Category: Year
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Yom Kippur 5776: “Before I Was Born I Did Not Exist”
I. There was once a man who moved to a new city just a few days before a family wedding. Since he was new to the city he did not yet have a regular dry cleaner and…
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Rosh Hashanah Day 2 5776: “The Shul and the City”
I. Jews cannot agree about anything. Looking around today, at our shul, at other congregations in this city, and at synagogues of every denomination and every variety in every corner of the world, you might think that there…
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Rosh Hashanah Day 1 5776: “What are We Here For?”
I. Many of my friends and colleagues are wondering about one question on Rosh Hashanah 5776: Is it possible to speak about a politically controversial topic in a way that unifies a community? I know of one…
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Shoftim 5775: “Do Not Deviate to the Right or to the Left”
A friend of mine was once confronted with a religious dilemma. He was spending a year studying in a yeshiva in Israel and shortly after his arrival he had to decide whether to observe two-days of…
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Devarim 5775: “The Vision of Yeshayahu”
In August, 1967, just two months after the Six Day War, David Hartman walked into the Montreal shul where he served as rabbi. He saw the congregation seated on the floor, reciting kinot, mournful dirges composed for…
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Matot-Ma’asei 5775: “Journeys and Destinations”
All of us advanced students who learned in the kollel at Yeshivat Hamivtar adjacent to Efrat had to take turns performing shemirah – nighttime guard duty. And so, after an afternoon at an army base where…
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Pinchas 5775: “Becoming Eliyahu”
I. Once upon a time there was once a wealthy merchant who was obsessed with stories about Eliyahu HaNavi – Elijah the Prophet. One year before Pesach he spoke to his rabbi and complained that for all of…
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Korach 5775: “Being or Becoming, Adjective or Aspiration”
Sometimes in an argument two people can use the same word, or two groups can make reference to the same concept, but they can mean that word or concept in opposite ways. That dynamic can be seen…
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Shlach 5775: “We Were Like Grasshoppers in Our Eyes, and So Too in Their Eyes”
Perhaps you saw reports in the papers this week that Israeli computer viruses had infected the European hotels where P5 +1 talks with Iran have been taking place. Whenever I hear about Israeli intelligence operatives getting…
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Emor 5775: “Sacred Reverberations”
The preface to Micah Goodman’s book “Maimonides and the Book that Changed Judaism” begins with this delightful story: I first encountered The Guide for the Perplexed when I was nine years old. It was at Yehuda HaLevy…
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 