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Sukkot 5767 -- Be Happy!  Tonight begins the Festival of Sukkot, one of Judaism's three harvest festivals. Sukkot includes one of my favorite commandments: "you shall rejoice seven days before the Lord your God."

Yom Kippur 5767 -- A House of God.  What is it that makes a synagogue a House of God?  It’s not an impressive ark, it’s not the Ner Tamid, it’s not the stained glass or the art on the walls. As Rabbi Goldberg pointed out at the dedication of this building nearly fifty years ago, God does not dwell in time or space, but in spiritual qualities and ideals.

Kol Nidre 5767 -- Why We're Making Aliyah.  God willing, this time next year, Lauri and I, and our three youngest children will be living in Israel. We won’t just be tourists or there on sabbatical, we’ll be citizens of the world’s only Jewish state. The fact that we can do that – that we can go live in a Jewish country – is truly miraculous.

Shabbat Shuvah 5767.  We are two days away from Yom Kippur. In two days, after a very intense 24 hours of fasting and praying, we will all go home from the synagogue feeling spiritually refreshed, forgiven for our sins of the past, able to go out and start the new year fresh.  But being forgiven is only half the battle. If we don’t find it in our hearts to forgive we will be starting the year still carrying a bunch of baggage from the year before. Perhaps from many years before.

Rosh Hashanah 5767 -- Will There Ever be Peace in the Middle East?  A few weeks ago I met with this year’s confirmation class for the first time. The Jewish tradition encourages asking questions, so I like to start the year having the 10th graders come up with a list of questions they’d like answered. And they come up with great questions—like “How do we know there’s a God?” or “Does God answer more if you pray more?”  But when one of the students asked that opening question – “will there ever be peace in the Middle East?” – I have to admit that for a moment I felt, “oy, you couldn’t ask an easier question?”

Rosh Hashanah 5767 --God Needs You.  So why have we had generations of rabbis acting like parents saying “Eat your Judaism, it’s good for you!” and generations of congregants acting like kids facing a plate of limp broccoli?

Vaetchanan 5766.  If there are 613 commandments, one might ask what makes the Ten Commandments that are the heart of this week’s Torah reading so special that they get singled out for special treatment, being written on stone tablets by the finger of God?

Pinchas 5766. WorldPride is planning to have their annual massive march and demonstration in support of tolerance and gay rights in Jerusalem in August of this year. This is a huge event for the gay and lesbian community. It is held in a different city each year. The charedi (ultra-Orthodox) community is of course up in arms. Typical headlines proclaim they are coming to defile the holy city. The gays have accomplished what years of struggle and battle couldn't--they have gotten the chief rabbis and chief imams to agree on something, and to jointly condemn the parade. They've even asked the Pope to speak up.
 

Balak 5766. Today I got a good whiff of tear gas for the first time in 33 years. That was not actually my plan for the day.
 

Korach 5766.  Earlier this week Warren Buffet, the world’s second richest man, announced that he is giving $25 billion to the world’s richest man...For most of us the issue is not are we giving away too much money. The issue is, are we giving away enough? So how much is enough? How much money are we obligated to give to charity?
 

Shelach 5766.  How many Palestinian children’s lives are worth one Jewish Israeli soldier’s life? How many Iraqi children’s lives are worth one American soldier’s life?  These are difficult questions. But they are very real questions. They are part of a broader question of what are the rules of engagement in war. When we go to war, how are we to conduct ourselves?
 

Bahaalotcha 5766.  Our ancestors were a bunch of whiners.  God did all these amazing things for them – bringing them out slavery in Egypt, feeding them with manna that fell from the sky.  God gave them His most precious gift, the Torah.  God was with them all the way.  And what do they do?  They kvetch.

Naso 5766.  The rabbis of two thousand years were a real bunch of radicals.  When they were confronted with something in the Torah that conflicted with the sense of values and ethics they learned from the Torah itself, they resolved the issue by deciding in favor of the values over the explicit law found in the Torah.

Shavuot 5766.  Which comes first--faith or obedience?  Do we obey the commandments because we have faith?  Or do we come to faith because we obey the commandments?

Bamidbar 5766.  The Da Vinci Code is a heretical movie...at least for Catholics.  This week's Torah reading provides fodder for what some Jews consider heresy: were there really 603,550 men wandering around the Sinai desert for 40 years?  Or is that a bit of an exaggeration?  What are the heresies we really need to worry about?  To read Lauri Donahue Leff's review of the movie, click here.

Behar 5766.  Is it a mitzvah, a commandment, to make aliyah and go live in Israel?  It's pretty rare that I'm more machmir (strict) than the famed Orthodox rabbi of the 20th century, Moshe Feinstein, but in this case I am.  Unlike Rav Feinstein, I consider it an obligatory positive commandment for Jews to make aliyah.

Emor 5766 -- Intermarriage.   ...in a world where two out of three marriages involving a Jew is an intermarriage, one of our missions needs to be to figure out how to be welcoming to non-Jews. And, as one of my colleagues said, “maybe if we figure out how to be welcoming to non-Jews, we’ll figure out how to be welcoming to Jews!!!”

