Category: Parasha
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Behar Behukotai 5786: Fractal Sanctity
Fractals are geometric shapes, which can appear in nature, or can be generated by computer graphics, in which a self-repeating pattern can be seen at any scale of magnification. A snail’s spiral, the coil of an…
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Acharei Mot Kedoshim 5786: For This Reason We Recite it Standing
In the 1948 Arab – Israeli War, my teacher, Rav Yehuda Amital z’l, then a refugee, survivor, and young immigrant found himself serving in a unit alongside a ragtag group of soldiers from across the world.…
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Shimini 5786: Seeing Without Taking
This past Pesach my family joined thousands of other Jews in a modern, but widespread, Pesach tradition, and went to the zoo. If we didn’t comprise a majority, I suspect Yiddish was the most spoken language…
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Ki Tissa 5786: Aaron’s Complicity
In recent months I have been haunted by the image of Aharon without his crowns. The Gemara in Shabbat (88a) teaches that when the Jewish people chanted “Na’aseh v’Nishmah” at Har Sinai, committing to perform all…
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Mishpatim 5786: Serious Judaism for a Fragile Society
I am so happy to be here with all of you this morning and I want to begin by thanking the community for the chance to have spent the past two weeks in Israel. I am…
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Va’era 5786: Fervor without Fundamentalsim
One of the greatest scandals for Jewish philosophy is the way that Pharaoh loses his freedom over the course of the exodus as his hardened heart numbs him to the suffering of his own people and…
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VaYehi 5786: The Crybaby and the King
Who cries the most in the Torah? The obvious answer to that question is Yosef who cries throughout his life up to and including the moment in this week’s parasha when his brothers return to Egypt…
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VaYigash 5786: Protective Presence
My father had two contenders for the “greatest man he ever met.” One was Winston Churchill who was also a passenger on the ocean liner that brought my father to America as an immigrant in 1949.…
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Miketz 5786: When Were We Commanded?
Sometimes the words we say most frequently are the words we understand least well. How many times this week have you said the phrase “Asher Kidshanu B’Mitzvotav v’Tzivanu…”? I hope many of us have said it…
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 