Category: Holiday Messages

Passover Lambs and Chesed Community

Among messianic Jews much has been said concerning the parallels between the sacrifices of the paschal lamb and that of Yeshua. After all the paschal lamb was the Korban Pesach, the essential sacrifice which God commanded the children of Israel…

A More Intimate Gathering

Listen to an audio version When I was a boy growing up in New York our family gatherings were like a scene out of the Barry Levinson movie Avalon. On Thanksgiving and Chanukah especially our get-togethers would involve not only…

Everybody Needs a Hero

Everybody needs a hero although often we don’t get the one we expect. Today’s Torah portion describes the heroic actions of Aaron, the Kohen Gadol (High Priest). Like most true heroes, he had to rise to an occasion greater than…

Imperfect Instruments

The Rosh Hashanah halacha teaches that a shofar which develops a hole, or a flaw remains fully kosher, even if the hole alters its sound. Because all sounds are valid for a shofar. I find this fascinating. Somehow, I sensed there was…

Nitsavim – Choose Life

  Listen to an audio version God is dead! Or so some would say, such as Richard Rubinstein the esteemed former professor of religion at University of Florida and Bridgeport University. As a leading cultural analyst, and a most prominent…

The Lamb of God; Dayenu

Listen to an audio version At the each Passover Seder just prior to the second cup of wine we sing Dayenu (lit. It would have been enough) a song that recognizes each of God’s beneficent gifts to Israel. After the…

Shabbat Parah – Get Ready For Change

  I have always thought that cheshbon hanefesh, literally a reckoning with one’s own soul was a practice most appropriate at the beginning of Elul, the month that preceded Rosh Hashanah. To this end Rabbi Israel Salanter, founder of the…