Yom Kippur

Many Little Things-One Big Thing

By Rabbi Len Levin

“May all Your creatures unite in a single band, to perform Your will wholeheartedly” (from the Uv’khen prayer in the Yom Kippur Amidah).

Jewish thought is a rich network of debates on fundamental issues. I was fortunate to be able to work with Rabbi Gordon Tucker on translating Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Heavenly Torah,an encyclopedic work that reveals the rich tapestry of debate of the rabbis and later Jewish thinkers about fundamental issues of theological outlook within Judaism.

One of the fundamental debates running throughout Jewish thought is: Does God require many little things of us, or a few big things? In the grand theophany at Sinai, did God reveal all the 613 precepts of the Torah? Or did God reveal the ten great principles that underlie all Jewish law, and reserve the explication of the details to Moses later in the Tent of Meeting?

A similar Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2012-09-20T17:10:52-04:00September 20, 2012|

Parashat Ki Tavo

In this week’s Torah portion we are witness to a grand ritual – a dramatization depicting the landscape of choices within which we all reside, at all times. One half of the Israelite tribes are told to stand on Mt. Gerizim while the other half of the tribes are to stand on Mt. Ebal. Between the two mountains lies a valley – middle ground within which the tribe of Levi is to stand. From this middle ground of choice, the Levites call up to those on Mt. Ebal with a series of curses that will result from choices rooted in idolatry, dishonesty, greed and lust. The Levites then call up to those on Mt. Gerizim with a series of blessings that will result from choices to live a life of mitzvot, ethical behavior, honesty and support for the disenfranchised within the community. This is followed by a much more detailed set of Read More >

By ahsilver|2012-09-06T17:42:49-04:00September 6, 2012|

Parashat Ki Tetze

by Rabbi Isaac Mann

Parashat Ki Tetze is replete with laws and regulations, some of which are found elsewhere in the Torah and some of which are partially or completely new. It would appear that the section towards the end of the parashah (Deut. 25:13-16) that deals with honest weights and measures is of the former type. The Torah here specifies that one may not have two types of weighing stones in one’s pouch – a large one and a small one (even gedolah u’ketanah) – nor may one have two types of ephahs (an ephah is an ancient Hebrew measure) in one’s home – a large one and a small one (ephah gedolah u’ketanah). These items were used for weighing and measuring merchandise that was bought and sold. But rather one must have only an honest stone (even shelemah va-tzedek) and an honest ephah (ephah shelemah va-tzedek).

As Rashi explains, quoting the Sifre Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2012-08-31T00:11:29-04:00August 31, 2012|

Parashat Shoftim

By Rabbi Judith Edelstein

Within the last few weeks I, and most likely many of you, have been barraged with email messages asking for donations to the presidential campaign. Initially I read the messages with a skeptical eye, planning to contribute a minimal amount at some future date. However, after viewing notes of alarm in the most recent subject lines, I began to panic. Can my small contribution possibly help any candidate to win against the behemoth fundraising machines in which individuals are contributing tens of millions of dollars, I wondered.

Nonetheless, despite my better instincts and my loathing for the way in which campaigns are financed in the United States, believing that the government should pay for them to create an even playing field for all potential candidates, not just those connected to wealth, I broke down and made a modest donation. After all what if my candidate loses because I was cheap? Read More >

By ahsilver|2012-08-24T16:13:01-04:00August 24, 2012|

Parashat Re’eh

Expanding Spiritual Consciousness
By Rabbi Bob Freedman

In Parashat Va’ethanan we are told that even when we are exiles scattered among peoples who worship gods of wood and stone, “If you search there for YHVH your God you will find God, if you seek with all your heart and all your soul” (4:29). One can seek God in any place, it seems, even the most unlikely.

However, Deuteronomy also demands the strict centralization of worship into one place. The ruling appears for the first time in our parashah but is repeated throughout the book. Verse 12:2 stipulates the obliteration of worship places scattered throughout the country. Referring to worship described in 12:2-3 that happened “on high mountains, hills, or under luxuriant trees,” 12:4 rules “Do not worship YHVH your God in this way.” Rather, we are directed (12:5, 11 and subsequently) to make our offerings only at the place where God chooses l’shaken et Read More >

By ahsilver|2012-08-16T23:12:55-04:00August 16, 2012|

Parashat Ekev

Gratitude to God, Source of Our Wealth

By Rabbi Len Levin

“Beware lest your heart grow haughty…and you say to yourselves, ‘My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.’ Remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to get wealth…” (Deuteronomy 8:14-18).