Acharei Mot - Kedoshim 5766.  How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…God shows His love for us by giving us rules to live by. In this week’s double parsha of Acharei Mot-Kedoshim we have 79 of the 613 commandments. That’s a lot of rules!

Tazria 5766 -- Darfur.  As important as it is for us to remember the people—Jews and others—who were killed by the Nazis, I believe there is an even more important purpose to Yom Hashoah...The more important purpose to Yom Hashoah is to remind us every year, to reaffirm a new covenant that Jewish people have made in the wake of the Holocaust...The new covenant is not a covenant with God.  It is, rather, a covenant with future generations...“Never again!” 

Shmini 5766 -- Holocaust Remembrance Day.  The Holocaust forces us to reexamine our theology.  Richard Rubenstein – a Conservative rabbi, scholar, and former university President wrote “The thread uniting God and man, heaven and earth, has been broken.  We stand in a cold, silent, unfeeling cosmos, unaided by any purposeful power beyond our own resources.  After Auschwitz, what else can a Jew say about God?”  As you’ll see, I disagree with my distinguished colleague and I still believe in a God Who cares, despite Auschwitz.  But Rabbi Rubinstein’s book “After Auschwitz,” published in 1966, was one of the earliest scholarly works to point out that the Shoah forces us to examine what we believe.

Shabbat Pesach 5766.  When our ancestors lived in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago, they were the underclass in Egypt.  They did the jobs no Egyptians wanted to do.  They spent their days in the relentless sun making bricks and helping build cities....Fast forward a few thousand years and move over a few thousand miles.  Today in America, thank God, slavery has been all but abolished (there are a few pockets of sex workers and domestic help that are basically working in conditions akin to slavery, but they are relatively few).  But we do still have an underclass. We have people who do the jobs no one else wants to do....Those people are variously called “undocumented workers” or “illegal aliens.”  Estimates vary, but it is estimated that 11 million people are in this country illegally.

Vayikra 5766. ...So Ramban says the sinner should tell himself, I messed up, I really deserve to die, but God in His mercy is accepting this sacrifice as my temurah, as my substitute—as an exchange for the one who really deserves the punishment.  As I was reflecting on Ramban’s words this week, I was wondering whether Ehud Olmert, who will almost certainly be Israel’s next prime minister, feels like this kind of exchange for Ariel Sharon. Ariel Sharon, who remains in a coma, is the one who was the driving force behind starting a new political party in Israel. Yet when anything goes wrong in the next several years until the next election, it is Ehud Olmert who will be offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of public opinion in Israel.

Ki Tisa 5766.  Moses wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone—if God gave me the Ten Commandments today I’d probably write them in my Treo.

Shabbat Zachor 5766.  “I remember what Amalek did to Israel, how he laid in wait for him on the way, when he came up from Egypt. Go and strike Amalek, completely destroy all they have, and do not spare them, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”  Why does God command us to wipe out Amalek so thoroughly?  Is it vengeance?  Or is it a punishment to Amalek, to bring justice and to act as a deterrent to other nations who might have ideas about attacking Israel in a similar fashion?

Terumah 5766.  My colleague Rabbi Jacob Chinitz raises the question: which is sadder?  When we build a sanctuary and God refuses to dwell in it, or when God is there and we do not respond to the holiness of the place?

Mishpatim 5766.  This week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, commands us “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the ass of one who hates you lying under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving it with him, you shall help him to lift it up.”  Does this mean that if you see some Muslim looking guy on the side of the road with a flat tire you have to stop and change it for him?  It can sometimes take a bit of work to figure out how we apply a commandment contextualized for one time, and understand what it is telling us in another time. But there are principles in these two verses that have important lessons for us today, even if there is a rather slim chance we’ll encounter Osama bin Laden and his donkey walking around Toledo.

Yitro 5766.  The seeming Muslim sensitivity to prohibition on graven images is hard for us Westerners to understand. We look at what is happening in a few Muslim countries, and we find ourselves asking, “Have these people gone entirely crazy?”...They aren’t even such really outrageously offensive cartoons. At least not to Western eyes. Yes, it’s in poor taste to show Mohammed with a turban that’s a bomb. But is it worth dying for?...To understand the situation, we need to understand what Islam has to say about the Second Commandment.

Beshalach 5766.  "God did not take them by way of the Philistines because it was near."  Sometimes it's better to take the long way around.

Bo 5766.  God knows everything, right?  God does not need to consult GPS or Mapquest for directions, right?  So why, in this week’s Torah portion, does God seem to need road signs to find the Jewish houses?In this week’s parsha, Bo, we read the exciting climax of the encounter between God, Moses, Pharaoh, and the Jewish people.  The people of Egypt are struck with the dreaded tenth plague, the death of the first born.  God tells the Jewish people that He will pass through the land of Egypt and will strike all the first borns, both man and beast.  God tells the Jewish people that every house should sacrifice a lamb, and put some of the blood on the doorposts and on the lintel.  Then the Torah tells us “And the blood shall be to you for a sign upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”

Vaera 5766.  If I were a Palestinian, I would have voted for Hamas in Wednesday’s election.....Hamas is about to find itself in a position they are not accustomed to.  I think Hamas is somewhat dismayed to have won—it’s much easier to be an opposition party, where you can criticize all you want, than to be the governing party that has to deliver.  They are going to have to start delivering more than rhetoric.  They are going to have start acting like a government.

