Did you know that every Jew is a High Priest? I don’t say this tongue-in-cheek. According to the great commentator Rabbi Yakov Bal Haturim, this is precisely what G-d meant when he told our ancestors at Sinai, “You will be for me a kingdom of priests.”[1] Not only priests but …
Mount of Olives
On the first day of Sukkot, the Haftorah reading is from Zacharia, chapter 14. In verse four the prophet tells us that in the Messianic age, “the Mount of Olives will split at its center eastward and westward, making a huge ravine, half the mountain will move northward …
A Typical Exchange
With more than twenty years in the rabbinate I have seen my share of painful human interactions and have become an observer of human nature. I find that two thigs often happen when people berate each other. First, the berator comes on too strong to be heard. Second, …
These past two days have been the most difficult for our people in the last fifty years. It was Simchat Torah, a time for rejoicing, yet it was a time of horror. Nearly a thousand members of our family were brutally murdered, more than a hundred were taken hostage, and …