We know him as Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our Master, Moses our Teacher, Moses our Master Teacher. Such a title certainly tells us a great deal about Moshe and qualifies him for the title “Person in the Parsha.”
Each parsha, for the next many Shabbatot, provides us with a not-to-be-missed opportunity to prepare ourselves, intellectually and spiritually, for the wonderful holiday which lies ahead.
The two old men couldn't have been more different from each other. Yet they both taught me the identical life lesson.
Can you sleep at night? There is so much trouble in the world. Violence, wars large and small, natural disasters, disease. We all personally know many who are suffering at this very moment.
I was always taught of the advantage of simplicity in language. My favorite author during my adolescence was Ernest Hemingway, and I remember reading comments that he made criticizing those who used multi-syllable words when shorter words would suffice.
I often find myself disagreeing with the phrase, "It's just a footnote in history". I have found some of the most interesting and important facts buried, unseen by most people, in the footnotes of the books I read.
Can you sleep at night? There is so much trouble in the world. Violence, wars large and small, natural disasters, disease. We all personally know many who are suffering at this very moment. Some are friends and acquaintances living in plain sight. Others are individuals in the media, people whose pain we see portrayed daily on the evening news.
The two old men couldn't have been more different from each other. Yet they both taught me the identical life lesson.
Chanukah is now more than a week behind us, so I figure that I can share with you some of the sequels of the Chanukah story. Sorry to say that even though we have all recently glorified the martial, spiritual, and political successes of the Chashmonaim, or Hasmonaeans, all did not go very well in the long run.
Having lived on the eastern seaboard of the United States for most of my life, I know the havoc wrought by a severe snowstorm. Nevertheless, I am also very aware of the beauty of such snowstorms and especially by the beauty of each single snowflake.
We all have received blessings at one time or another. We have certainly received compliments. Over the course of time, we learn that sometimes the compliments are clearly flattering. But occasionally, ambiguous statements are made to us, leaving us confused and unable to determine with certainty whether we are being complimented or insulted.
They called him a horse thief. That was the worst possible epithet that one could hurl at a young man in the early 19th-century shtetl, or village, of Czernovitz. Back then, a horse was a very necessary item, and many of the townspeople spent all of their hard-earned savings to procure one. Losing one's horse often meant losing one's livelihood.
It was the last session of the course in which I was utilizing the book of Genesis as a text for the study of leadership. Since it was the final session, I decided that I would structure the discussion in a very different manner.
There is a statement in Jewish mystical literature to the effect that the end of every story is already implicit in its beginning, and that at least some elements of the story's beginning endure until its end.
I was very embarrassed by her sharp rebuke. But looking back, I realize that the lesson I learned from her brief criticism was more valuable than most of my other training experiences.
October 7, 2023, Shabbat Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, was a horrible day for the thousands of victims, for the State of Israel, and for the Jewish people all over the world. The immediate reaction to that tragic day took many forms, since the events were indescribable even for the most articulate and fair-minded observers. Given the extent of the horrors of that day, we are at a loss for how to react.
I have known more than my share of families that are torn by discord. I think most of us, perhaps even all of us, are familiar with families in which brothers and sisters have not spoken to each other in years, sometimes even having forgotten the original reason for the destruction of their relationship. My background and experience in the field of family therapy has given me even broader exposure than most to this unfortunate phenomenon.
This has got to be one of the oldest "rabbi" jokes in the entire repertoire of American Jewish humor. It tells us of the young rabbi, fresh from rabbinical school, who addresses his first several sermons to his new congregation on the varied subjects of meticulous Sabbath observance, refraining from malicious gossip, honesty in business, and the avoidance of inappropriately familiar behavior with other men's wives.
I have been blessed with many fine teachers. She was one of the best.
It was Carol who initiated the most fascinating interchange that evening. It was the 11th session of our class, dedicated to studying the topic of leadership by examining the text of the book of Genesis. It was also the next to last class session, so that it was only natural that there was already an atmosphere of sadness in the room.
One thought, and one thought only, preoccupied me that evening while I was in the car on the way to the weekly session of the class I was leading on the subject of basic Jewish concepts in the book of Genesis. I knew that this was the next to last class in the series and that soon I would have to be saying goodbye to Leon, Richard, and Simon. I wondered whether they too were similarly preoccupied, anticipating that the class would soon be over.
The happiest picture that I can imagine portrays an entire family sitting around the dinner table. One of the saddest pictures is of that same family with one empty seat, with one family member missing.
It is only in recent years that individuals in important public roles wore special garments. Kings and queens wore royal garb, important government figures wore top hats, and judges wore black robes and wigs. In those now bygone days, the adage “clothes make the man” may have had some truth. Things are different nowadays.
Wisdom is the rarest of all important human qualities. Observers of the contemporary state of affairs often remark that wisdom, which is especially necessary in this day and age, is now particularly lacking.
Since my early childhood, I've associated the day after Chanukah with sad feelings, feelings of loss. After all, for eight consecutive days, we celebrated with hallel v'hodaah, with praise and thanksgiving, with special foods and songs, and gifts.