Rabbi’s Corner

Oct. 6, 1973. It’s Yom Kippur. Even non-religious Israelis are in shul. After the Six-Day War in 1967, six years earlier, a fantastic and one-sided victory against its enemies, Israel has become complacent.
And all of a sudden, on this holiest of days, Israelis start to hear that the Syrian army is attacking on the Golan Heights where there are very few Israeli troops and it looks like they can charge through right to Tel Aviv. Egypt is crossing the Suez Channel. Israel is being overrun. Its very existence hangs in the balance.
On that day, Jewish people in Israel and around the world were chanting the prayer Unetana Tokef: “Who will live and who will die? Who will reach the end of their days and who will not?” This prayer is supposed to be a wake-up call to think about life itself. This prayer is meant to call us to reflection. (more…)

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5)

If you grew up when I did, you probably remember the book and movie Love Story. The book, published by Erich Segal in 1970, was a bestseller. The movie based on the book, released in the same year, made stars of Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw. They play college students Jenny and Oliver from opposite social economic backgrounds who fall in love and marry. They then must deal with tragedy as she contracts cancer. This is not a spoiler; her death is the first line of the book. (more…)

I’ve met so many people who are turned off by the word “religion.” When I meet with them, I ask them why. For some, it’s the guilt they feel when they don’t live up to the expectations of their religious community. For others, the rules are just too hard, or they feel judged by religious people. And for others, it’s all the bad that religious people have done in the name of religion itself. For all these reasons and so many more, there are good spiritual people that just won’t step into religion. (more…)

(Sermon given at the Bar Mitzvah Ceremony of Max Garsten, son of Bryan and Anna Garsten)

Our custom here at Beth Sholom is for the rabbi to ask the Bar or Bat Mitzvah for a topic to talk about at their service. Max has been interested in juggling, so we decided on this subject.
I don’t know anything about juggling colored balls or bowling pins, but I did once see a movie, that no one else ever heard of, called, “The Juggler”. The Juggler is a 1953 drama film starring Kirk Douglas as a survivor of the Holocaust. After World War II, Hans Müller is one of a shipload of Jewish refugees who disembark at Haifa in 1949 and are placed in a refugee camp. Like many other concentration camp survivors, Hans has many emotional problems, including survivor guilt. At one point, he mistakes a woman and her children for his murdered family. (more…)

Last month, our website Editor, George Alexander, was kind enough to place my eulogy for my mother in this space. That was very meaningful for me personally, and it allowed me to share my feelings with the congregation. I always have found that the most personal is the most universal, and that my experiences and feelings relate in different ways to different people. (more…)

This is my eulogy for my mother, Judith Edidin Scolnic, given at Beth El of Montgomery County on Jan. 13, 2022

In one of the most popular movies of all time, half the population of the universe disappears in what is called “The Snap.” Thanos, the personification of death, snaps his fingers. The people are there, and then in a flash, they’re gone. (more…)

(Sermon given on the 75th Anniversary Shabbat)

It’s a famous story in the Torah. There are two brothers, twins, Esau and Jacob.

Esau goes out hunting and he doesn’t kill anything,

and he’s really tired, and really hungry, and when he comes back to the camp,

he sees his brother Jacob cooking something. He wants what’s in the pot,

and Jacob offers to give it to him in exchange for the birthright. (more…)

There was a special gift that G-d gave us at the dawn of creation. It was the gift of speech. Speaking is an important part of being human.

There is a famous story in the Torah that tells us how we almost lost that Divine gift. The people after the Flood built the Tower of Babel. And they were punished. We know the generation of the Flood sinned and was therefore punished. (more…)