Category: Year
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VaYetzei 5780: “A Stairway Set on the Ground; Its Top Reached the Heavens”
The brief presidency of John F. Kennedy is sometimes credited with destroying the American hat industry. According to this legend, the glamorous young president’s decision to appear at his inauguration without a hat led millions of…
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Toldot 5780: “Sharing the Torah”
If you had received a private message from God that would determine the future of your family and the fate of nations, would you share that news? If you were sent on a mission by God…
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Vayera 5780: “Open Rebuke & Concealed Love”
Sometimes a story can be so familiar that we don’t realize that we don’t truly know it at all. After many years of childless marriage, Avraham fathers a child, Yishmael. Yishmael was the answer to Avraham’s…
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Bereishit 5780: “The Tree of Growing Up”
Bette Davis famously said “old age ain’t no place for sissies.” This is a quote that launched a thousand novelty t-shirts and coffee mugs and tote bags. If I were designing one of those inspirational coffee…
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Yom Kippur 5780: “The Prophet of Distillation”
The first and last time I tried to recite Tashlikh prayers in Israel was unlike anything I had ever seen before. When I was 18, I left home and traveled to Israel to study in a…
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Kol Nidre 5780: “Spiritual and Physical”
There is a prayer that is printed in your machzorim called Tefilah Zakah that some people recite before Yom Kippur begins. The culmination of the prayer is a poignant recognition that even the power of Yom…
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Rosh Hashanah Day 1 5780: “Beyond the Straw Hat Shul”
One Shabbat morning in the summer of 1870, Duber Ginsberg, an immigrant from Mariampol Lithuania walked into his erstwhile shul while wearing a straw hat whereupon he was promptly thrown out for his impudence and irreverence.…
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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…
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 