Off the Pulpit: Whose Ancestor Are You?

August 21, 2020

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

When John Churchill, later the Duke of Marlborough, became a peer in 1682, another lord asked Churchill with a sneer, “whose descendant are you?” Churchill answered, “I am not a descendant. I am an ancestor.”

Churchill...

Person in the Parsha: Ki Tetzei

August 21, 2020

 By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“WORDS CAN NEVER HARM ME?

For many of us, the first pieces of wisdom which we learned were from nursery rhymes and schoolyard jingles. Sometimes these...

Person in the Parsha: Shoftim

August 14, 2020

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“TREE-LIKE”

I love metaphors. An apt metaphor can help stimulate boundless creativity and can lead to a deeper and richer understanding of the concept being studied.

Off the Pulpit: The Pleasure of Ruins

August 14, 2020

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

More than 50 years ago, Rose Macaulay wrote a book about the delight we take in looking at archeological and antiquarian sites. In “Pleasure of Ruins” she catalogues the various reasons human beings like to look at...

Person in the Parsha: Re’eh

August 07, 2020

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“ACQUIRING FAITH” 

This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Re’eh (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17), invariably is read near the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul. Elul is the last...

Xenophobia

August 07, 2020

By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER

The Yom Kippur confessional known as Vidui (“Ashamnu, Bagadnu…”), is an alphabetical acrostic: a sin for every letter from Aleph to Tav. When Rabbi Jules Harlow created a matching English acrostic for his 1972 High...

Off the Pulpit: It’s Really About Me

August 07, 2020

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

Despite the vitriol in our public debates, what you believe is less important than what your beliefs have made of you. The Kotzker Rebbe taught that you can stand under the chuppah, the wedding canopy, and...

Person in the Parsha: Ekev

August 02, 2020

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“DISCIPLINE AND SUFFERING”

As a parent, grandparent, and psychologist, I am often considered to be something of an expert on parenting and child-rearing. In that capacity, I...

The Last Paper

July 31, 2020

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

For 30 years I have been writing a “Musings” column of roughly two hundred words each week for The Jewish Week. In time these columns went out electronically as well, titled “Off The Pulpit” and now appear...

Person in the Parsha: Va’etchanan

July 24, 2020

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“ANSWERING UNANSWERED PRAYERS”

Did you ever really pray for something you wanted? I mean, really fervently, desperately, pray hard for something that was vitally important to you?