Rabbi David Wolkenfeld

Sermons

  • Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 5775: “Does Judaism Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakhah”

    You may have noticed that my family was not in shul last Shabbat. (I actually hope you did notice that we weren’t here)! Last Shabbat we took a short and much appreciated family vacation to exotic Columbus, Ohio, where very good friends of ours are now professors at The Ohio State University. We feel that we have…

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  • Vayakhel-Pekudei 5775: “Hashem is Here, Hashem is There”

    My first exposure to Jewish philosophy came, not from Rambam or Rav Saadia Gaon, but rather from that famous source of wisdom, Uncle Moishy, the children’s musician.   Hashem is here.Hashem is there.Hashem is truly everywhere.Up, up, down, down.Right, left, and all around.Here, there, and everywhere.That’s where He may be found.   That all seems straightforward, and yet…

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  • Ki Tissa 5775: “My Trip to Washington”

    My father-in law taught me to remember all of the public fast days on the Jewish calendar by this simple mnemonic: The black and the white, the long and the short, the man and the woman. The man and the woman are Tzom Gedaliah and Ta’anit Esther. The long and the short are Asarah B’Tevet and the…

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  • Terumah 5775: “He saw it. He loved it. He ate it.”

    Years before he became famous, Brian Selznick, the author and illustrator of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which was turned into the Academy Award winning movie “Hugo” worked at a children’s bookstore in New York near the apartment where I grew up. Selznick was a “window painter” – he decorated the bookstore’s windows with seasonal decorations and illustrations…

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  • Beshalach 5775: “The Wide World of Sports”

    Shabbat Shalom. It’s great to be back in Lakeview this Shabbat. To be honest, being in Miami last Shabbat was also pretty great. The weather was great. The company was great – there were over 400 runners who had raised money for Chai Lifeline, including quite a few members of ASBI and ASBI “alumni.” On…

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  • Vaera 5775: “Can Religious Tolerance Have Passion?”

    Usually when we find a contradiction in a text, we interpret that as a weakness in the text itself. When we edit things that we write, we try to remove any contradictions that may be there. But sometimes, a contradiction is so obvious, that it was clearly intended for us to notice and then explain.   Such…

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  • VaYechi 5775: “The People of Which Book?”

    Two weeks ago the Israeli Ministry of Education launched Project 929. Directed by Rabbi Benny Lau and a woman named Gal Gabai, and with the blessings of the President of the State of Israel, Project 929 is a curriculum to study one chapter of Tanakh, one chapter of the Hebrew Bible, each day, five days…

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  • VaYigash 5775: “Short and Bitter Have Been the Years of My Life”

    Where was the first Jewish homeland?   I would wager that 99 our of 100 people would answer, “Eretz Yisrael.” Indeed, when Avraham reaches Eretz Canaan, God tells him, “to you I shall give this land.” We are linked to Eretz Yisrael from the dawn of our existence as a people.   But that would not be a…

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  • Miketz 5775: “On the Interpretation of Dreams”

    A good Hassidic story ends with a pithy punch-line that exposes some profound wisdom regarding the human condition. I’m going to begin this morning by sharing a Hassidic tale with you, but not a story about a great or minor rebbe, but a story of a true interaction between a Boro Park Jewish saleswoman and my mother.…

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  • VaYeshev 5775: “Which Side Are You On?”

    One spring during college, a week or two before Pesach, I joined a small group of students to assist a prison chaplain in leading a seder at a local prison. As it turned out, most of the prisoners attending the seder were not Jewish (I suppose that’s a good thing). They were at the seder because they…

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