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Vayeshev 5776: Driving Out the Darkness
On a weekly basis, and sometimes every day, we hear of horrid incidents when a person’s internal state of jealousy, anger or hatred is expressed in violence. Until that moment there is the possibility...
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Mikketz/Hanukkah/RH–Joseph for Israel, Joseph for All
Who is Joseph deep within? As the Hebrew youth rises from enslavement to privilege, from refugee status to rulership, what remains of his core identity? This question is central to the story of...
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Shabbat Bo: Might Undermined by Right
Examine Egyptian iconography and you can’t miss the frightening creatures that populated their imagination. There are snakes and alligators, jackals and hippopotamuses which, though cute in...
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Shabbat Bishalah: Now What? Finding Our Way in the Wilderness
[First published as JTS Torah Commentary] From the air, Eretz Mitzrayim, “the narrow land” of Egypt, reveals itself as a vast expanse of sand and stone broken only by the twisting dark line of the...
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Yitro 5776: Clearing the Mind to Hear the Voice
What do you feel when listening to the Shofar on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur? It is very difficult to describe the experience of hearing the shofar. There are many regulations and associations that...
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Mishpatim 5776: The Significance of Strange Visions
One my strangest experiences came during my last visit with my grandmother Belle Nevins, z”l. She was dying, and although conscious it was not clear that she was aware of us. Suddenly she looked to the...
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Shabbat Terumah 5776: Becoming Cherubic
What is the function of cherubs? Not the love-struck angel babies of Valentine’s day, but the winged ark ornaments that we read of this week in Parashat Terumah. Their wings were spread upwards, and...
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Titzaveh 5776: Scent of the Divine
What does God smell like? The question seems to be absurd—as much as asking what God looks like or sounds like. Even more so, perhaps, since the Bible brims with accounts of the divine voice and...
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Hold Your Hands Up! VaYakheil-Shekalim 5776
Sometimes it is not ornament but infrastructure which is the most interesting and enduring feature of a building. The tabernacle was a beautiful building with bronze, silver, gold as well as luxurious...
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On Being A Jewish Installation–Pekudei 5776
One of the hardest adjustments for me as a young rabbi in a large suburban synagogue in Michigan was learning how to sit on the raised bimah of our enormous sanctuary, which sat 1,500 on the holidays,...
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Amalek Inside–Zakhor 5776
It is considered a mitzvah this Shabbat for every Jew to “remember what Amalek did to you,” to blot out the memory of Amalek, and not to forget. This mitzvah is easily fulfilled by listening to the...
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7 Days of Joy and Sorrow: Tzav 5776
Joy and sorrow, birth and death, creation and destruction—these opposites are bound together; one is not possible without its antithesis. All too often does joy come attended by sorrow—Purim is the...
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Don’t be Cowed–Shabbat Shmini/Parah 5776
Shabbat Parah, Cow Shabbat, is one of our more perplexing customs. We chant the passage describing the red heifer ritual in Numbers 19, and then read Ezekiel’s prophecy of a re-purification of Israel,...
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Babies as Spiritual Giants: Tazria/HaHodesh/RH 5776
Newborn babies are miraculous to see, and even more remarkable to hold. To let their tiny fingers curl around your pinkie and breathe in their new-to-the-world fragrance is divine, but sometimes this...
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Tying Up the Ram, Trying to Be Free: Shabbat HaGadol 5776
The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes taught a course that I took one year in college, and I still savor his exploration of magical realism with our class. One of his grand themes was the elliptical...
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Kind Criticism and the Holy Community. Shabbat Kedoshim 5766
The first 19 verses of Parashat Kedoshim are an astonishingly broad code of religious life. The passage opens with a mandate for Israel to become holy like God, and it ends with preserving the...
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Naso 5776/2016: The Troubled Religious Zealot, from Samson to Orlando
He was big and burly, dressed in a black leather motorcycle jacket, and his gray ponytail ran all the way down his back. When I introduced myself I learned that he was the brother of a quiet member...
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Jealousy and the Humble Leader. Beha’alotekha 5776
When is jealousy justified? When is humility heroic? Such questions come to mind upon rereading the remarkable story of Eldad and Meidad (Numbers 11:26-29) and the conference held between a worked-up...
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Korah 5776: How Much is Your Child Worth?
“Which do you prefer—your firstborn child, or the five coins required to redeem him?” This disconcerting question is part of the ritual known as pidyon haben, the redemption of the firstborn son. Rabbi...
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Ekev 5776: Eyes on the Prized Land
Everyone wants our attention, and technology has made it both easier and more difficult to focus on what is truly important. Facebook keeps nudging me about the birthdays of people I haven’t spoken...
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