Vayechi 5766. In many ways, believing that there is some kind of intelligent design in the universe lies at the heart of not only Judaism, but every monotheistic religion.  And believing there is an intelligent designer is NOT incompatible with science.

 Einstein said “God does not play dice with the Universe.”

Vayigash 5766.  Do you believe in karma?  The idea that “what goes around, comes around,” you get what you deserve?  There is a passage in this week’s Torah reading, Vayigash, which at first reading suggests the very troubling idea that perhaps when the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, they were getting what they deserved.

Miketz 5766.  Does violence beget violence? Is it wrong to attack those who attack you? Steven Spielberg’s new movie “ Munich ” says, over and over again, that violence begets violence.  Several times we are told that killing the terrorist leadership is a pointless exercise, because they simply raise up a new leader who is worse than the one who was killed.

Vayishlach 5766.  So if you struggle with God-if you have doubts about God, or if you can't understand how God could allow certain things to happen-take comfort that you are being authentically "Yisrael," a God-wrestler. As Elie Wiesel said, "The Jew may love God, or he may fight with God, but he cannot ignore God."

Vayetze 5766.  In this week's parsha that power to bestow blessings is extended not just to Abraham, but to all of us. The verse reads through you and your descendants - through all of us - all the families of the earth will be blessed. We have the power to bestow blessings on others.

Toldot 5766.  --The current state of Jewish-Catholic relations.  Anyone who has a brother or a sister-or anyone who has more than one child-has been exposed to the effects of sibling rivalry. If you have had problems because of sibling rivalry, you will be glad to know that scientists have recently discovered what causes sibling rivalry.

137. In Chaye Sarah, Abraham gives his servant Eliezer explicit instructions. He tells Eliezer to put his hand under his thigh (apparently an ancient way of swearing), and says “swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live.”  Abraham further instructs Eliezer “go to my country, and to my family, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” Eliezer retorts, “maybe the woman won’t want to come with me; should I bring your son back to the land you came from?” Abraham, aghast, says “Take care that you do NOT bring my son there again.”

136. Lech Lecha 5766 - Abraham had no interest in going to war. He wasn’t interested in trying to find glory on the battlefield, or in plundering and looting. But when his family was attacked, he felt he had no choice. He had to do something to save them from slavery. When someone who escaped during the battle came and told Abraham his relatives were captured, Abraham put together a strike force of 318 soldiers—his trained servants, who Abraham armed—and went after the bad guys.

135.  Yom Kippur 5766 - This past summer I sat in a living room in Neveh Dekalim, a Jewish settlement in Gaza which no longer exists, and watched a clash between two competing visions of Zionism. One of the Gaza residents told us that her husband grew up in a house that used to belong to an Arab in Ashkelon, a city south of Tel Aviv which has always been part of Israel. She said “what’s the difference? Why should we have to give up Neveh Dekalim, but we get to keep Ashkelon?” To her, all of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea belongs to Israel, there is no difference between Tel Aviv and Gaza, and if we’re entitled to any of it we’re entitled to all of it.

134.  Noah 5766 - I think most of us would reserve the term tzadik, righteous person, for someone who raises the bar a little bit higher than that. To be a tzadik you need to be an exemplar, someone whose behavior provides a model that other people will aspire to.

133.  Bereishit 5766 - Yehuda ben Temah tells us in Pirkei Avot that different ages are suitable for different things. Keep in mind that the following teaching was written at least 1800 years ago: HE USED TO SAY: FIVE YEARS [IS THE AGE] FOR [THE STUDY OF] SCRIPTURE, TEN-FOR [THE STUDY OF] MISHNAH, THIRTEEN-FOR [BECOMING SUBJECT TO] COMMANDMENTS, FIFTEEN-FOR [THE STUDY OF] TALMUD, EIGHTEEN- FOR THE [BRIDAL] CANOPY, TWENTY for serving in the military ...

132. Shabbat Sukkot 5766 - Last Shabbat was not the city of Toledo’s finest hour. We found ourselves on the national news, for all the wrong reasons. A hate group—about two dozen neo-Nazis from out of town—came to Toledo to demonstrate in1 opposition to what they claimed were black gangs harassing a white homeowner.

131. Kol Nidre 5766 - A story is told of a Beverly Hills tycoon who was dismayed by his son’s decision to study in a yeshiva instead of joining the family business.  After several years the son returned home to his father’s sardonic question: So what have you got to show for your years of study? “I know that there is a God” replied the young man. Angrily the father leapt to his feet and pointed out the window at the elderly gardener patiently mowing the vast lawns. “He also knows there is a God” shouted the older man. “No father” the boy quietly responded. “He believes there is a God, I know.”

