Sermons
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Let’s orient ourselves geographically. Right now I am facing west with the eastern wall of the shul behind me. To my right is the north and to my left is the south. Everyone following? Good. Now, consider what God said to Moshe in the final days of his life. Moshe’s fervent prayer to enter Eretz…
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Last week the New York Times reported on a scandal that is being called “sermongate.” The newly elected president of the Southern Baptist convention was caught delivering a sermon that had been delivered just a short time before by another Baptist preacher, the same man who happened to be his predecessor as president of the…
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Last week, a day or two before Shabbat I watched a television interview with Colonel Golan Vach, one of the commanders of the Israeli rescue and recovery mission in Surfside Florida. The interviewer for CNN asked Colonel Vach about recent developments in their rescue and recovery efforts. “I heard that you found bodies yesterday,” the…
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Elevator banks in large buildings are now controlled by sophisticated software that determines the most efficient way to deploy elevators to people who want to use them. Send the elevator on the fourth floor to p;ick up a passenger on the 12th floor and then send the elevator on the 15th floor down to the…
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The Mishnah is the only ancient religious text that preserves multiple opinions. Chapter after chapter over tractate after tractate concerning one topic after another list majority and minority opinions, dissents and disagreements, often with no explicit resolution. The Mishanh does not preserve Jewish Law, insofar as one cannot get practical guidance from the Mishnah, the…
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There is an old joke about a Jewish man who bought the weekly antisemitic newspaper. His friends were confused and eventually asked him why he was purchasing the antisemitic newspaper. He replied that whenever he reads a Jewish newspaper, it is filled with depressing news about the threats facing the Jewish community and our vulnerability.…
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There have been a lot of complaints recently about the postal service and so I assumed they were to blame when I received three weeks worth of New Yorker magazines in the mail all within three days. But then I saw that Jill Lepore, the historian, author, and frequent contributor to the magazine had a…
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Who is the subject of Jewish prayer? When the siddur says “we” “us” “our” as in the phrase “our God” “heal us” and “we thank you” who is the subject? It seems that in almost every instance, the first-person-plural voice that is adopted in Jewish prayer reflects Klal Yisrael – the spiritual collective that unites…
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This past Wednesday afternoon I spoke to a group of students who attend a Christian high school that is a sort of Protestant version of the Jewish day schools that many of our children attend. In between their semesters, they had enrolled in a weeklong course exploring the broader context of their own Christian faith.…
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Last Friday afternoon, a short time before Shabbat began, I received a letter and package in the mail that has been a source of encouragement and hope during the past week. Here is the letter: “Since 1927 St. Basil Greek Orthodox Church has been located at 733 South Ashland Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. Previously it was…
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Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 