When we enter the world of the Book of Numbers, Bamidbar, In the Wilderness, I harken back to the discomfort of my own camping experiences. There was always grumbling from me or my brother. Yet the wilderness is the place of revelation. True, its...

This Shabbat, we will read Parashat Emor from the Book of Leviticus. Like many of the other Parshiot in this Holy Sefer, Emor highlights the special responsibilities and obligations placed upon the Kohanim, the Priestly Class of Ancient Israel. One...

In Denver, I was based in the community’s nominally Jewish hospital and spent half of my time there delivering pastoral care to a wide variety of people and families.One of the areas in which I was called to specialize came as a result a need identified...

This particular Passover observance, while it may be dominated by the external expressions inspired by time-bound practices, has presented us with an opportunity to recalculate our future by recalibrating our reason for being.Most of us, myself included,...

The “Sarajevo Haggadah,” handwritten and illustrated in 14th century Spain, was probably part of the expulsion from Spain in 1492. The details of how and when it arrived in Sarajevo, now the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, are not known. But it...

Remember when we used to congregate together in our synagogues, at the Jewish Community Center, at restaurants, in movie theaters and in other such meeting places? Remember when people wearing masks were usually about to commit a crime rather than protect...

This week’s parshah, Kee Teesa, contains one of the ugliest transgressions in the long history of the Jewish people: Chet HaEgel, the sin of the forging and worshipping the Golden Calf.Quite honestly, if I had my druthers, and the chutzpah to do so,...

There is a psalm for every day of the week, known as Shir Shel Yom.  Wednesday’s is Psalm 94, and it tells us, “For the law shall return to righteousness, and all those of upright heart shall follow it.” Implicit is the reality that the...

In Parashat Mishpatim, which we will read this coming Shabbat, we find ourselves situated between a mountain (Mount Sinai) and a Mishkan (the portable desert Tabernacle). The juxtaposition of the other-worldly grandeur of the Sinaitic revelation and the...

In this week’s Torah portion, Yitro, we encounter one of the most epic moments in the Torah.At the foot of Mount Sinai, accompanied by thunder and lightning, the newly freed Israelites enter into a new covenant with their Redeemer. They hear the Ten...

This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Shirah, the Shabbat of Song. It is so named because the Torah reading this week includes Shirat HaYam, the “Song of the Sea,” the earliest example of shirah in the Bible. More than just a song, shirah is a genre of...

The Torah portion for this week, Bo, is filled with plagues (three, to be exact), darkness, laws of Passover, the commandment to sanctify the new moon, borrowed items and pidyon ha-ben — redemption of the first-born son. This is a story about our liberation...