On first sight, the portion Ekev-like most of the first eleven and last six chapters of Deuteronomy-appears purely sermonic in character. A sermon offers ethical inspiration and goals that are commendable to strive for.Â But we draw a vital distinction between ethics and law.Â Ethics teaches what is commendable but to some degree optional; law lays down what is obligatory.Â In classic Jewish parlance, ethics is in the realm of agada, law is coterminous with halakha.

But is the distinction so hard and fast?Â The medieval work Sefer Ha-Hinnukh comprises a discussion of the 613 commandments of the Torah Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2012-08-09T10:50:55-04:00August 9, 2012|

Parashat Vaethanan

By Rabbi Dorit Edut

“Sh’ma Yisrael – Listen O Israel…” Moses recites these lines in this week’s Torah portion at the end of his life. For us, these are usually the first Hebrew words we learn, and we are taught to say them twice daily, morning and evening, on holidays, special occasions, and even before death. This affirmation emphasizes ‘listening’ as we declare that God is ONE. To whom are we making this declaration? And why emphasize listening?

Rabbi David Hartman, in his book A Living Covenant (1985, The Free Press, pp. 164-165)says that by saying the Sh’ma we are actually recreating the Sinai experience for ourselves – listening for that still small voice of God. We tune out the distractions of our world and focus on the question which Moses emphasized and that God asks us everyday: Are we ready to become a partner with God in this world, willing to commit to Read More >

By ahsilver|2012-08-02T15:47:07-04:00August 2, 2012|

Parashat D’varim

By Rabbi Kaya Stern-Kaufman

This week’s Torah portionÂ “ D’varimÂ “ opens the book of Deuteronomy, throughout which Moses delivers an exhaustive farewell speech to the people of Israel, recounting their history, reviewing many of the laws given at Sinai and adding new laws for a future life in the promised land. The portion begins with the words Eleh ha-d’varim, meaning: these are the words, that Moses spoke. From this opening statement is derived the name for the fifth book of TorahÂ “ D’varim /Deuteronomy.

Many Sages and rabbis in our tradition point out that when Moses was first initiated into the role of God’s emissary to Pharaoh, he resisted the task, claiming Lo ish d’varim anochiÂ “ “I am not a man of words.“ And yet, forty years later Moses has indeed become a man of words. In D’varim Rabba (a tenth-century collection of midrash compiled in the tenth century from much earlier material), the Rabbis explain Read More >

By ahsilver|2012-07-26T13:17:50-04:00July 26, 2012|

Parashat Mattot-Massei

Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Not Much Has Changed

I recall the period following the ’67 war when many Jews, religious and not, swelled with pride, kvelled, at what “our” tiny nation in the desert, surrounded by enemies, had accomplished. Some of us, so inspired by the military miracle, made aliyah, moved there permanently.

Notwithstanding the enthusiasm, the vast majority of Jews remained in their “native” lands. Little could induce most of us in the USA to emigrate because we had successfully assimilated and felt secure here.

Today about half the Jews in the world live in Eretz Israel and the other half outside it. These statistics cause some Israelis to delegitimize the loyalty of those of us outside. But the truth is that it’s always been this way.

The first of this week’s double parashah, Mattot, “Tribes,” is the earliest depiction of this conflict, as two of the tribes, the Gadites and Reubenites, ask Read More >

By ahsilver|2012-07-19T17:13:30-04:00July 19, 2012|

Parashat Pinhas

Â By Rabbi Isaac Mann

The beginning of Parashat Pinhas seems out of place. We have here some details of a story that is basically recounted at the end of the previous parashah of Balak, and instead of finishing the story there, some of the details are left out and only filled in at the beginning of the next parashah. Why the need to spread the rather brief story over two parashiyot?

To elaborate, at the end of Balak, we are told of the Israelites engaging openly in an orgy of idolatry and immorality with Moabite/Midianite women with whom they had recently come into contact as they were approaching the Land of Canaan. Among the offenders was the head of a prominent family (nasi bet-av) of Shimon. The brazenness of their sinful activity sparked God’s anger against His people and resulted in the outbreak of a devastating plague. 24,000 people were killed until Pinhas, the Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2012-07-12T10:32:16-04:00July 12, 2012|

All shall unite to do God's will with an open heart.

All shall unite to do God's will with an open heart.

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