let’s eat.” It’s interesting that of all the holidays which commemorate our salvation, only on Purim do we fast on the day we were supposed…

  • Acting, not Reacting

    In this week’s Torah portion, Terumah, we read the instructions God gives to Moshe for the building of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. What is the function of the Mishkan? According to Nachmanides, it is a moveable Sinai. God was revealed to us at Mount Sinai and we can preserve that intimacy in the Mishkan, a…

  • Theft of Souls

    These days, the news from Israel leaves us constantly reeling: the lost joy of seeing loved ones who have been in the depths of terror and Hamas dungeons for 500 days; the devastating reality of the innocents we feel connected to, such as the Bibas family, lives torn asunder and murdered.    On Tuesday night, Feb.…

  • Learning from Community

    In this week’s Torah portion, Yitro, we hear about Moses’ father-in-law, who comes to see the Jewish people in the desert: “And Yitro the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard all that God had done for Moses and for His people Israel; that God brought them out of Egypt.” Rashi comments: “What did Yitro hear…

  • Having Faith and Being Present

    This past week, I was in Israel at the Shalom Hartman Institute. In addition to extensive textual learning, which was our main focus, we heard from several Israeli speakers regarding life in Israel at this moment in time. One who has been involved in many years of high-level negotiations contended that though Israel is in…

  • Seeing the Divine in Every Person

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vaera, Moshe complains to God that he is a bad speaker, literally “uncircumcised of lips,” and thus cannot go to Pharaoh. God’s solution is to send Aaron with him to be the speaker. But just before this, we are told Moshe tried to talk to the Jewish people, and “the…

  • From Faith to Action

    In our Torah portion, Shemot, Moses puts himself in danger by killing an Egyptian taskmaster in order to save one of the Jewish slaves he knows are his brethren. Moses clearly cares for those who are vulnerable, for the slaves, and wants to take action to save them even at personal risk. But if this…

  • Adar’s Unique Joy: Finding Celebration in Transformation

    This week began the month of Adar Sheni, the month in which Purim falls. The Talmud tells us, “When Adar begins, we increase joy.”  But why specifically in this month? If it is because the happy holiday of Purim falls in this month, what about the month of Tishrei when Sukkot falls? After all, Sukkot…

  • Moments of Sanctity in Paris and Jerusalem

    Last month, I was in Paris for a few days visiting my daughter, Hava. While there, late at night, I wandered into a kosher pizza store in a hole in the wall in the Marais, the older Jewish neighborhood of Paris. There were a few small tables, some old salt and pepper shakers, a picture…

  • Finding the Divine in Everyday Life

    In this week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh, we continue to read about the Mishkan, the Tabernacle which takes up a great deal of the laws of the Torah. It is arguably the most central element in the Biblical communal life of the Jewish people. The Mishkan not only was a place of Divine service but represented…

  • Moments of Interfaith Connection and Inspiration

    This past week I shared a story in Shul which highlights one of the many ways that Kesher Israel is not only a vibrant community in Washington, D.C., but how, as the central congregation in our nation’s capital, makes deep impressions upon the world. Through the members it serves and the many groups and individuals…

  • Embracing Truth and Tension at Sinai

    This Torah portion, in which the Torah is given, strangely is named after Yitro—Moses’ father-in-law who was not a Jew, but a priest of Midian. Why? What is so special about Yitro? I think the answer may lie in a perplexing medrash. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 94a) states: “It was taught in the name of Rabbi…

  • Earbuds, Tea, and Brotherhood

    I recently bought AirPods. If you are over 75, or have just returned from being shipwrecked on a Pacific atoll, these are the small, white earphones that everyone wears. This week, I traveled by train to New York for a two-day meeting of rabbis. On the train back, as I walked through the aisle with…

  • The Exodus Within: Finding Personal Freedom Through Change

    Yetziat Mitzrayim, the Exodus from Egypt, which we are currently reading about in the Torah, is not only a national historical event, but, as Rabbi Nachaman of Breslov put it, something that we as individuals, emotionally and spiritually, must engage in every day. For hundreds of years, the Israelites were born into a slavery, not…

  • How Finding Your Voice Leads to True Freedom

    “The alphabet is an abolitionist. If you would keep a people enslaved, refuse to teach them to read.”  – Editorial on “Education in the Southern States,” in Harper’s Weekly, November 9, 1867 The Torah says in this week’s Parsha, Shemot, that after 210 years of slavery, the Jewish people cried out: “It was after many…

  • Theater, Art, and the Divine Drama: Replacing the Golden Calf

    In this week’s Torah portion, Vayakel-Pikudeh, Moses commands the Jewish people to give gold and silver and other materials for the building of the Tabernacle. The Torah tells us that the Jewish people were so enthusiastic that they gave more than was needed. The Midrash (Shemot Rabah) compares this to their donations of gold jewelry for the…