When Rudyard Kipling’s popularity was at his height, the story goes, he used to receive 10 shillings a word for his stories. Two students at Oxford mischievously sent him a letter enclosing 10 shillings, explaining...
After Yom Kippur comes Succot. Repentance, then rain.
Succot actually reinforces the theme of Yom Kippur in a powerful way. The Day of Atonement teaches the brevity of life – who shall live and who shall...
There are many persons in this week’s parshah. Chief among them, of course, are Adam and Eve, the very first persons on earth. But the names of quite a...
Each of us faces two kinds of intertwined struggles: those with the world and those inside oneself. True, if you change yourself you are likely to act differently toward others, and if you act differently it...
As a pulpit rabbi, I look out each High Holidays at a different congregation. The year before we chanted “who shall live and who shall die.” I see absences – people who were there the year...
On Rosh Hashanah we repeat U’vchein ten Pachdecha which is literally – grant your fear. Since fear seems such a negative concept, why is this phrase so central to the prayers?
In this month of Elul before Rosh Hashana we blow the shofar each morning after the minyan. Several years ago I used to listen to the shofar masterfully blown by Rabbi Mark Fasman, who was also...
For some time, certain ideas have dominated my consciousness. Don’t worry, these are not obsessive thoughts, and I am not a candidate for a psychiatric diagnosis. Rather, whenever...
A beautiful question-and-answer in the name of the Gerer Rebbe: When strangers come to visit Abraham (Genesis 18), the Torah tells us that Abraham, who was in God’s presence, rushes out to visit the strangers. The...
