Sermons
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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…
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There is a phrase, made popular on the Internet but used often enough in conversation too, to describe someone who fails at what is ostensibly a simple task: You had one job. Several memorable examples come from a website called “Cake Wrecks” which chronicles professionally decorated cakes that have gone horribly wrong, such as a…
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Circles of Blessing Every community contains conflict. Whenever people gather, and try to live together, there will be differences of opinion and personalities that clash. I once lived in a community with a kohen who had devised a unique method of resolving conflict. On one occasion it appeared to me that he had a challenging…
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Fractals are geometric shapes, which can appear in nature, or can be generated by computer graphics, in which a self-repeating pattern can be seen at any scale of magnification. A snail’s spiral, the coil of an unfolding fern leaf, the structure of snowflakes are all natural demonstrations of fractal patterns. The Mandelbrot set is an…
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In the 1948 Arab – Israeli War, my teacher, Rav Yehuda Amital z’l, then a refugee, survivor, and young immigrant found himself serving in a unit alongside a ragtag group of soldiers from across the world. Among them were older Yemenite men who had been drafted, in part, because they had no birth certificates and…
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This past Pesach my family joined thousands of other Jews in a modern, but widespread, Pesach tradition, and went to the zoo. If we didn’t comprise a majority, I suspect Yiddish was the most spoken language at the zoo other than English on Monday and our Sefardi brothers and sisters made a strong showing as…
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Maurice Sendak, the children’s author who died in 2012 wrote about an encounter with a young fan: “Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him…
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In recent months I have been haunted by the image of Aharon without his crowns. The Gemara in Shabbat (88a) teaches that when the Jewish people chanted “Na’aseh v’Nishmah” at Har Sinai, committing to perform all of the mitzvot before we had even been told what they entail, six hundred thousand angels descended and presented…
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I am so happy to be here with all of you this morning and I want to begin by thanking the community for the chance to have spent the past two weeks in Israel. I am especially grateful to each of you who stepped forward in big ways and in small ways to ensure that…
- 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 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
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 