130. First Day Rosh Hashanah 5766 - Today is the great Day of Judgment. Our prayers today reflect a teaching from the Talmud that tells us that God has two books open today, the Book of Life and the Book of Death. The totally righteous—those who have all assets and no debts, all mitzvot and no sins—go straight into the Book of Life. Those who are totally wicked—all debts and no assets, all sins and no mitzvot—go straight into the Book of Death. Everyone else has their judgment suspended for ten days until Yom Kippur. It’s not that God needs more time to do the accounting—rather God is giving us more time to get our affairs in order.

129. Ki Tetze 5765 One of the newer internet phenomena is the “blog,” a contraction for “web log.” Many people of an older generation tend to think of their journal or diary as one of their most intensely personal possessions—they don’t share it with anyone, often not even their spouse. Well, welcome to the internet age—younger people nowadays often post their journals on line for everyone to read. If you go to the internet and search on “New Orleans blog” you can find some fascinating first hand stories of what it was like.

128. Shoftim 5765 - A few weeks ago, Ohio governor Bob Taft was convicted on four counts of violating state ethics law, becoming the first sitting Ohio governor to be convicted of a crime. The governor failed to report 52 golf outings, valued at $6,000, which were paid for by other people, as required by state law. Governor Taft claims it was an oversight; he apologized to us citizens of Ohio and he paid a fine. There are some people, like Brian Hicks, Taft’s former chief of staff, who wonder why such a big deal is being made over a few games of golf. Hicks said the outings were a break from the pressure of work; he also said “I don't believe for one minute that anybody got a contract, got an investment, got a policy decision made because they played golf with the governor.” Of course, he might not be the best judge of character, as Hicks himself was convicted of an ethics violation in July and fined $1,000.

127. Re’eh 5765 - Every week we read of large numbers of people killed in Iraq by suicide bombers. One week the death count is 38; another week it’s 47. It happens so frequently that it almost gets hard to take notice. Oh, another few dozen killed in Iraq, what else is new? But the news out of Baghdad on Wednesday (August 31, 2005) was enough to get me to sit up and take notice. The fatality count from an episode caused by terrorism reached a new high: 965 people were killed.  But what’s truly astounding is that these 965 people died without the detonation of a single gram of high explosives. They were killed by a rumor.

126. Ekev 5765 - We have all heard the saying “Man does not live by bread alone.” Where do we know those famous words from? Who said them? Even many Jews are under the impression that this is a somehow a Christian teaching. These words ARE found in the Christian Bible in the Gospel according to Matthew. When he says those words, however, Jesus is quoting from a verse from the Hebrew Bible: from the book of Deuteronomy, in this week’s Torah portion, Ekev where we read lo al halechem lavado, not by bread alone.

125. Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts - The scale of the damage from Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding of New Orleans is still unknown. In all likelihood the death toll will be in the thousands. One estimate I heard said that Katrina will have a $100 Billion impact on the US economy. There may be over a million refugees.  It’s hard to imagine such a thing here in America.

124. Vaetchanan 5765 - How do you recover from the worst trauma imaginable, from the loss of loved ones and the destruction of what stood at the center of your faith in God?  Last Sunday we observed the holiday of Tisha b’Av, the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av. Tisha b’Av commemorates many disasters that have befallen the Jewish people; the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE; the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, the city of Beitar was captured, and Jerusalem was ploughed under, left totally desolate. I want to focus on the period of the rabbis of the Mishnaic era in the 1st – 3rd centuries—the rabbis who laid out many of the religious practices that define Judaism today.

123. A painful but necessary move from Gaza: EVERYWHERE you go in Israel today you see orange and blue ribbons streaming from car antennas and clothing, purse straps and backpacks.  Orange is for the large minority opposed to "the disengagement," the withdrawal of 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza Strip and West Bank. Blue is for the slight majority who favor it.

122. Masei 5765 begins with a bit of a travelogue. Eleh masei v’nai Yisrael, “These are the journeys of the people of Israel.” And the Torah goes on to record the 42 stages the Hebrew nation went through on their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.  Why should we care about having a copy of the itinerary?

121. Emor 5764 - Two thousand years ago holidays were centered on the Temple in Jerusalem.  Our Torah portion this week, Emor, tells us details of what sacrifices were offered on the various holidays. Instructions are given to the Kohanim, the priestly class, on how to conduct themselves. But all of those instructions are somewhat academic now—the Temple is destroyed, those procedures are no longer followed.

120. Mattot 5765 - Qui tacet consentit. Latin for “silence implies consent.” I don’t know where the old Romans came up with it, but it’s a principle we can derive from this week’s Torah portion, Mattot.

119. Bamidbar 5765 - Thirty two years ago, journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had clandestine meetings in a Washington DC parking garage with a highly placed source known as “Deep Throat.” Real cloak and dagger stuff—they arranged meetings with signals like leaving a flowerpot in a particular window, or circling the page number of a particular page of a newspaper. Following tips from Deep Throat, Woodward and Bernstein uncovered what has come to be known as the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

118. A visit to Gush - Katif Kfar Darom, population 380, is a truly lovely gated community. As you pass the gates, you are greeted by an oasis of green in the midst of a sandy desert-like area. There are trees and flowers and one of the first things you encounter is a large well-kept community center/yeshiva/museum.  The homes are spacious, well-kept, with lovely green lawns and gardens.  There are, however, a few hints that this is not your standard gated community.

