With this week’s Torah portion, the book of Genesis comes to an end. Both Jacob and Joseph, and the Egyptian rulers who knew them, pass away, setting up the story of slavery and Exodus coming in the next chapter of our story. Joseph learns that Jacob’s death is near, and...
I’ve been waiting my whole career to start a D’var Torah with a reference to baseball.
In the spring of my senior year of high school, after the stress of college applications and acceptance were over, my best friend and I both had the overwhelming urge to…color. We went to the drugstore and bought a brand-new 64 pack of Crayola crayons and a couple of those...
Remember. It’s one of our first Jewish lessons. It’s in the Ten Commandments, it’s in the poem L’cha Dodi with which we greet Shabbat each week, and it’s repeated throughout the liturgy of these High Holy Days. In our worship on Rosh HaShanah, the sound of the shofar awakens us...
This whole summer, each Shabbat, we have been talking about Judaism’s relevance. Judaism is all around us. We can become attuned to it, and we can learn Jewishly from the stories in the news, the conversations we have with our loved ones and co-workers, the experiences we encounter in our...
Our tradition sometimes speaks to us in a still, small voice. In a passage from the prophets, God illustrates to the prophet Elijah, Eliyahu HaNavi, where to find God’s presence. God creates a furious wind, but God is not in the wind. God then creates an earthquake, but God is...
It’s graduation season. Those of us who have the opportunity to address a group of college graduates, high school graduates or Confirmation students consider how to reduce all of life’s lessons down to a few simple rules. While it may be a trite endeavor, it’s a powerful opportunity to remind...
