Category: Rabbi’s Dvrei Torah

I hope that many of you are loyal readers of “Torah from Sinai” each week. I try to share some practical insight, bit of wisdom, or profound teaching that is relevant to people’s lives and connected to what is going on in our world. This week is the last of our calendar year. Much of what concerned…

Goodness. Happiness. Peace… …If our positive wishes for people do come true, then Goodness, Happiness, and Peace are what you can expect this weekend. The Shabbat during Chanuka is always and (almost) uniquely a triple-header of holidays: Rosh Chodesh – the New Month of Tevet on the Jewish lunar calendar, Chanuka (still!), and of course…

I’m sure you are all as deeply unsettled as I am by the shocking rise of antisemitism across the U.S. and around the world, on college campuses, and expressed as an almost normative outlook by certain repulsive cultural and political figures. I think it was Rabbi Leo Baeck who noted that we Jews view the…

I’m the father of three boys, two of whom are the age of military service. Their many good childhood friends, cousins, and children of some of my own closest friends are all currently serving in the IDF. This drasha written decades ago by my teacher Rabbi Shmuel Avidor haCohen, z”l goes straight to my heart today as…

The discussion in our weekly Torah study class on Monday nights is lively. For me personally, it almost always produces some profound insight that I treasure and think about the rest of the week, if not longer. For this week’s parasha, Veyetzei, we talked about the famous angels going up and down the ladder in Jacob’s dream.…

I hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving yesterday! Let’s acknowledge the important symbolism of all those leftovers in the fridge that need to be eaten, even if your tummy remains full from yesterday: Giving thanks is never really over and done with. If you live another day there is always more to be grateful for. Today, as…

It seems odd that our Torah portion this week is entitled Chayei Sarah, “the life of Sarah” when it immediately announces the death of Sarah and recounts nothing of her life! As always though, the Torah has a purpose and a lesson. Our job is to “turn it and turn it because all is found within it” (Pirkei Avot…

Sen-No Rikyu was a 16th century Japanese sage, the greatest master in the art of hosting guests in the Tea House that ever lived. A disciple once asked him: “What precisely are the things that must be kept in mind at a tea gathering?” Rikyu answered: “Make a delicious bowl of tea; Lay the charcoal…

This Shabbat is the start of a new year for our weekly reading of the parashat hashavua – the weekly Torah reading. Among many other things, the weekly parasha is a unique – perhaps Divine – marker of time. Our lives and the events of our week so often seem somehow to connect to, reference as allusion, or otherwise assume some…

These last couple of days during our Sukkot holiday, the words of our daily evening prayer have echoed in my head: “ufros aleinu Sukkat shlomecha, God, please spread over us the “Sukkah”, the shelter, of your peace.” The prayer expresses a feeling and a need that I think we all share. There is rarely a day…