Category: Rosh Hashanah
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RH2 5787: Atonement without Guilt
The comedian Emo Philips, once voted the author of the funniest religious joke of all time, shared the following joke which exposes an ironic facet of this season of repentance. For the record, this is not…
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RH1 5787: Just as I was Rewarded for Interpreting, So I am Rewarded for Refraining
Shimon HaAmsuni, a relatively obscure figure mentioned in the Talmud, is one of my Jewish heroes and I think that he should be your hero too. In the generations before Rabbi Akiva, Shimon HaAmsuni promulgated a…
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RH2 5786: And God Remembered Noah
Why was Noah instructed to build an Ark? This seems like an obvious question but there is a profound dispute between Rashi and Ramban, our greatest medieval commentaries about precisely this question. After giving Noah exact…
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RH1 5786: The Holiday of Failure
One of the ways that technology has addled my brain is that I find it nearly impossible to do household tasks unless I’m listening to a podcast. This is often very annoying for members of my…
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Rosh Hashanah 2 5785: “Heroic Potential”
One of the saddest experiences I have had over the course of a very sad year was listening to the livestream broadcast of Rachel Goldberg Polin speaking at the funeral of her son Hersh, just days…
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Rosh Hashanah 1 5785: “The Palace is in Flames”
Once upon a time a traveler set forth on a journey into an unknown land. After many weeks of travel he saw a light in the distance and upon getting closer he saw a birah doleket,…
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Rosh Hashanah Day 1 5784: “Writing the End of the Story”
There are sad stories, and there are happy stories and there are Jewish stories. As every student of drama and literature knows, tragedies end in a funeral; comedies end with a wedding. Everyone attending a Shakespearean…
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Rosh Hashanah Day 2 5784: “Education and Choice”
When I was a teenager, whenever my friends did something slightly edgy, we would say to one another, “what you just did is illegal in 5 states.” Well, times have changed and federalism is fun, and I…
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Rosh Hashanah Day 2 5783: “Avraham Avinu & The Eclipse of Social Judaism”
People often share things with friends that they would be embarrassed to tell their rabbi. A family friend made a disclosure like that over the summer when we were in Israel. When he and I spoke,…
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Rosh Hashanah Day 1 5783: “Resume Writing & the Sefer HaHayyim: On Writing and Creating a Legacy”
This August the New York Times published a story on electronic productivity-monitoring of white-collar employees, many more of whom are now working remotely away from the watchful eye of their supervisors and colleagues. The article drew…
