Sermons
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As you know I live in Chicago but, thanks to the Internet, I sometimes listen to the radio in New York. Over the past two weeks, I have been listening to an “oral history call-in” that Brian Lehrer hosted for fifteen minutes each day on his New York public radio show. He invited listeners to…
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I’ve told you before about the Christian family we met when we lived in Jerusalem fifteen years ago. They practiced a very austere form of Protestant Christianity which attempted to purify Christianity from what they saw as foreign acretians that Catholicism had grafted onto a biblical faith. Since Leviticus says “Eleh Mo’adei Hashem” these are…
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I want to tell you a story about a brilliant idea that I had for a shul program and why I never implemented the program. I thought it would be a valuable experience for our shul to convene a mock-election prior to the 2019 elections in Israel. With each ballot we could ask for a…
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Many of you know that our twins have been serving as weekday gabba’im since they each became bar mitzvah about 18 months ago. It has been a big relief for me to have them help to keep everything running smoothly on weekday mornings when we read Torah. They have been taking turns being gabbai rishon…
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An oxymoron is a two word phrase that is made up of two opposite words like “civil war” “sweet sorrow” “plastic silverware” “old news” and “deafening silence.” These words manage to associate with one another despite the inherent dissonance of two opposites in close proximity; oxymorons somehow convey meaning that is different from either of…
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One festive day when we lived in Princeton we joined many of our students to celebrate a hachnasat sefer Torah – the dedication of a new Torah scroll that was sponsored by a Jewish organization on campus where we did not work. A Torah scroll, lovingly written by hand, is a time consuming and expensive…
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The Prophet Elijah, Eliyahu HaNavi convened a great theological debate with the idolatrous prophets of Baal. As recounted in I Kings 18, Eliyahu alone was left alive among the true prophets of God and he had assembled four hundred fifty prophets of Baal for a theological debate. This debate was unusual. The entire population of…
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Where do you go for help when you are facing a hard decision? This summer in Israel I had a chance to chat and learn with an old teacher of mine and he told me a story about his own father who left his hometown in Germany in the early 1930s to study at one…
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The Torah shares that on the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, the holiest person alive (the kohen gadol, the high priest), would enter the holiest place on earth (the Kodesh HaKodashim – the Holy of Holies in the Temple), and the confessions he made at that time in that space would earn atonement…
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People often share things with friends that they would be embarrassed to tell their rabbi. A family friend made a disclosure like that over the summer when we were in Israel. When he and I spoke, on a Shabbat afternoon in July, this man, a family friend for decades, had already been in Israel for…
- 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
- Shavuot
- Year
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 