Weekly D'var Torah

The Mishna tells us that Torah study develops 48 spiritual superpowers!  Check out the daily quote about the Middah (virtue) of the day and focus on developing that trait in your own journey!

Days...Read more...

D’var Torah for Rosh Chodesh

When was the world brought into being?  When did G-d say, “let there be light?”  When was humanity created in the image of the...Read more...

When the people saw that Moshe delayed descending Mount Sinai, they went to Aharon: Make us a god that will lead us, for the man Moshe who took us out of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. 

Ever since then, in every sin that Israel has...Read more...

The last two thirds of the Book of Exodus is focused on building the Mishkan (Tabernacle), the traveling compound containing a fenced-in courtyard, altar, tent and inner sanctum sanctorum that held the Aron HaBrit; the Ark...Read more...

The Rabbis are clear: Moses hung...Read more...

Adonai said to come to Pharoah...
 
If Moses is told to come to Pharoah rather than to go to Pharoah, there must be a deeper meaning.
 
What is the difference after all between coming and going?
 
Well, coming means moving toward and going means moving away. "Come here." "Go there." "Come" means moving toward the speaker and "go" means moving away from the speaker.
 
So, by saying come to...Read more...

These are the names of the Children of Israel who came down to Egypt with their father, Jacob and their households:
 
Reuven, Shimon, Levi, Judah, Yisachar, Zebulon, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher...and Joseph who...Read more...

Every so often it seems that fasting as a health practice comes into vogue, complete with studies, graphs and excited personal testimonies.
 
But Judaism has highlighted seasonal fasts as a way of focusing our hearts and minds for the...Read more...

Rabbi Rudin’s Chanukah​ Prayer to Share

Daveed Diggs​ (Jefferson/Lafayette in Hamilton) Puppy for Hanukkah

Maccabeats​ bring the light! Click to hear their latest...Read more...

Many, many years ago when I was a Jew-froed college kid in Minnesota, I was busking with my old guitar on campus and met up with one of the many Evangelical youth ministers, who -- hearing me singing in Hebrew -- wanted to talk about God.

Not wanting to have a long, drawn-out showdown with a missionary, I stated flatly that I didn’t believe in God, that I was angry at God, that I was in rebellion against the whole idea of God and the failures of faith to address the crises of humanity. Did I mean it? To a degree, yes, but as we Jews all know, our relationship with HaShem is complicated...so rather than opening the window to a nuanced and complex inner experience, I just gave the youth minister the shorthand version, hoping to resolve things quickly.

But the minister saw through the ruse immediately. He smiled and said, “But you are haunted by God. You are infused with God -- God speaks powerfully through you.” Then we each went our separate ways in the cool Minneapolis spring night.

Reflecting on that brief exchange, over the years, I have thought that irrespective of our individual beliefs or lack of same, we Jews don’t just have a message -- we ARE a message. “You are My witnesses,” HaShem tells us through Prophet Isaiah. What is the message we embody?

That is too deep a question for any answer...but it seems to me that whatever it is, somehow we are a statement of faith, of eternal optimism. A people who have come through all that history, and the worst that humanity had to throw at us, and found a way to rise up time after time, not for selfishness and self-aggrandizement, but to bless the world in every human endeavor. I don’t think that it’s an accident that the CEO of Pfizer and the Chief Scientist of Moderna -- both the first companies to develop a vaccine -- are Jews, motivated by the search for healing truth.

To appropriate philosopher Marshall McLuhen’s proclamation about television: the media is the message, then whatever we as individual Jews believe or practice of our ancient faith, we are the message that HaShem has not given up on the world, that the still small Voice calling us to a higher life is still murmuring its gentle, challenging song in every human heart.
    
I am convinced more and more, from sixty years of life on this planet, that that message is the one that most needs to be heard by despairing, struggling, divided humanity.

The word Jew, Yehudi, literally means “proclaimer.” With every fiber of my being I abjure every child of Israel in this world to embrace that destiny, that message, to be that message. Many years ago now, I put to music words from King David’s Book of Psalms, which I shared at an interfaith Thanksgiving gathering. I haven’t looked at the song for a long time, but now that I have, it seems to me to express that message, at least as I understand it.

So -- truly, brothers and sisters of Beit Yisrael, let us give thanks to HaShem for the hope, love and strength implanted like a golden seed in our heart. Let us give thanks to HaShem, for we know somehow in our kishkes that HaShem is there waiting for us, encouraging us, supporting us through all the great trials of the times. Perhaps some call this the “self-actualization drive” or the placebo response or evolutionary imperative -- but we all know that whatever veil HaShem is concealed in, the light of pure life, pure being, shines through us. Let us give thanks.

Here is the song. Anything good about it is due to Yonatan’s fine recording -- its deficiencies are mine alone... Happy, Happy Thanksgiving!

Much love, Rabbi Rudin

We mourn the loss of Torah giant and leader of world Jewry Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth. His keen intellect, kind heart and incredible ability to universalize and articulate...Read more...

Four thousand years ago, there was a guy named Avraham (Abraham).

Four thousand years ago... Hammurabi was a century away. The Phaistos Disc, the world’s oldest, weirdest archeological find, whose languages and even purpose are...Read more...

The Genesis stories are the foundations of Jewish culture and spirituality. These are not simple fables but a complex and nuanced saga that constantly challenges us to look deeper into the issues raised and into...Read more...

And at the time of ingathering, you shall celebrate the Feast of Sukkot at the turning of the year...Seven Days shall you dwell in Sukkot and you shall rejoice on your festival.
 
What's with the Booth in the Backyard?
 
Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur are sacred...Read more...

In his bestseller The Gifts of the Jews, writer Thomas Cahill points out that Judaism's unique outlook liberated the world from the perception of human history as an endless round of birth, growth, decay and death to one that recognized the possibility, indeed the inevitability, of growth, evolution and progress.   In other words, if Judaism can be boiled down to a single word, that word would be Tikvah -- Hope -- as in Israel's national...Read more...