Rabbi’s Corner

Changing the Narrative

These days, when we think about Israel, we often think about how some people think negatively about Israel. We know that Israel has more than its share of problems, external threats and internal threats. The external threats are countries and groups in the Middle East and elsewhere who are sworn to destroy Israel. They are always an immediate threat to Israel’s survival. The internal issues are socio-economic and religious. We know all this.

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Baby Story

The baby looked healthy at first. He was born by Caesarean section, and his skin color and breathing looked perfectly healthy. But within two hours of birth, he was having severe seizures. The staff at the Rambaum Medical Center in Haifa, Israel were doing a routine check when they realized that the baby was not well. They transferred him to the neonatal intensive care unit right away.

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The Most Dangerous Part of The Human Body

What is the most dangerous part of the human body? A boxer might say our hands. A martial arts expert might say one’s legs. Would anyone say one’s mouth?

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The Allen School

The Allen School was the worst school in the Dayton, Ohio system for many years,. Located in the dilapidated inner city, the dropout rate was astronomical. Fifth graders had parole officers.

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XENOCIDE

As we are about to celebrate Pesach, I want to think about a word I associate with the High Holidays. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when we repent for our sins and mistakes in the last year, we have a confession called the vidui that uses every letter of the Hebrew alphabet to name a sin or a fault. When the English translators wanted to duplicate this Hebrew acrostic, they did not know what to do with the letter “x”, which does not exist in Hebrew, so they came up with Xenophobia, which is fear of the strange and the alien, fear of the other. At first, people I know mocked this translation, but they don’t mock it any more.

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Lies and Truths

It might seem strange that we are at a point in time that we need to talk about telling the truth, but we are clearly at that point in time.

The Torah says: “You must not carry false rumors; you shall not join hands with the guilty to act as a malicious witness.” (Exodus 23:1)

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A Wall In Your Heart

Following the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (70 C.E.), the outer western wall of the Temple Mount became Judaism’s most holy and sacred space. The Western Wall, or the Kotel was never abandoned by Jewish people and there was always a special veneration for that holy space.

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Fighting Chaos

I keep thinking about the hurricane season that passed, because for a lot of the victims of those terrible catastrophes, the nightmare is far from over. After I continue to send funds to those who need, I try to understand these events. And I think about the story of the ancient Flood and how Noah survived: “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened” (Genesis 7:11).

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Visiting The Sick

A recent Bat Mitzvah, Rachel Goldstein, does a wonderful mitzvah: she visits the Ronald McDonald House in New Haven to play with children whose siblings are being treated in near by hospitals. Rachel and her mother Tanya have gone to the house to do craft projects and play games with the kids while the parents are in the hospital with their siblings. A mitzvah is not just a good deed. It is a commandment: We are commanded to visit the sick.

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The hateful march in Charlottesville,

the so-called Alt Right, White Supremacy.

The massacre in Las Vegas, Mass Murder, Gun Violence.

Sexual Harassment in Hollywood and many other spheres of society.

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