Rabbi’s Torah Thoughts

At the “Let’s Talk About Israel” Conference this past Sunday at the Buffalo Marriott, the keynote speaker, Shalom Orzach, spoke among other things, about Passover.  “This is a holiday” – and I paraphrase – “where we sit around a table,…

This Shabbat, we will celebrate the Bar Mitzvah of Adam Kopf.  In addition to sending out a big Mazel Tov to Adam, his parents Jennifer and Robert and older sister Natalie, we also commend him for taking on such a…

Biblically speaking, 8 (Shemonah) is one of the most important of all Jewish numbers.  In addition to being the number of days when a circumcision Brit Milah is performed, it is at the heart of the Hanukkah celebration with its…

Another Purim has come and gone at Shir Shalom.  Kudos to Cantor Frank and Mark Knightenger, and the entire cast and crew of “The Megillah According to Barbie”!  To Julia and Eileen for the fantastic sets, and for everyone who…

This past week, I drove down to Philadelphia to join colleagues in the Reform movement at our annual convention.  In preparing to leave on any journey, I find I am most nervous in the hours before I leave.  This is…

For Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger and Noar A’wad, the question of who their neighbors were was confusing and upsetting. Were their neighbors only the Israeli settler or Palestinian Arab communities they respectively lived amongst in the West Bank or were they…

I finally watched Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer with my son Boaz.  Without giving anything away, what stood out most was the dramatization of the initial test of the bomb on July 16, 1945.  Nolan and his cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, brought…

Many times in my career as a rabbi, I have been asked about the right way to do a particular Jewish ritual.  Whether it is lighting Shabbat candles on Shabbat, putting earth into a grave during a burial, or what…

There is a plaque right in front of the sanctuary of the synagogue I grew up in listing every single person who contributed to building that currently houses the community.  Built in the 1990s, the three-story building replaced the small…

Right from the moment I first met her, I could tell Cantor Susan Wehle, of blessed memory, was different.  She glowed with the light of goodness and love.  Her joy was contagious, as was her passion.  As a newcomer to…