Tag: Torah
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The Power of Not Accepting One’s Situation
Dear friends: I appreciate all those who follow me here and read my writings. I have recently started a Substack, and have been posting there as well. I am considering moving all of my posting to that platform, so I invite you to subscribe to my blog over there https://rabbi360.substack.com/ Thanks! The story of Joseph…
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We Are Living in Sodom
It was already two weeks ago in our Torah reading cycle, but I can not get the story of Sodom and Gomorrah out of my head. In Genesis 18 we read how God says, “the outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave!” (v. 20) and vows to destroy them.…
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The Mountain is Over Our Heads: Kol Nidre 5786
My sermon from Yom Kippur this year. I forgot to post it here until recently! I don’t know where you are getting your news from these days, but one of my go-to sources is the Onion. If you are not familiar with the Onion, it is a satirical newspaper that has been around for a…
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7 Ways We Can Meet this Moment: Rosh Hashanah 5786
It goes without saying that this has indeed been a difficult few years. Last year as we welcomed in the new year we were negotiating our feelings and response to October 7 and its aftermath. This year, we find ourselves in a place perhaps we didn’t expect, as hostages still languish in captivity and this…
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A Day of Love and Hope
This past Shabbat was also a minor holiday on the Jewish calendar: Tu B’Av, so named because of its date, the “fifteenth of [the month of] Av.” Not found in the Torah, it is a later addition to the Jewish calendar, but so seemingly obscure that the rabbis in the Talmud do not have a…
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Warning Bells
Having discussed sacred structures in last week’s portion, the Torah this week turns to sacred fashion. After elaborately describing the materials and construction of the Tabernacle, the portable building that is to serve as the worship space and community center for the Israelites as they make their way through the desert, the Torah describes the…
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Our Pain Threshold
The thing about redheads is that we have a lower threshold for pain. Growing up, though I was not as brightly redheaded as others, people remarked about my “strawberry blond” hair, especially compared to my darker-haired parents and sister. It was a trait I inherited through my mother’s mother’s line. As I got older, my…
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The Life and Death and Life of Books
As a congregational rabbi, I am used to the ebbs and flows of time and ritual. Shabbat comes every week, the holidays cycle every year, there will always be births and deaths, weddings and b’nai mitzvah. But every so often an opportunity arises that a rabbi will participate in only once (maybe twice) in a…
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Remembering to Remember
On this week in which we commemorate the Holocaust, a disturbing report came out: memory of the events of the Holocaust are fading, and fewer people in younger generations know basic facts about the destruction of European Jewry and Nazi Germany. It is disturbing, and on one level not surprising—the more we temporally move away…
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