Category: Year
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Matot-Ma’asai 5781: “Lovingly Counted”
Last week, a day or two before Shabbat I watched a television interview with Colonel Golan Vach, one of the commanders of the Israeli rescue and recovery mission in Surfside Florida. The interviewer for CNN asked…
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Pinchas 5781: “The Seventy Nations & the Jews”
Elevator banks in large buildings are now controlled by sophisticated software that determines the most efficient way to deploy elevators to people who want to use them. Send the elevator on the fourth floor to p;ick…
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Korach 5781: “Disputes for the Sake of Heaven”
The Mishnah is the only ancient religious text that preserves multiple opinions. Chapter after chapter over tractate after tractate concerning one topic after another list majority and minority opinions, dissents and disagreements, often with no explicit…
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Shlach 5781: “Grasshoppers & Antisemitism”
There is an old joke about a Jewish man who bought the weekly antisemitic newspaper. His friends were confused and eventually asked him why he was purchasing the antisemitic newspaper. He replied that whenever he reads…
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Baha’alotcha 5781: “Burnout”
There have been a lot of complaints recently about the postal service and so I assumed they were to blame when I received three weeks worth of New Yorker magazines in the mail all within three…
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Naso 5781: “May God Grant Peace”
Who is the subject of Jewish prayer? When the siddur says “we” “us” “our” as in the phrase “our God” “heal us” and “we thank you” who is the subject? It seems that in almost every…
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Shemot 5781: “Democracy and Torah”
This past Wednesday afternoon I spoke to a group of students who attend a Christian high school that is a sort of Protestant version of the Jewish day schools that many of our children attend. In…
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Noach 5781: “And the Dove Returned”
Last Friday afternoon, a short time before Shabbat began, I received a letter and package in the mail that has been a source of encouragement and hope during the past week. Here is the letter: “Since…
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Yom Kippur 5781: “Prayer in a Time of Crisis”
I had a remarkable experience last week, unlike anything I have ever encountered. It was positive and I hope I never have to repeat it. On each morning of Rosh Hashanah, I completed my own tefilot…
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Rosh Hashanah 5781: “The Lonely Man of Faith in a Pandemic”
Google Calendar has been trolling me for the past six months. Not a week has gone by in which Google Calendar – ostensibly trying to be helpful – has not reminded me of some upcoming event…
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 