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…
Tag: Jewish Holidays
Sukkot – Finding Shelter in a Transient World
Sukkot recalls that freedom came as the result of pitching tents over 1 4,600 days and honors the 43,000 meals prepared in the dessert. But more importantly Sukkot reminds us that God is everywhere and undermines the idolatry of rootedness.…
Shabbat Shuvah – Scandalous!
The Bible is the best-selling book of all time. It is also one of the least read! Even those who claim love and fidelity for the Bible, who often quote chapter and verse, rarely have read the Scriptures in entirety!…
Cleaning Our Homes and Hearts
This Shabbat is Shabbat HaGadol or the Sabbath of “the Great One”. The Great One is Elijah the prophet, the one who according to tradition will herald the coming of the Messiah. So on this last Shabbat prior to Pesach…
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…
Shabbat HaChodesh – It’s About Time
Time is the most elusive yet dominant concept in the human experience. We struggle to understand it and we struggle to control it, yet our endless awareness and fear of time lurks behind all our endeavors. So, we invent devices…
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 nineteenth…
Light Over Might
Listen to an audio version One of the primary messages of Chanukah is to avoid assimilation at all costs. But how often do we hear that the Chanukah story is about religious freedom? As if any religion would have been…
Shavuos all Over Again
Yankee Hall of Famer Yogi Berra was renown for his unique and often comical manner of turning a phrase. One phrase that has become part of the American lexical tradition is “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” Déjà vu…
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…