Category: Year
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Miketz 5775: “On the Interpretation of Dreams”
A good Hassidic story ends with a pithy punch-line that exposes some profound wisdom regarding the human condition. I’m going to begin this morning by sharing a Hassidic tale with you, but not a story about a great…
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VaYeshev 5775: “Which Side Are You On?”
One spring during college, a week or two before Pesach, I joined a small group of students to assist a prison chaplain in leading a seder at a local prison. As it turned out, most of the…
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VaYishlach 5775: “Brains & Brawn, Mind & Matter, Truth & Reconciliation”
Before I speak, I’d like to say something… Actually, I’d like to say three things, which I will try to tie together. I suspect many of you saw the large poster when you came into shul this…
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VaYetzei 5775: “God Was in This Place and I Did Not Know It”
“Har HaBayit B’Yadeinu – the Temple Mount is in our Hands” that cry, by IDF Col. Motta Gur remains one of the most dramatic moments in Modern Jewish history, a climactic memory of the Six Day…
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Toldot 5775: “By Your Sword Shall You Live”
Thankfully, when it was my turn for guard duty at Yeshivat Hamivtar, outside Efrat, the most interesting parts of the experience were the conversations with the reserve-soldiers who would be paired with us for a three-hour guard…
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Vayera 5775: “For I Know That He Will Command His Children”
Large volumes of Talmud on the shelf of my childhood home set our family’s home apart from the homes of every one of my friends. Relics from my father’s own past as a yeshiva student, they…
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Lekh Lekha 5775: “To a Land That I Will Show You”
Without question, the best job in all of Jewish folklore was the job of being the wagon driver of the Baal Shem Tov. Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Hassidic movement, was a…
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Noach 5775: “The Inclination of the Human Heart is Towards Evil”
It has been noted that in ancient times, people were more bothered by the philosophical challenge of “rasha v’tov lo” the prospering of the wicked. In modern times, we tend to be more bothered by the…
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Bereishit 5775: “Islamic Terrorism & the ‘Shabbos App’”
A biology course that I took in college taught me something important about religion. Steven J. Gould, the great evolutionary biologist, taught a survey course at Harvard which he ambitiously called “A History of Life.” Professor…
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Yom Kippur 5775: “Love in a Time of Cholera”
Following Shacharit on Yom Kippur of 5610, in September 1849, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the famous and pious Vilna rabbi – founder of the Mussar Movement, dedicated to injecting the pursuit of ethical excellence into traditional Jewish…
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 