Harmonies

November 01, 2019

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

By 1815 Beethoven had avoided society for many months, yet he agreed to play his 27th sonata at the behest of Antoine and Therese Apponyi. The orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall records the scene in his...

Person in the Parsha: Lech Lecha

November 01, 2019

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“WALKING WITH AND WALKING BEFORE”

When I was still a pulpit rabbi back in Baltimore, I would meet with a group of teenagers from time to time. The agenda was open-ended,...

Person in the Parsha: Noach

October 25, 2019

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“EASY SPIRITUALITY“

The French poet Baudelaire once remarked that the devil’s greatest success is his ability to convince us that he does not exist.

Whereas Judaism does not believe in...

Off the Pulpit: Why a Messiah?

October 25, 2019

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

What is the purpose of a Messiah? Let us remind ourselves again of an answer written in an era of intolerance and hatred, the middle ages, from a man whose family fled the Almohad persecutions in...

Off the Pulpit: A Yizkor Message

October 18, 2019

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

On Yizkor we gather to remember the ones we miss. The ones who knew our world. The one who grasped the corkscrew twists special to your own soul.

What we miss, and what we crave, is the intimacy...

Off the Pulpit: Hide and Seek

October 11, 2019

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

Many of the high points of the Jewish tradition depend upon the end of concealment. In the Torah, God was long hidden from humanity until Abraham managed to see the world as filled with God’s presence....

God’s Prayer – and ours

October 04, 2019

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

At the beginning of the Talmud, in tractate Berachot, there is a curious question — What is God’s prayer? The Rabbis answer that God prays, “May My mercy overcome My anger.”

When our tradition speaks...

Person in the Parsha: Ha’azinu

October 03, 2019

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“REPRESSION OF THE SUBLIME”

It was advertised as one symposium at a major psychology conference. It was to be a discussion about memory and forgetfulness. But it turned out to be...

Rosh Hashanah is how we prove our humanity. Are you ready?

September 27, 2019

By RABBI DAVID BASHEVKIN 

NEW YORK (JTA) — Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of mankind. But if Rosh Hashanah is indeed the collective birthday of humanity, why do we “celebrate” with all our focus on God, sin and repentance?  The Rosh Hashanah...

Person in the Parsha: Nitzavim

September 20, 2019

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“THIS SEASON’S LEITMOTIF: RETURN!”

We have all been brought up to believe in the importance of progress. For the past several centuries, the goal of philosophy, religion, culture, and certainly science...