Rabbi’s Torah Commentary

It was 25 years ago that I closed my law office in Little Rock, Arkansas. I was moving to Jerusalem for my first year as a Rabbinical Student, and everything was moving at a whirlwind pace. I had given away cases that were worth millions and cases that were strictly pro-bono, but it all happened […]

Perhaps the line that appears most often in the Torah reads, “God said to Moses, Speak to the people …” It was Moses’ job to teach people. To transmit the teaching from God to the people and back, and to create and foster meaningful relationships with the community … these are Moses’ tasks, whether or […]

These days I find it challenging to open the Newsfeed applications on my computer. I hit the button and close my eyes, hoping that stories of blessings replace those of pain which I am expecting to read. While there are certainly amazing things happening in the world, we do not often get them on the […]

I was speaking to my mom who was telling me of her last Dr’s. visit. She had a pretty clean bill of health for a woman who has been through a great many challenges in life. I know the many challenges that she faces. Still, though, I always get to hear about the luncheons she […]

It is hard to be creative, having to write about the same portion two weeks in a row; especially when that means three or four different sermonic ideas on the same text. Last week, we read Parashat Shemini. We are doing it again this week. We are in the midst of a holiday based calendar […]

My Rabbi gave me some great advice before I left the practice of law to head off to Rabbinical school. Rabbi Gene Levy told me to remember the following: 1. If I don’t ask myself every day, “What am I doing here?” I do not belong. 2. Hebrew Union College (the Rabbinical seminary) is a […]

This year, our congregation celebrated a week-long of Purim. It was not intentional, but sort of just happened. We did a Purim play in religious school for older kids, another for the whole school, and another for adults on a Saturday night. Passover is shaping up the same way. If we include the various religious […]

This year, our congregation celebrated a week-long of Purim. It was not intentional, but sort of just happened. We did a Purim play in religious school for older kids, another for the whole school, and another for adults on a Saturday night. Passover is shaping up the same way. If we include the various religious […]

As a teenager, I thought I was bulletproof. I played ball with reckless abandon, and did not reserve this for only games that mattered; it was a way of life. My mom loves telling the story of the day the gym called her to tell her that her son had broken his ankle. I was […]

The other day, I read an article about song lyrics gone wrong. The classic misreading is of Iron Butterfly’s “Ina Gadda Davida,” which is actually “In the garden of Eden.” Go figure. The article I read pointed to hundreds of other songs that have been abused … I even found a few that I had […]