Sermons
-
As you know, or will soon find out, at its core Yizkor is a glorified pledge to tzedakah. We do this on Yom Tov because the Torah’s conception of celebrating a holiday includes making space at our tables for those who are marginalized and disadvantaged. A tzedakah pledge is therefore in the spirit of the…
-
Last week, just hours before Rosh Hashanah began in Israel, I received a frantic phone call from one of our children studying there in yeshiva this year. Hoping to save a bit of money, he had purchased an all-Hebrew machzor for himself, the bookstores had already closed for the holiday, and he was dreading going…
-
The comedian Emo Philips, once voted the author of the funniest religious joke of all time, shared the following joke which exposes an ironic facet of this season of repentance. For the record, this is not the joke that was voted the funniest religious joke of all time; I need to save some material for…
-
Shimon HaAmsuni, a relatively obscure figure mentioned in the Talmud, is one of my Jewish heroes and I think that he should be your hero too. In the generations before Rabbi Akiva, Shimon HaAmsuni promulgated a theory of Torah scholarship in which not only was every word of the Torah laden with significance and therefore…
-
At the 1991 Grammy Awards Bob Dylan received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Jack Nicholson handed an award to Dylan who then made a cryptic statement (and I won’t try in any way to imitate Bob Dylan’s iconic voice so you’ll just have to imagine it in your head): …my daddy, he didn’t leave me much,…
-
I spent six years of my life as a full-time yeshiva student and one major focus, of at least the first years, was acquiring the textual fluency and Hebrew literacy to open the Jewish bookshelf. I cannot overstate how transformative it has been to my life to have unmediated access to centuries of Jewish wisdom…
-
I spent three weeks in Jerusalem this summer, but before that I was in Paris for seven days so of course my most extensive conversations in Hebrew took place in Paris where I explained where I lived and worked to a representative of the Sokhnut who was in Paris for a series of work meetings,…
-
I’m sure I’ve shared the complaint with you before that one of the major occupational hazards of my profession is that I so rarely have the opportunity to listen to great derashot or divrei torah. One of the highlights of my trips to Yerushalayim is the opportunity to hear thought provoking and morally relevant divrei…
-
Shabbat Shalom. It is wonderful to be back with you all this Shabbat. I am filled with gratitude for everyone who stepped up, in big ways and small ways, to sustain the shul during my absence. I saw many of you over Tisha b’Av when I couldn’t exchange greetings and it is so great to…
-
In the 1950s my teacher Rabbi Yehudah Amital was a faculty member at a yeshiva in Rehovot where he worked alongside his cousin-by-marriage Rabbi Elazer Menachem Schach. The two teachers argued incessantly about all the hot topics that rabbis debated in the 1950s while sharing cigarettes. Time passed and Rav Shach became the rosh yeshiva…
- Parasha
- Acharei Mot
- Acharei Mot-Kedoshim
- Baha'alotcha
- Balak
- Bamidbar
- Behar
- Behar-Behukotai
- Behukotai
- Bereishit
- Beshalach
- Bo
- Chayei Sara
- Devarim
- Eikev
- Emor
- Ha'Azinu
- Hol HaMoed Sukkot
- Hukkat
- Hukkat-Balak
- Kedoshim
- Ki Tavo
- Ki Teitzei
- Ki Tissa
- Kol Nidre
- Korach
- Lekh Lekha
- Ma'asei
- Matot
- Matot Ma'asei
- Miketz
- Mishpatim
- Naso
- Nitzavim
- Nitzavim-Vayeilech
- Noach
- Pekudei
- Pinchas
- Re'eh
- Rosh Hashanah
- Shavuot
- Shekalim
- Shemot
- Shimini Atzeret
- Shlach
- Shmini
- Shoftim
- Tazria
- Tazria Metzora
- Terumah
- Tetzaveh
- Toldot
- Tzav
- Va'Etchanan
- Vaera
- Vayakhel
- Vayakhel-Pekudei
- VaYechi
- Vayeilech
- Vayera
- VaYeshev
- VaYetzei
- VaYigash
- Vayikra
- VaYishlach
- Yitro
- Yom Ha'atzmaut
- Yom Kippur
- Passover
- Shavuot
- Year
