Off the Pulpit: Responsibilities and dreams

August 04, 2017

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

This past week all across the world Jews mourned the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. And they blamed themselves.

Yes, there are passages in Jewish literature that excoriate the nations who carried out the destruction. There...

Parsha VA’ETCHANAN (Shabbat Nachamu)

July 28, 2017

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“SHATTERED TABLETS”

We were young then. They were old—in our eyes, very old. We were the students, barely what to do with our lives.

They were the elderly residents of an...

Off the Pulpit: Direct your heart to heaven

July 28, 2017

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

From the Talmud: A favorite saying of the rabbis of Yavneh was: “I am God’s creature and my fellow is God’s creature. My work is in the town and his work is in the country. I...

Off the Pulpit: Gifted, but Good?

July 21, 2017

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

We are a society geared toward the gifted. We have programs to enhance people’s natural endowments, special training and tutoring, early identification of people with talent or intelligence. Of course it makes sense; innovators and artists...

Person in the Parsha: DEVARIM

July 21, 2017

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“DEVARIM: A SUBLIME AUTOBIOGRAPHY“

There is a biography.

And then there is an autobiography.

Our biography is the way others see us. Our autobiography is the way we see ourselves.

Typically, there are...

Person in the Parsha: MATOT-MASEI

July 14, 2017

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“BREAKING PROMISES”

It was a typical park bench conversation. I hadn’t seen my friend for quite some time, and we both were delighted when we ran into each other...

Off the Pulpit: Listen, Israel

July 14, 2017

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

Deuteronomy is the great book of listening. We live in a visual time; our age is saturated with images. Everyone’s cellphone carries a camera and can document the sights of our lives. But over and over...

Person in the Parsha: PINCHAS

July 07, 2017

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“TEAMWORK AND LEADERSHIP“

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” “Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” I believe that most...

Off the Pulpit: Doors

July 07, 2017

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE

Franz Kafka in his famous parable “Before the Law” writes about a man who stands before a door designated only for him, but dies without entering. A very different spirit from Kafka, Ralph Waldo Emerson, nonetheless...

Person in the Parsha: Doing It My Way

June 30, 2017

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINBEB

Most of us have had occasions in our lives when we acted as supervisors over others. It might have been in our role as parents disciplining our children, it might have been as employers giving...