Category: Year
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Rosh Hashanah Day 2 5775: “To Conquer Time”
This was a difficult sermon to write. I had cleared a few hours one afternoon to write. I thought leaving the office and heading to a nearby coffee shop would present me with fewer distractions. I…
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Rosh Hashanah Day 1 5775: “The Palace is in Flames”
Rabbis share professional advice with each other. There are “tricks of the trade” and received wisdom that we pass to each other from rabbi to rabbi, from year to year. One such professional rule of thumb is…
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Re’eh 5774: “If You Talk Here, Where Will You Pray?”
Some of you may remember the group of Christians who visited our shul before Tisha b’Av from Living Water Bible Camp in rural Wisconsin. This Christian camp had a summer program devoted to comparative religion and…
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Eikev 5774: “We Must Love One Another Or Die”
Three or four years ago, our community in Princeton had difficulty finding a babysitter for the last days of Pesach. Pesach coincided with Easter that year and our usual babysitters for Shabbat morning were all celebrating one of…
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Devarim 5774: “Family History and National History”
I want to begin by thanking all of you for your sympathy and support following the death of my grandmother last week. Sara and I are very grateful. I’m returning to New York on Wednesday and our…
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Ma’asei 5774: “Reflections from Uganda”
I. The Uganda Plan is one of the most derided episodes in the history of Zionism. Stymied in his initial attempts to receive international backing for a Jewish national home in Palestine, Theodor Herzl pushed instead for…
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Matot 5774: “Shall Your Brothers Go Out to War and You Sit Here?”
I. Last Monday afternoon, AIPAC’s first rabbinic mission to Israel visited Ziv Hospital in Tzfat. This medium-sized hospital provides medical care to the Eastern half of the Upper Gallil and the Golan. For the past year, however,…
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Korach 5774: “Bring Back Our Boys”
I. In just a few moments we are going to say something absurd. After we have a chance to recite our personal Mussaf prayers, the Hazan will lead us in the “tefilah shel tzibbur” the prayer…
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Shlach 5774: “Defiantly They Marched: Fundamentals without Fundamentalism”
The sin of the spies – the het hameraglim – is the most severe sin in the Torah and it has the most serious and severe consequences – the journey to Eretz Yisrael grinds to a…
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Emor / Yom Ha’atzmaut 5774: “These Are the Festivals of the Lord, Holy Occasions When You Declare Them”
When my family lived in Jerusalem 6 years ago we met and befriended a Christian family who lived in our neighborhood. We met at the local playground where we took Noam almost every day. I don’t…
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 