117.  Korach 5765 - Monday afternoon (June 26) we arrived in Israel and on the drive to Jerusalem we were greeted by very slow traffic and lines of cars on the road festooned with orange ribbons and with banners that read otzrim: chayav lachshov mechadash, Stop: you need to think again! It was a campaign of the settlers to get people to pull over and reconsider their thoughts about the disengagement from Gaza for 15 minutes.

116.  Korach 5765 - At its heart, the argument between those who support the withdrawal from Gaza and those who protest the withdrawal from Gaza is an argument that would be characterized as an argument l’shem shamayim, an argument for the sake of heaven. I believe that neither side is motivated by selfish considerations: both sides believe that God is on their side, both sides believe what they want is the best thing for Israel and the Jewish people.

115. Baseball and Judaism - There are actually a lot of similarities between Judaism and baseball. Rabbi Avraham Yakov taught 100 years ago that we can learn from everything—we can learn lessons from the train, from the telegraph, from the telephone. What lessons can we learn from baseball?  To start with there are two sides. We have a yetzer hatov, our good inclination, and a yetzer hara, a bad inclination. Children play in Little League, but once you get to be past bar/bat mitzvah age, you’re in the game that counts.  It is symbolic that baseball season usually starts around Passover time—Jews celebrate starting out on the journey to the Promised Land, while baseball fans start the journey to the Promised Land of the World Series.

114. Bechukotai 5765 - God commands us to be just. Pursuing justice is one of the fundamental commandments and one of the fundamental principles in the Torah. The Torah commands us tzedek, tzedek, tirdof, justice, justice you shall pursue. The prophet Micah tells us what it is that God wants of us – to do justice and to love mercy.

113. Behar 5765 - The Muslims call us Jews “people of the Book.” It’s not a bad description. Look at the elaborate ritual we went through this morning with our book—quoting verses and saying prayers before taking the book out of the cabinet, carrying the beautifully dressed book reverently around the synagogue, people kissing it as it passes by.

112. Emor 5765 - In the fourteenth day of the first month at evening is the Lord's Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. ...Leviticus 23:4-6

111. Behar 5765 - We even have novel forms of slavery not described in the Torah--women enslaved to work in the sex trade. And this happens not just in places like Africa or Southeast Asia. There are women who have been enslaved overseas and imported to places like Tel Aviv and Los Angeles. It is estimated there are 20,000 people living as slaves in the United States—where slavery was legally abolished nearly 150 years ago.  Nowadays, we find the very idea of one person owning another so offensive that reading rules for owning slaves in the Torah is very troubling indeed. Reading about owning slaves in the Torah, could, God forbid, have the effect of reducing the respect and love we feel for the Torah. When God gave us the Torah, God gave us a new set of rules. Why didn’t the Torah ban owning slaves?

110. Emor 5765 - Lev. 23:4ff - For many people, the commandment to count seven Sabbaths might seem to be one of the Torah's more obscure commandments. To start with, what exactly is it we are being commanded to do? To count fifty days, but starting when? It sounds like this says we should be counting from the first Shabbat after Passover for forty nine days, and on the fiftieth day we celebrate a holiday--so the holiday would always be on Sunday, but the calendar date would move around because the day of the week that Passover, the 15th of Nisan, falls on varies.

109. Tzav 5765  - Fifteen years ago, Terri Shindler Schiavo was a vibrant and lively 26 year old woman. She loved music—she even wrote to John Denver to ask if he would play at her wedding—and was fond of animals. She had been happily married to Michael Schiavo for five years.  And then in an instant, life as she knew it came to an end. 

108. Kedoshim 5765 - One of the headlines this week was about the trial of Private First Class Lynndie England. Pfc. England was one of the people charged with abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. She is infamous especially for a picture of her grinning while holding a naked Iraqi prisoner on a leash.

107.  Shmini 5765 - Lev. 9:1-2 If you’re normal, you’d feel ashamed that you could have done such a thing, and using a purple magic marker, especially in front of Mom, would remind both you and her of what you did. Maybe you’d even be afraid that Mom would get mad at you all over again just when she saw the purple magic marker.  So here Aaron did this great sin with a calf, and he’s now being told to bring a calf to atone. I can imagine his discussion with Moses: “Oh man, Moe, come on, do I have to bring a calf?  Couldn’t I bring a nice sheep? I REALLY don’t want to remind God about that calf. I want to put the whole calf business behind me.”

106. Vakira 5765 - Lev. 1:1 - Christians often talk about someone having a “calling.” Christians will ask me “when was I called to be a rabbi.” Jews don’t use that language—Jews ask me “when did you decide to become a rabbi.” There is a huge difference in world view expressed in those two different ways of phrasing the same question. 

105. Vayakhel 5765 - On Tuesday night, I was there. Having studied 5,422 pages of dense Aramaic, I was enjoying my reward of being a part of that crowd celebrating the completion of the study of the Talmud. What I would like to do this morning is share with you some of the things I learned and some of the things I felt at this amazing gathering of Jews.

