Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

Jessica Meir tweets her Hanukah greetings from theInternational Space Station December 2020 This week in our parasha we read about that dreamer par excellence, Joseph. The second youngest child among 12 sons, he dreams of his older brothers one day bowing down to him. His brothers ridicule him for his dreaming, and his father, Jacob,…

These are dark times indeed. All over the world, we Jewish people continue to experience, hate, intolerance, disrespect in all sorts of ways.   Acts of antisemitism remain a plague in our world. Ten days ago a 31 year old Israeli was brutally beaten in a Paris Metro after two men heard him speaking Hebrew over…

This week’s parasha opens with the death of Sarah and Abraham’s purchase of the cave of Machpelah in which she will be buried.  After burying and mourning his wife, scriptures tells us G-d blessed Abraham “bah-kol”.  This is conventionally translated as “G-d blessed Abraham with everything”.  But what is “everything”?  Is it “everything that money could buy”?    Is it “everything Abraham ever wanted”?   As we know, each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical…

To See and To Do The Torah is a remarkably terse document that uses surprisingly few words.  For example, if you want to know what Abraham looked like, the Bible does not tell us.  The Bible describes King Saul as “tall and good looking” and describes King David as “handsome”, but that is about it…

The In our Torah portion for this week, Avram is called by G-d. G-d says to Avram “Leave your birthplace, your home, the home of your father, and come with me to the Land which I will show you.” Why was Abraham in particular, called by G-d?  Last week we read the story of Noah.…

Have any of you ever been scuba diving? I have been snorkeling. The two most memorable times have been on a reef at the tip of the Sinai desert at a place called Ras Muhammad, and off the beach on Culebra island in Puerto Rico. It was astounding to see an underwater world that I…

Recently a five-year-old girl was attending her first bar mitzvah  our synagogue. She looked on expectantly as she waited for the service to begin. She saw the Cantor on the bima tuning her guitar. She saw the bar mitzvah boy all dressed up in suit and tie getting fitted with his lapel microphone. She saw…

We are fast approaching the Yamim Noraim, the High Holidays. Only three more weeks to go.As we all know  people the world over celebrate their  respective s New Years with drinks, with specific foods  and with parties. Fireworks have long been a staple of New Year  celebrations in many parts of the world along with…

This evening marks the beginning of the month of Elul. The month of Elul is a time of preparation for the New Year. In a few weeks we will gather in this sanctuary to celebrate RoshHashanah. Although we can repent and return to G-d every day of our lives, the sages emphasize that the month…

The Rabbis tell two stories about how Israel accepted the Torah. The first is a modern retelling of an ancient midrash by Rabbis Rick and Ellissa Sherwin: God had gone to the nations of the earth and asked them to accept a gift, the Torah. One nation asked, “What does it say?” God answered, “You…