Category: Year
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Emor 5783: “Crimes & Context”
On April 15th, 1936, a group of Palestinian insurgents loyal to Izz Ad-Din al-Qassam, shot and killed two Jewish motorists on the road between Nablus and Tulkaram. Days later two Palestinian laborers were shot and killed…
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Bo 5783: “Negotiating In Good Faith & Bad”
There are two great movie versions of the story of Yetziat Mitzraim, the exodus from Egypt: Steven Spielberg’s Prince of Egypt and Cecille B. Demille’s The Ten Commandments. Both draw heavily from midrashim to flesh out…
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Vaera 5783: “And I Appeared to Them”
As you know I live in Chicago but, thanks to the Internet, I sometimes listen to the radio in New York. Over the past two weeks, I have been listening to an “oral history call-in” that…
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Miketz 5783: “Between Persecution and Salvation”
I’ve told you before about the Christian family we met when we lived in Jerusalem fifteen years ago. They practiced a very austere form of Protestant Christianity which attempted to purify Christianity from what they saw…
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VaYeshev 5783: “They Could Not Speak Peaceably Unto Him”
I want to tell you a story about a brilliant idea that I had for a shul program and why I never implemented the program. I thought it would be a valuable experience for our shul…
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Toldot 5783: “And She Went to Inquire of the Lord”
Many of you know that our twins have been serving as weekday gabba’im since they each became bar mitzvah about 18 months ago. It has been a big relief for me to have them help to…
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Chayei Sara 5783: “Oxymorons and Modern Orthodoxy”
An oxymoron is a two word phrase that is made up of two opposite words like “civil war” “sweet sorrow” “plastic silverware” “old news” and “deafening silence.” These words manage to associate with one another despite…
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Noach 5783: “Ambiguity”
One festive day when we lived in Princeton we joined many of our students to celebrate a hachnasat sefer Torah – the dedication of a new Torah scroll that was sponsored by a Jewish organization on…
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Ha’Azinu 5783: “With Great Joy He Put on His Own Clothes”
The Prophet Elijah, Eliyahu HaNavi convened a great theological debate with the idolatrous prophets of Baal. As recounted in I Kings 18, Eliyahu alone was left alive among the true prophets of God and he had…
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Yom Kippur 5783: “V’Takneinu B’Eitzah Tovah: Inspired for Redemption”
Where do you go for help when you are facing a hard decision? This summer in Israel I had a chance to chat and learn with an old teacher of mine and he told me a…
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 