Category: 5779
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Nitzavim 5779: “Proof of Concept”
I have an annual change in diet between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The asseret yamei teshuvah, the ten days of repentance, for me, are ten days to wean myself off caffeine before Yom Kippur. The…
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Devarim 5779: “Why We Fast”
Today is the 9th of Av. Because it is Shabbat, the fast day is postponed to tomorrow and we are left with an ominous date on the calendar and a bit more time to prepare for…
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Matot-Ma’asei 5779: “This is What Your Fathers Did”
Just a few weeks ago, on a Friday afternoon, Sara and I walked with our children to shul just before our first Shabbat together in Yerushalayim. In the late afternoon on Fridays in Yerushalayim, almost everyone…
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Pinchas 5779: “To These Will I Give the Land”
The quest for authenticity is one of the enduring challenges of living as social beings within a community. We are constantly judging one another and being evaluated by one another and noticing the actions and character…
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Shlach 5779: “But As For the Children”
“Are we there yet?” I am dreading that question. By this time tomorrow, I will be packed up and about to embark on a trip to Israel with our two youngest children. Sara and their older…
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Baha’alotcha 5779: “Egyptian Cucumbers”
When I was a child I would often cry on the first day of school. It wasn’t because I hated school or didn’t like my teachers. It wasn’t because I was upset about the classmates assigned…
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Naso 5779: “One is Obligated to Teach Torah to His Daughters: From a Feminist Satire to Democratic Elitism”
Starting at age four, our children study Torah with their mother before bedtime on most evenings. Several months ago, as they learned the Mishnah of Tractate Shabbat, I overheard our twins reading a mishnah with their…
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Behukotai 5779: “Safety in Numbers”
Some of you may know that I went to a specialized math and science high school. I don’t often draw upon that element of my education but I do want to work through an arithmetic problem…
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Emor 5779: “For Stranger and Citizen Alike”
More than 800 years ago Maimonides, Rambam, penned a letter to a convert to Judaism who had taken on the name Ovadia. Ovadia had written to Rambam wondering if he could recite the same berakhot as…
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Tazria 5779: “Identity and Stigmatization”
There are two theories of tumah v’taharah. There are two ways of thinking about the vast system of purity and impurity laws that dominate so much of the middle sections of Vayikra. One position, which was…
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 