I begin and end my day in prayer. As part of my Hitboddedut, the time in which I pour out my heart to God, I include prayers for members of our congregation who are suffering. I also pray that the members of our community who are serving in the armed forces return home to us Shalem -- in wholeness and peace. I think of these young people often. I try to keep up with their whereabouts. I worry about their safety.

We are a country at war in a faraway place. I have resisted the urge to share my views on the war with the congregation. I fear the political divide at Bet Ha'am is so contentious that my views would shed more heat than light. I am ashamed that I have allowed myself to be silenced by that fear.read more

From July 4-14,2005, I was with over 100 Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis from across North America, South America and Israel participating in a two week program located at Shalom Hartman Institute's Jerusalem campus. Focused on the topic of Religion, Ethics and Violence, we explored the pressing questions brought to the fore by the global links between religion and terrorism.

With the guidance of some of the Jewish world’s leading scholars – including Moshe Halbertal, David Hartman, Donniel Hartman, Melila Hellner-Eshed, Israel Knohl, Menachem Lorberbaum, Vered Noam, and Noam Zion – from morning until night we studied issues related to the holiness of land, rights of minorities, morality of war, place of the ethical in religious consciousness, and limits of religious authority. read more

On the eve of Passover, 1135 in Cordova, Spain, the greatest Jewish thinker, perhaps of all time, was born. His name was Moses Maimonides. This year we observe his 800th Yartzeit, the 800th anniversary of his death. Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that, “If one did not know that Maimonides was the name of a man, one would assume it was the name of a university.” Jewish Day schools, hospitals and colleges around the world bear his name because his erudition and influence on medicine, philosophy and Jewish law was so profound.

Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon was born in Spain to a distinguished family of Dayanim (Rabbinical Judges). Shortly after his birth, his family was forced to flee Spain when Spain was conquered by a fanatically Muslim sect known as the Almohades. The Almohades were known to offer Jews and Christians the choice of conversion to Islam or death. The family fled to Morocco, then Israel and finally Egypt where Maimonides hoped to continue his studies. read more

All evidence to the contrary aside, summer is coming. David, Zachary, Hannah and I hope you will take time for relaxation, contemplation and great Jewish books! As you begin to select your summer reading, here are a few titles I will be bringing with me to the beach. You might enjoy them as well: A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz read more

We are now in the period of the Jewish calendar called Sefirat Ha-Omer, the Counting of the Omer. An Omer is a sheaf of grain and the Torah commands us to count 50 days from the second day of Passover until the holiday of Shavuot, a harvest holiday.

Shavuot is quite unusual. The other harvest holidays mentioned in the Torah are connected with a celebration of some historical event as well as the bringing in of the harvest. On Sukkot, we remember that the Israelites wandered through the desert and lived in huts (Sukkot). On Passover we celebrate our liberation from Egyptian slavery. The Torah makes no mention of what historical event corresponds to Shavuot, even though Shavuot is the holiday on which we were given the Torah on Mount Sinai. read more