This week’s parashah, Ki Tavo, contains quite a number of curses and blessings. The Torah paints a striking picture of the Israelites, divided by tribe, standing on the tops of Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, facing one another. The Levites call out blessings...

“The Mother and Child reunion is only a motion away.” That was Paul Simon’s 1972 record, his first after Simon and Garfunkel broke up. Simon said he was sitting at a restaurant in Chinatown, and there was a dish on the menu called Mother and Child...

Much of the Book of Devarim deals with the obligation we have as a people to remain separate. We are obligated not to follow the customs of the people whose land we are conquering nor to assimilate ourselves among them. This is due to a culture and...

Helen Keller is said to have famously taught that it is “better to be blind and see with your heart, than to have two good eyes and see nothing.’’  This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Re’eh opens with an imperative to truly see in a similar...

Do you remember the cartoons in which a rain cloud would appear and cause a storm over just one individual? Even as we can marvel that, at a given moment, it’s raining in Clayton but not in Ladue, at the J but not at Mirowitz, our St. Louis region...

This Shabbat marks the start of the Book of Deuteronomy, which reads: “These are the words (d’varim) that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan …” Deuteronomy is also referred to as Mishneh Torah, or the repetition...

Kol Nidrei…“Wait!” you may be thinking. “Is it Yom Kippur already?” But stay with me for a minute.  As many of us may know, Jewish holidays start at sundown and continue until sundown the next day. To help us distinguish the evening of a holiday...

This past Sunday, we fasted on the 17th of Tammuz, which our rabbis, in Mishnah Ta’anit 4:6, say commemorates five events:  Moshe breaking the Two Tablets upon seeing the Golden Calf;  suspension of the daily offerings in the Temple; the Romans...

There are two muffins baking in an oven, a blueberry and a bran. The bran muffin turns to the blueberry and says, “Is it just me, or is it hot in here?” and the blueberry muffin says, “Holy cow! A talking muffin!!!” In this week’s parasha,...

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel devoted much of his writing and teaching to calling people to “Radical Amazement,” or heightened awareness of mystery and awe. "We don't live in an awareness that all that is is an incomprehensible mystery and miracle,”...

When my grandfather, Rabbi Benson Skoff, was in the third grade, he ran for class president. He told me that he ran against a girl in his class and that he thought the gentlemanly thing to do would be to vote for her. And he expected her to do the same. She...

Last month I was lamenting the end of an era as one of the TV shows I enjoyed, “Around the Horn” came to an end after over 22 years on ESPN.  What I particularly loved about “Around the Horn” was that sportswriters from all over the country...