Vayetzei 5769 - Spirituality

Shabbat Shalom.

Last Thursday, I took a break from our Thanksgiving festivities to go on a bike ride. I biked around the area, onto Trapelo Road, and then to the De Cordova Museum. I found myself surrounded by trees and sculptures, winding paths and water.

Vayera 5769 - Avraham and Rahm

Shabbat Shalom.

I usually stay away from politics – I prefer to teach Torah and stay closer to the traditional rabbinic role of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable,” as the expression goes.

Shabbat Sukkot 5769 - Superstition

So it happened again. Some of the congregation was with me at Kol Nidrei as I revealed my wager with God to help the Red Sox defeat the Angels. The following Thursday night, after the second day of Sukkot, as it looked like the end was coming, I had to make another deal with the Big Baseball Fan in the Sky.

YK 5769 - What Is God and What Does It Matter?

I still remember this nightmare from my childhood, although it was not really a nightmare. It was more of an unsettling awareness that occurred on a number of occasions. The first time it happened I must have been about ten years old and I was lying in bed, my mind racing. I was thinking about God.

Kol Nidrei 5769 - Mussar and Hekhsher Tzedek

Gmar Hatimah Tovah – may you be sealed for a good year.

I am not sure how many of you know this, but I was a student entrepreneur for a number of years. I ran a small kosher deli in college. It not only provided the community on the Columbia University campus with another kosher food option, but it also helped me pay for school …. and I could eat all I wanted for free!

RH1 5769 The Jewish Family

Shanah Tovah.

This summer I lived out a decade-long dream to take my family to Israel and have my kids fall in love with the country – its people and places – and have them really feel part of our Jewish family there.

Behukottai 5768 - Sinai

Shabbat Shalom.

Whew – tough story. Our Torah reading this Shabbat, Parashat Behukkotai, does not present us with easy material. Although there is a beautiful blessing first, more space is taken up by the tokheḥah - the rebuke, a section of curses. As Talia and Rabbi Jacobs explained, this is not a section of the Torah that sits well with us.

Tazria 5768 - Community and the Individual

Shabbat Shalom.

I have a lot of raḥmanus – compassion for op-ed columnists. Writing two or maybe three columns a week is challenging. That sympathy comes from my own experience writing divrei Torah and sermons; it’s not always easy.

Parah 5768 - The Four Shabbatot Leading To Pesah

Shabbat Shalom.

Let me start with a question: how did your spiritual tradition become compelling to you? Can you think of moment in your life that transformed your connection to your religious tradition? …

Zakhor 5768 - Anti-Semitism

Shabbat Shalom.

During our first year here in Lexington, my daughter Talya and I were walking home from services one Friday night in December. Suddenly, we found ourselves under a tree with simple white lights. The lights wove their way through the branches like an elegant necklace, and Talya was mesmerized. My three-year-old daughter stood transfixed by this beautiful sight. She asked me what these lights were.