Sermons

04/11/2017

Shmini 5777: “A Unified Theory of Halakhah”

I truly love being asked to provide halakhic guidance. It’s literally what I went to school to learn how to do – which is more than I can say about some of the other questions that I am asked about. Sometimes people apologize when they ask me a halakhic question which is so unnecessary. At…
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03/25/2017

Vayakhel-Pekudei 5777: “Shattered Tablets”

Those of you who sat through the Torah reading this morning may have been wondering, “is this the longest Torah portion or the longest double-portion that occurs each year?” The answer is that Vayakhel Pekudei is not actually the longest Torah portion of the year but it is the most boring. The boredom comes, not…
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03/18/2017

Ki Tissa 5777: “The Velveteen Rabbit and the Golden Calf”

In one of the first pages of his first published collection of teshuvot, halakhic responsa, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein describes and offers a judgment concerning a terrible dilemma. A Jewish man had contracted a highly contagious disease, perhaps tuberculosis, and was about to be admitted to a hospital. This hospital had a specialized protocol for handling highly contagious diseases…
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03/04/2017

Terumah 5777: “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”

Less than two weeks ago Jehan Jabar, an elementary school teacher in Tayibeh, an Arab city in central Israel, (not to be confused with Taybeh – in the West Bank where the brewery is), recorded a video of herself leading her students in a simple call and response song as part of their Hebrew language instruction. She…
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02/11/2017

Beshalach 5777: “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”

In September of 1967 Pete Seeger appeared on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour to sing a song he had just written called Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. The song tells of an army platoon fording a stream while carrying heavy equipment. The sergeant is convinced that the stream can’t be crossed at that location,…
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01/28/2017

Vaera 5777: “Promises to Keep”

As the curtain opens on Act II Scene 1 of the exodus from Egypt we find Moshe at what is perhaps the lowest point in his career. He had accepted a mission from God to free his Israelite brethren from Egyptian bondage. He had returned to Egypt from the safety of Midian and confronted Pharaoh. That confrontation does…
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01/21/2017

Shemot 5777: “And a New King Arose”

In 1812 and 1813 Napoleon’s armies marched into Russia, capturing Moscow, before retreating to France, defeated by the Russian winter and the tenacious opposition of the Russian people. Napoleon’s campaign into Russia was a turning point in 19th century history and was immortalized by Tolstoy in his great novel, War and Peace. But Napoleon’s invasion of…
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01/07/2017

VaYigash 5777: “The Winter’s Tale”

How do you recreate a relationship after a decade of forced separation? Shakespeare explored this question in The Winter’s Tale when King Leontes is reunited with his daughter, Perdita after the passage of sixteen years. The play ends with a joyful reunion and with a wedding, which is the textbook definition of a comedy, and yet, the shadow…
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12/31/2016

Miketz 5777: “Hasidic Tales of Jewish Psychoanalysts”

There is a book that I’d like to write one day. It will be called “Hasidic Tales of Jewish Psychoanalysts” and the first story would be the account of Freud’s analysis of the second Lubavitcher Rebbe. The second chapter would be the story of the psychoanalyst who went to Boro Park to shop for a wedding…
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12/24/2016

VaYeshev 5777: “How to Win an Argument”

There were once two close friends who only loved one thing more than their friendship and that was baseball. As they aged they become fixated on the question of whether or not there was baseball in Heaven. They decided that whichever one of the two died first, would find a way to communicate with his surviving friend…
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