104. Ki Tisa 5765 - Bar Acha comments on this: "It's impossible to understand the character of this nation: they were asked to give for the Golden Calf and they gave; they were asked to give for the Tabernacle, and they gave!"  Is this a bad thing? Jews are among the most philanthropic of people--we're big givers! Is it so bad if we're sometimes a little indiscriminate?

103. Yitro 5765 Kabbalat HaSiddur In this week’s Torah portion, Yitro, we read the story of God giving the Torah to the Jewish people. Moses climbs the mountain, God descends tot he mountain, and there, in one of the most important moments in the spiritual history of the world, God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, engraved on two stone tablets, symbolizing their eternal significance.

102. Bo 5765 "I was just following orders."  This is the heart of the defense that Specialist Charles Graner, Jr., is mounting against charges of conspiracy, assault, and committing indecent acts relating to the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

101.  Vaera 5765 There is something that seems patently unfair about the plagues. None were spared. How could that be? God is just, isn’t She? Where’s the justice in smiting all those innocent people along with all those wicked people? Why couldn’t God just smite the ones who deserved smiting?

100. Vayigash 5765 And Joseph was not able to bear it any longer. He called out to all those standing around, "everyone get out!"  And no one was with him when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers. ... Genesis 45:1.

99. Miketz 5765  And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manashe; For God, said he, has made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house. And the name of the second he called Ephraim; For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.  ... Genesis 41:51-52.  In this week’s parsha, we see a Joseph who has totally assimilated: he has an Egyptian name, Zaphnath-Paaneah; he is married to the daughter of an Egyptian priest. He has risen to a position of high authority in the government. 

98.  Yuval Zaliouk wrote in in the November Toledo Jewish News that another Arab country (Palestine) would be a bad idea.  To paraphrase what Churchill said about democracy, "Another Arab country (Palestine) is the worst possible solution, except for all other solutions." In other words, there really is not any other choice.

97.  Chayye Sarah 5765 - This week much of the attention of the world is focused on the death or imminent death of someone who has been one of the most powerful players in the field of global politics: Yasser Arafat.

96. Vayera 5765 - We don’t really know what were the sins of the Sodomites. Many people assume that since the word “sodomy” has the meaning which it has, the sin of the Sodomites was homosexuality. That is actually NOT what the Jewish tradition teaches

95. Lech Lecha 5765 - We, the Jews, children of Isaac, are fighting with the Palestinian Muslims, who are children of Isaac’s brother Ishmael. The logical first step is for us to separate: to each have our own “room,” a Jewish state, and a Palestinian state. Leave us together, at least for now, and like Abraham and Lot’s shepherds, or little kids, we will fight.

94. Noah 5765 - Rashi explains that the meaning of “God walked with Noah” is that Noah needed God’s help and support: God walked alongside him, helping along. There is a teaching in the Talmud (Kiddushin 30b) which says that man cannot conquer the evil inclination without God’s help. The Gaon Vilna explains that a person can reach a level where he is doing everything that he possibly can—everything that is in his power to do—but to really have an internalized love and awe of God is something that depends on God.  This is a very curious teaching ...

93. Bereishit 5765 - Note I did not say “in THE beginning.” That would not be an accurate translation of the Hebrew. It says “b’reishit,” not “bareishit.” There is no definite article, at least not according to the Masoretic tradition which added the vowels to the Torah. The significance of this little grammatical detail is that this is one way of telling the story of the
beginning of the universe. There are other ways as well.  One of those other ways is told in a lecture called “The Beginning of Time,” given by one of the world’s most eminent physicists, Dr. Stephen Hawking.

92. Yom Kippur 5764 - The Danger of Fundamentalists - “The border security fence is comprised of many sections totaling scores of miles. Some sections are concrete, others sheet metal. The barrier is three layers deep in parts, fifteen feet high and surrounded by razor wire. The area around it is lit by spotlights, monitored by cameras,
motion detectors and magnetic sensors, and patrolled by armed guards with attack dogs. But enough about our border with Mexico, let's talk about Israel.”

91. Rosh Hashanah II 5764  George Bush and John Kerry represent two very different visions for America. You have a responsibility as a citizen and a responsibility as a Jew to let your voice be heard. Your vote matters.

90. Rosh Hashanah 1 5764 Is the richest person you know the happiest person you know? Is the poorest person the unhappiest?  If your circle of acquaintances is anything like mine, the connection between wealth and happiness is tenuous at best.  The Dalai Lama writes “There are two ways to create happiness..." 

89. Ki Tetze 5764 The Hebrew reads “even shleimah v’tzedek,” a weight that is full and just.  Isn’t this redundant? If your weight is a full measure—if your one pound weight weighs a full pound—isn’t that just? And what do full and just weights have to do with enduring long?

88. Shoftim 5764 US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has words from this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, on the walls of her chambers: “Justice, justice, shalt thou pursue (Deuteronomy 16:18)."

87.Re'eh 5764 “See, I set before you today, a blessing and a curse (Deut. 11:26).” Let me think about that…blessing…curse…which do I want?

86. Ekev 5764 V’haya im shamoa – and it will be if you give heed…  Thus begins the second paragraph of the Shema, which we recite twice a day.

