The Torah teaches that every mitzvah is vital, yet all of Judaism rests upon a single stem— faith in G-d and in the truth of the Torah. If that stem remains alive, everything else can grow from it.
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Fill Me Up – I’m Famished
Would you find it distasteful if I barged into your home while you were cooking stew, peeked into your pot and demanded, as Esau did of Jacob, “Pour some of that red stuff down my throat; I’m exhausted!” (1)
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Asking for Help?
As a rabbi in a small community, I am often approached by congregants, who need to recite the Kaddish, for help with Minyan recruitment. Before I respond to the call of duty and agree to recruit, I always ask the congregant to go beyond the call of duty …
The Perfume of Art
G-d instructed Moses on the art of making anointment oil with which Jewish kings and priests were anointed. The ingredients included spices of the finest sort: 500 shekel weights of pure Myrrh, half of it, 250 shekel weights, of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekel weights of fragrant cane …
My Coffee SummitI have a vice, especially on long trips,called coffee. I got back to the car and shared this exchange with my wife. There is a sermon in this somewhere, she observed, and she was right. Here it is.
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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 …
