Why do visitors to the Kotel write prayers and place them in the crevices and cracks of the ancient stones? The practice doesn't come from the Torah, from the Talmud, or from scholars like Rashi or Maimonides. Truly, there is no ancient or even medieval reason for why we do this practice. The tale goes that a rabbi in 18th century Jerusalem directed a man to place a prayer in the Western Wall so that the man's prayer might be heard by God. From there, the practice spread and has become an act of deep conversation with God that everyone from heads of state to everyday Jerusalemites do to speak with the Power of All.   Why the Western Wall? Why Jerusalem? Why not Hebron, or Warsaw, or Crown Heights?  After the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, many Israelites believed God had abandoned Jacob's descendants. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman said that once the Temple was destroyed, God no longer resided in Jerusalem but returned to the heavens. Rabbi Elazar said that even … [Read more...]

There is a maxim in Judaism that we are forbidden from making an 'empty blessing.' Every blessing we make, say our Rabbis, must be followed by its related action.  For instance, saying the prayer over the candles, and then lighting them. An 'empty' prayer with no action attached to it is considered hypocrisy against the Divine. And so, mere days after 19 fourth-graders (and two teachers) were gunned down at their school in Uvalde, TX, with many more hurt and maimed by a madman's bullets, we once again hear pundits offering their 'thoughts and prayers' in lieu of action. This makes me sick.  It makes me ache.  It hurts me in my soul. What kind of America have we allowed to develop where this can happen again and again and again? "Thoughts and prayers" are usually followed by the ever popular 'moment of silence.' I'm sure that the silence is meant to show respect for the dead, and empathy for their grieving families.  But, at this point, it feels nothing more than a hollow gesture. If … [Read more...]

It's true. You read it correctly. There wasn't a typo. A handful of weeks ago, I did not want to go to services.  I was tired.  I had a long week.  I had a busy weekend ahead of me.  I didn't even want to host a Shabbat dinner, I just wanted to have a quiet night to myself.  But I listened to your voices, the ones who often leave our services saying, "Rabbi, you know, I really wasn't in the mood to leave the house and come to services tonight, but it turns out that it was exactly what I needed, I'm so glad I came."   Your reminder was just what I needed, and the lively services lifted me up: my energy, my spirit, my smile. All it took was showing up to Temple Emanu-El on a Friday night and Shabbat did the rest.
  I hope you'll join me tomorrow night for services outside on the Schiffer Family Terrace Chapel.  Come hear the bigger story of what really happens when the rabbi doesn't want to go to services. I promise, there's a message for everyone in what I learned.  Soak up the holy … [Read more...]

In this week's parsha, Emor, God gives the command to our ancestors, "Do not desecrate my holy name.  I must be sanctified among the Israelites.  I am the Lord, who made you holy…" (Leviticus 22:32) Over the course of time, Judaism extracted two vital principles from this commandment.  The first is 'chillul Hashem,' the prohibition against desecrating God's name.  The second is its opposite, 'Kiddush Hashem', where we are instructed to sanctify God's name. Our rabbis ask a very direct question:  How could anything that we do, in a practical sense, either desecrate or sanctify God's name?   Inherent in their question is a deeper, theological one, which is: how can anything that we (regular people, Jews) do affect our God-most-high?  That we could do anything that would affect God seems somewhat counter-intuitive. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (z'l) teaches us that that our rabbis conclude an answer that is both simple, and profound. It is the conduct of the Jewish people that determines … [Read more...]

Israel, like the Jewish people, shouldn't exist today. For millennia, emperors and czars, kings and queens, pharaohs and sultans have sought our oppression, our destruction, and our annihilation. The easy explanation is that all of this is a miracle-"easy" because such a reason doesn't require us to look deeper. The real explanation is that our survival and the blossoming of our people is a result of our power for creativity, community, and the perseverance of our ancestors to defy the will of tyrants who sought our destruction. We could have been wiped out in Egypt by Pharoah and his evil decree. We could have been destroyed by Amalek during the forty years of desert wandering. When the Babylonians destroyed our Temple in Jerusalem, we built another. When the Romans destroyed our Temple in Jerusalem again, we invented Rabbinic Judaism, a model of Judaism that could survive while the Jewish people lived in foreign lands. We could have been destroyed by Philistines, Greeks, Persians, … [Read more...]