85. Report from Israel July, 2004 - Israelis are famous for being very opinionated. They typically have opinions on EVERYTHING, and are not shy about telling you YOUR business – what you should do, how you should conduct yourself. Sometimes in a sweet and protective way; one time when we were living in Israel, my wife was walking down the street with our then infant daughter Devorah in a front pack, and a crew of garbagemen yelled at her, because the baby’s arm was sticking out and they were concerned the baby would get a sunburn!

84. Balak 5764 In every form of struggle, whether it’s war, business, or sports, we look to have some kind of special advantage over our opponents. Some athletes take steroids, despite the risks, because they hope it will give them a little edge over their opponents. When I worked in high-tech, the question the venture capitalists always wanted you to be able to answer is “what is your sustainable, unfair, competitive advantage”—something that really stacks the deck in your favor. Israel’s ultimate edge that helps hold radical Islamic countries at bay is, of course, the atom bomb.
83.  Parsha Korach  At the heart of this week’s parsha is the story of the rebellion of Korach. Our modern sensibilities are troubled by this story. What was the grave offense for which Korach and his followers were killed?

82. Shelach 5764 How many miracles do you have to see to believe?

81. Bahaalotcha 5764  What does the ark traveling have to do with enemies being scattered?

80. Naso 5764 What’s the cure for an overwhelming case of marital jealousy? This week’s Torah portion, Naso, recommends psychological torture andsexual humiliation. 79. Bamidbar 5764 Do you remember learning the Second Law of Thermodynamics in high school?  I remember when I learned it—I thought it explained a lot of things, like the way my room looked when I was a teenager.

78. Yom Hashoah - Six yearsafter the shattered remnant was liberated from the death camps, the government of Israel passed a law establishing Yom HaShoah as a day of remembrance. 

77. Passover 5764 "Do not even consider what the stupid gentiles and most of the brainless clods of Israel say..."

76. Vayikra 5764 The first parsha in the book of Vayikra or Leviticus, is largely concerned with sacrifices.

75. Ki Tisa 5764 Can you imagine what an amazing experience it would have been to stand at Mt. Sinai when God’s presence was right there?

74. Tetzaveh 5764 The Temple was not a place that had “casual Friday’s.” 

73. The Passion of the Christ, Reviewed

72. Beshalach 5764 - I have a confession to make.  I’m a shortcut junky.  I love finding and taking shortcuts.

71. Evacuation Day - There is a Jewish custom that a person can celebrate a "personal Purim" to commemorate a day on which he or his family was saved from a disaster.  I celebrate such a day today, the 16th of February.  Today is the 25th anniversary of my evacuation from Iran.

70. 20 Shevat 5764 - Praised is God’s glory from His place—report from the Rabbinical Assembly Conference in Jerusalem.

69. Bo 5764 Bitachon - The opening of this week’s parsha is telling us that God did all this stuff in Egypt—all the plagues, including killing the first born sons—just so that the Hebrews would know that God’s God. This is a hugely challenging and troubling text.

68. The Rosh Chodesh (New Month) Bar-B-Que menu: Shevat 5764.  Why do we look back on animal sacrifice?

67.  Vayechi  5764 Heschel - Heschel wrote: “A necessary condition affecting human beliefs in philosophy and religion is the paradox. The source of their paradoxical character has its origin in the essential polarity of human being.  To ignore the paradox is to miss the truth."

66.  Miketz 5764 - What are the characteristics one looks for in a leader?

65.  Aid to Iran - Some of you may have seen that the Iranian government has announced that help in recovering from the recent terrible earthquake in Bam

64.  Vayishlach 5764 -- Can a skeptic be a good Jew?  Or do you have to have a clear and strong faith and knowledge of God to be a good Jew?

63.  Vayera 5764 G-d appears to Abraham

62.  Noah 5764  The olive branch is a very strange symbol of peace. The olive is bitter; yet isn’t peace sweet?

61.  Bereishit 5764 The tree is officially called 'eitz hada’at tov v’ra,' the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.

60.  Sukkot 5764  “You shall dwell in booths seven days."

59.  Yom Kippur 5764 "Do we have to choose whether to ignore the Torah or to deny what we see around us?"

58.  Kol Nidrei 5764 "In 1948, a true miracle happened.  A miracle which is every bit as great as the parting of the Red Sea..."  Find here Aliyah resources.

57.  2 Tishrei 5764   “Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it…”

56.  Rosh Hashana 1  One thousand, nine hundred and thirty four years ago today, on the first of Tishrei, on this holiday, Rosh Hashana, our ancestors—physical and spiritual—gathered on the top of a small hill with a grand name in the middle of Jerusalem.

55.  Netzavim 5763  Deut. 27:28. The hidden things belong to the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this Torah.

54.  Ki Tetze 5763   This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tetze, contains a lot of laws.  So many laws, in fact, you might be tempted to ask, “what do we need all these laws for.”

53.  Shoftim 5763  In this week’s Torah portion Moses tells the people that in the future prophets will arise, and the people should listen to them.

52.  Ekev 5763 – divine rewards – Ekev is a great name for this week’s parsha.  It means “will follow.”  More emphatically, “will surely follow.” 

