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Click HERE for an audio recording of this D'var Torah What Cain Learned A D'var Torah for Parashat Beresheet By Dr. Yakir Englander In the Genesis story, we find Cain and Abel in a field. There the elder brother, Cain, kills Abel, the younger. Midrash Rabbah (22) on this passage remarks that Cain does not know how to take the Read More >

Seasonal Changes: "Remembering" to be Merciful to Ourselves By Rabbi Mitchell Blank ('21) Living in southern New York, I love this time of year, especially the changing of the leaves. Our home  backs upon acres of undeveloped woods. About 20 years ago, I built a 1.5 mile loop trail through the forest. The path took six months to complete; it was an embodied labor of love. Seasonal maintenance proved to be labor intensive as well. After more than a decade of clearing fallen branches, the trail was now also defined by at least 20 lbs. of wood stacked high for its entire length. The ongoing maintenance and care were daily sources of enjoyment and satisfaction. The boundaries of the path, tangible reminders of years of hard work, only heightened the love derived from walking it.

A D'var Torah for Parashat Lekh Lekha By Rabbi Rena Kieval ('06) Be a blessing! Vehe-yei berakha! I am always struck by the profound, surprising and somewhat mysterious words spoken by God to begin a new relationship with Abraham. God might have opened with something more like, “Follow this important set of rules I will give you,” “You shall believe in Me,” or, “Let us enter into a covenant.” In time, the Torah will present all of those frameworks for a life with God, but God’s momentous first call to Abraham sets the stage with a series of statements about blessing: “I will bless you, those who bless you will be blessed, those who curse you will be cursed, you will be a source of blessing to others, and vehe-yei berakha: you will be, or should be, a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2,3) God’s words about blessing suggest not only the birth of a relationship with Abraham, but a new vision of humanity’s role in God’s world.

How Do you Make a Well or a Ram Disappear? By Rabbi Rob Scheinberg Twenty years ago, two experimental psychologists at Harvard, named Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, created what has become one of the most famous experiments in the behavioral sciences.  The participants in this study were given a simple task. They just had to watch a brief video that included several people passing basketballs back and forth to each other. Three of these players were wearing white shirts, and three were wearing black shirts. The task was simple: watch the ball that was being passed among the players with the white shirts, and count how many times the basketball was passed. This is not difficult – most people came up with the right number.

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D'var Torah A D'var Torah for Parashat Hayei Sarah By Rabbi Katy Allen ('05) Hayei Sarah - the life of Sarah tells of her death. Abraham is old, nearing his death as well, and he says to his servant, I will make you swear— I, Abraham, will make you, another human being, Read More >

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D'var Torah A D'var Torah for Parashat Toledot By Cantor Robin Anne Joseph ('96) “Still waters run deep.” Coined several centuries before Shakespeare’s take-off in Henry VI, Part 2—Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep—this idiom seems to date back to the Latin: Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi—The Read More >

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D'var Torah A D'var Torah for Parashat Vayeitzei By Rabbi Steven Altarescu ('14) We are often running from place to place, from errand to errand, doing our best, tripping up, falling down and getting up and running some more. We face challenges and sometimes we face them with wisdom and sometimes Read More >

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D'var Torah My Parasha A D'var Torah for Parashat Vayishlah By Rabbi Andrew Hechtman ('03) On most any Shabbat the world over, b’nei mitzvah children rise before their community and state an affirmative obligation to maintain Jewish identity and live a Jewish future. Most often, they deliver a D’var Torah (teaching) beginning with Read More >

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D'var Torah A D'var Torah for Parashat Vayeishev By Rabbi Greg Schindler ('09) Dedicated to the memory of my dear wife Barucha Esther bat Daniel v’Rachel (z”l) Dream On Dream on/ Dream on / Dream on Dream until your dreams come true - Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) Did you ever have Read More >

Click HERE for an audio recording of this D'var Torah A D'var Torah for Parashat Mikeitz By Rabbi Ira Dounn ('17) How is the arc of your own story bending right now? I think about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s quote “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice” often, particularly when a desired Read More >