• From Destruction to Strength: Rethinking Yom HaShoah’s Message

    This week, Kesher Israel held a beautiful Yom Hashoah commemoration. An energetic Holocaust survivor in her 90s spoke about her experiences, memorial candles were lit by children and grandchildren of survivors and victims, and I spoke about the need to remember so that it will never happen again. “Never Again” is the Holocaust memorial refrain.…

  • Birth, Death, and the Mikvah

    Tazria begins by telling us of the postpartum mother who is considered tameh, ritually impure, and therefore can not enter the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. Most sources of impurity in Judaism are associated with death, such as a dead body, the greatest source of impurity, or even a potential life that did not come to fruition,…

  • Wavering Notes, Resolute Souls: The Shalshelet of Identity and Transformation

    In this parsha, Tzav, we find something fairly unique, a Shalshelet, which is a very long repetitive trop (chanting) note, it wavers up and down three times.  This musical note appears four times in the Torah.   The first is when Lot, Abraham’s nephew, is told to leave Sidom.   The Torah records that Lot…

  • Lessons from the Kohen and Moshe

    In this week’s Torah portion, Emor, we read of the Kohen and the many rules to which he must subscribe, above and beyond those of a regular Israelite. In addition to not becoming impure by a dead body and limitations on who he can marry, the Torah says: “Speak to Aaron and say: No man…

  • From Bergen-Belsen to Redemption

    I have often wondered why in the text of the four questions of the Passover Haggadah and the original text of the four questions in the Talmud (Pesachim 116a), it says, “On all other nights, we eat leaven and matza, but on this night only matza,” whereas when the Haggadah describes the bitter herbs it…

  • Remembering Senator Lieberman: A Life of Service, Faith, and Humility

    Last week we lost a noble and wise Kesherite, Senator Joseph Leiberman, z”l. On Wednesday, when the news came to light and the texts of his passing began flowing in from all directions, I was just sitting down with a weekly Rambam-learning group of Kesher congregants who knew the Senator well. They began to tell…

  • The Randomness of Life and the Choice for Holiness

    The first of this week’s Torah portions, Acharei Mot, details the Yom Kippur service in the Tabernacle. The entire Jewish people would gather at the Temple in Jerusalem to watch and listen as the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, performed the Yom Kippur service, and on this one day a year entered the Holy of…

  • Humility and the Cure for Lashon Hara

    In this week’s Torah portion, Tazriah-Metzorah, we read about the biblical ailment of tzaraat, a skin disease which, the commentaries say, comes from speaking lashon hara, slander about others. But why is this sin singled out to produce a physical manifestation for all to see? Why is lashon hara so bad that the Talmud tells us one…

  • Sacrifice, Devotion, and Progress

    In this week’s Torah portion, Tzav, the Torah continues its description from last week of the sacrifices and their rituals. For us, who live in the current period of time in the Western world, animal sacrifice is foreign and seems, in many respects, barbaric. Reading about the sacrifices in the Torah, imagining the most central…

  • The Danger of Autonomy: Balancing Work and Spiritual Purpose in the Land

    This week’s Torah portion, Bichukoti, outlines the national blessings that the Jewish people will enjoy if they observe God’s commandments and the curses that will afflict them if they do not.   The blessings promise proper rain, crop growth and national security, whereas the potential curses depict the converse. The Jewish people at this point…

  • Lessons from Ezekiel and the Israeli Redemption

    Haftorah Ezikiel The haftorah of Parshat Parah this week tells us that the exile of the Jewish people is a desecration of God’s name, a Chilul Hashem:  “I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries, I punished them in accordance with their ways and their deeds.  But when they came…

  • Shabbat Zachor: Remembering Amalek’s Challenge

    This week is “Shabbat Zachor,” the “Shabbat of Remembering”.   Since it is just before Purim and on Purim we were threatened by Haman who was a direct descendant of Amalek, we fulfill the biblical commandment this Shabbat to remember what Amalek did to us. We do this by reading a portion from Divarim about…

  • Connecting to Our Ancestors in Challenging Times

    We have been here before,- on the seder night of the first Pesach, in Egypt, the Jewish people could not leave their houses for fear of the threat on the outside.  Though it’s true that they had each other in groups that first Pesach, how many times in Jewish history were Jews eating matzah hiding…

  • From Sinai to the Tabernacle

    In this week’s torah portion, Tzav, the torah continues its description from last week of the sacrifices and their rituals.   For us who live in the current period of time in the Western world animal sacrifice is fairly foreign and seems in many respects barbaric.   To us perhaps reading about the sacrifices in…

  • Understanding Sacrifices: Perspectives from Torah and Tradition

    In this week’s Torah portion, Tzav, the torah continues its description from last week of the sacrifices and their rituals.   For us who live in the current period of time in the Western world animal sacrifice is fairly foreign and seems in many respects barbaric.   To us perhaps reading about the sacrifices in the Torah…

  • The Power of Hands and Heart in Blessing

    This week’s Parsha, Shemini, tells the story of what happened on the eighth day of the Tabernacl’s existence, the day following the seven day process of inaugurating the Kohanim, the Priests, to prepare them for Temple service.   On this eighth day, one of the first acts as Kohen Gadol, High Priest, that Aaron performs…

  • Hidden Treasure: Spiritual Growth in a Time of Isolation

    This Shabbat we read the double portion of Tazria and Metzora which discuss the different kinds of impurity resulting from Tzaraat, a Biblical skin disease seen by our sages as a physical manifestation of spiritual malady.  The Torah commands that  if Tzaraat affects a house, the house must first be shut up for seven days…

  • Balancing Awe and Comfort in the Sanctuary

    Recently we all have undergone a shift of expectations and assumptions regarding Jewish life in the diaspora.   Now we are surprised and a bit unnerved when a synagogue does not have armed guards at its entrance.   How does this change of attitude, this fear, impact us on a communal and psychological level? This…

  • Connecting Through Community in a Time of Separation

    This week’s second Parsha, Kedoshim, begins, “You shall be holy because I the Lord your God am Holy.  A man must fear his mother and father and guard my Shabbats, I am God”.  Rash”i tells us that this parsha was read at Hakel (the gathering of the entire Jewish people in Jerusalem every seven years),…

  • The Danger of Sacrificing What Matters Most

    In this week’s double Torah portion, Acharey Mot and Kidoshim, the Torah tells us:  “Say further to the Israelite people: Anyone among the Israelites, or among the strangers residing in Israel, who gives any of his offspring to Molech, shall be put to death; the people of the land shall pelt him with stones.  And…