51. Va’etchanan 5763   Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is One ...Deuteronomy 6:4.

50.  Pinchas 5763    Number 25:11. Pinchas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the people of Israel

49.  Alexandra of Judea    I am pleased to announce that my wife Lauri Donahue's play "Alexandra of Judea" won the 2003 Dorothy Silver Playwriting Award for works that provide "fresh and significant perspective on the range of Jewish experience."

48.  Shelach Lecha 5763    This week’s parsha tells us the story of WHY it took 40 years to get to Israel .  Contrary to a popular story, it’s NOT because the men in charge refused to ask for directions.

47.  Jerusalem    When you go from the airport to Jerusalem you literally “make aliyah.”  Aliyah means to go up, and Jerusalem is up in the Judean hills, well above the plains where the airport is.

46.  Baha’alotcha 5763 Bruce Almighty  

45.  The Roadmap -  Response to "Not a Miss Congeniality"   

44.  Bechukotai 5763 “If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them”…Lev 26:3

43.  Behar 5763 "To have or have not"

42.  Tzedaka for Israel

41.  Kedoshim    You shall love your neighbor as yourself

40.  Mothers' Day    It isn't just for them anymore

39.  Acherai Mot    You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt

38.  Yizkor Sermons Passover    Any rabbi who doesn’t have small children...

37.  Shabbat Chol haMoed Passover    

36.  The Liberation of Iraq

35a.Pesach 5763 -- The Liberation of Iraq

35. Tazria -- "outside the camp"

34. The Meaning of Passover

33. Shabbat Parah

32. Vayakhel 5763 Shabbat Observance

29. Yitro 5763 Honor your Parents

28. Bo 5763 Exodus 10:1: “For I have hardened Pharaoh’s heart...”

27. Tu b'Shevat 5763 is called the "New Year for Trees."

26. Va'era 5763 Exodus Chapter 7:10. And Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh...

25. Shemot 5763 Exodus 1:15. And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives...

23. Vayechi 5763  Genesis 47:28: "And Jacob lived in Egypt 17 years; so the whole age of Jacob was 147 years."

22. Vayigash 5763 Genesis 44:18 to 47:27 Judah's impassioned plea with Joseph not to imprison Benjamin.

21. Miketz 5763 Assimilation Genesis chapter 41:51. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manashe ... 52. And the name of the second he called Ephraim... 

20. Vayeishev 5763 Chanukah -- a tale of envy between brothers.

19. Masorti Movement -- I encourage you to lend your support to the Masorti movement in Israel. They are doing very good, and important work.

18. No More Fanaticism as Usual By SALMAN RUSHDIE

17. Vayishlach 5763  God is one; He has no partners; Singular without any like Him.

16. Vayeitzei 5763  – this land is my land.

15. Toldot 5763 - Veterans/Remembrance Day.

Pre-digest days
Re'eh  Deuteronomy 14:3: You shall not eat any abomination.   This week I will talk about something else the Torah calls an abomination: homosexuality.

Parsha Bamidbar  This week's Torah portion provides an example of a way in which the critical scholarly approach can be valuable in enhancing our understanding of the Torah.  

Parsha Noach   “United We Stand.”  How many times during the last few weeks have we either heard that phrase, or seen it on TV, on bumper stickers, or on the sides of buildings? 

Lech Lecha  God tells Abraham lech lecha—go, leave, depart from your homeland, go on a journey to a place that I will show you.

Vayera  Abraham tells his visitors to “take a little water, and wash your feet, and rest under the tree, and I will feed you with a morsel of bread.”  Abraham then goes and prepares a lavish feast with milk, cakes, a calf, etc. 

Chaye Sarah I would like to share with you a D’var Torah from the Piasatzner Rebbe, Kalman Kalanimous Shapira, also known as the Warsaw Ghetto Rebbe because that’s where he was during the Shoah (Holocaust), in which he perished.

Toldot This week’s Torah portion is the beginning of the story of Jacob.  The story begins with Jacob and Esau struggling in the womb, and these two characters continue to struggle throughout the parsha.

Vayetze "And he dreamt, and behold a ladder was set earthward and its top reached heavenward, and angels of God were going up and going down on it."  …Genesis 28:12.

Vayesheiv Judaism as Spiritual Path: The story of my return to Judaism is a story that explores what the educational philosopher Ian Ramsey calls the relationship between discernment and commitment, and the story will bring us to my understanding of how Judaism works. 

Vayigash  When Joseph reveals his identity, he tells his brothers not to be grieved or angry with themselves that they sold him into slavery.  Within a few short verses Joseph repeats not once, not twice, but three times that it was not his brothers that sent him to Egypt but God.

Vayechi When Joseph decides to support his brothers he is going “above and beyond the letter of the law.”  He is not required by halacha to support them, yet he does it anyway.  In Hebrew this is called “lifnim meshurat hadin,” to go beyond the requirements of the law.

Behar Buddha's doctrine:  man suffers because of his craving to possess and keep forever things which are essentially impermanent. Chief among these things is his own person, for this is his means of isolating himself from the rest of life, his castle into which he can retreat and from which he can assert himself against external forces.

Va'etchanan Deuteronomy 4: 2. You shall not add to the word which I command you,
neither shall you diminish nothing from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.