Purim 5778: On Kashering Hands for Pesah
A beraita quoted in b. Pesahim (6a) states that one must commence study of the laws of Pesah 30 days before the holiday; the practice as codified in the Shulhan Arukh (OH 429:1), and the Mishnah...
View ArticleFrom Mishkan to Mitzvah: Vayakhel-Pekudei 5778
There are many shiny objects in the double reading which draws the book of Exodus to its dramatic conclusion. Ancient images of silver, gold and copper flash in the mind’s eye, gemstones sparkle in the...
View ArticleMind this–Intention Before Action on the Field of Sacred Play:...
My baseball career ground to a sudden halt 39 years ago during spring training. It was March 1979, and I was signed up to play in the Sandy Koufax division of our town’s Little League. But that month...
View ArticleGuns and Moses: Shabbat HaGadol 5778
Americans have become desensitized to the phenomenon of gun violence and explosives that can suddenly and indiscriminately mar and destroy innocent life. Somehow mass murder has come to seem normal,...
View ArticleDrinking on the Job, Playing with Fire: Shmini 5778
I recently had the privilege to respond to a lecture delivered at JTS by Seth Waxman, the former US Solicitor to the Supreme Court. He presented three current cases, one of which (McCoy vs. Louisiana)...
View ArticleOur Bodies, Our Souls: Tazria-Metzora 5778
Pity poor Rabbi Akiva. He had a difficult youth and a dreadful death, but at least he enjoyed the respect of his colleagues, right? In Bavli Sanhedrin 38b Reish Lakish claims that God gave Adam the...
View ArticleKarma and Kehunah: Aḥarei Mot-Kedoshim 5778
They’re a strange combination, Aḥarei Mot and Kedoshim. The former parashah focuses on an inaccessible ritual—possible only for a certain person, at a specific time, in a sacred place, from which we...
View ArticleTheology as Meteorology: Behar-Behukotai 5778
Imagine if your weather app displayed not images of sun and clouds, but icons of good and evil, like this: ☺ ☹. Each city might have a virtue index—with the weather forecast tracking not the jet stream...
View ArticleShabbat Pinhas 5778: Whose land is it?
Back in 1976, John McPhee wrote a beautiful book about Alaska called Coming into the Country. In it he profiled the peoples—native and immigrant, rural and urban—and the varied environments of...
View ArticleRe’eh 5778: Children of God
In my more rational moments, I have trouble believing in a personal God and am put off by anthropomorphic imagery. I get it—infinity is impossible to imagine, and so we compare God to more familiar...
View ArticleKi Tavo 5778: An Understanding Heart
Moses presents the people of Israel with a paradox toward the end of the parashah. In 29:1-3, he first states that they have “seen with their own eyes” all the miracles wrought by God on their behalf...
View ArticleNitzavim 5778: Remember the Children!
The cries of children, and the sobbing of parents, ring in our ears each Rosh Hashanah. The Torah and haftarah readings emphasize the perils faced by sons Ishmael and Isaac, and the terrors experienced...
View ArticleRosh HaShanah 5779: Recovering from Moral Injury
Out damn spot! Out I say! Who said that line? [Reply] Correct, this is perhaps the most famous line in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, and it belongs to his wife, Lady Macbeth. Macbeth was the murderer,...
View ArticleShabbat Sukkot 5779: Sin Past the Point of Return
Each of our three pilgrimage festivals is associated with one of the Megillot. On Passover we read the magnificent poetry of the Song of Songs; on Shavuot the moving story of Ruth, and then there is...
View ArticleBereshit 5779: Equals in Eden
There is much to celebrate in the Torah’s first description not only of humanity but of gender. In Genesis 1:27-28 God creates the first person(s), male and female, in the divine image, and blesses...
View ArticleNoah 5779: Facing the Rising Tide Together
If you like dramatic stories, then Parashat Noah is for you. Between the ark and the tower, the flood and the dispersion, there is high drama. A teacher of mine once argued, however, that the most...
View ArticleStronger than Hate: Hayei Sarah 5779
The first thing we saw upon landing in Pittsburgh today was the instantly iconic transformation of the Steelers’ logo to integrate a yellow Magen David and the phrase, “Stronger than Hate.” The three...
View ArticlePeace on Earth? Toledot 5779
The story line of the patriarchs and matriarchs of Israel has moved on to the second, and soon to the third generations, but our portion begins with a curious backwards facing reference that seems...
View ArticleWhat’s fear got to do with it? VaYetze 5779
Could it be that Rabbi Nachman got it wrong when he said, the world is a narrow bridge, and the key is not to be afraid at all? How many times have we sung these words, rocking to and fro, slow and...
View ArticleWe have so much: VaYishlah 5779
How much do you have? That question is never purely objective nor purely subjective. Whether discussing physical assets like money and possessions or social assets such as honor and power, our sense of...
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