Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash The Book of Leviticus opens with G-d calling to Moses, thus giving this third book of the Torah its name in Hebrew, “Vayikra”. Have you ever wondered what G-d’s voice sounds like? At Mount Sinai G-d’s voice appears to be overwhelming and frightening. The people who hear it beg…

Photo by Adrien xplr on Unsplash According to the Talmud, young children are supposed to start their Torah study with this week’s Torah portion, which is the beginning of the book of Leviticus. This has never made sense to me because this week’s Torah portion is all about animal sacrifice. It is a little bit…

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Last week a congregant wrote me to ask me a question.  “Rabbi,” they write, “Our school district has cancelled classes and states the missed days will never be made up, as they call this an “Act of G-d.” My question to you is just that: is this really an Act of G-d?…

I recently watched a movie made in 2004 called “Troy”. It stars Brad Pitt in the role of Achilles. It tells the story of Achilles, the greatest warrior of all Greek heroes. The Greeks are about to go to war against Troy but Achilles is reluctant and to fight.  Achilles senses that he is not…

In this week’s Parasha, Bo, we find the commandment to wear tefillin. Tefillin are small square black boxes that contain certain biblical verses. These boxes are attached to straps. We attach one box to our arm, and one box to our head by means of these straps. Each day during morning prayers, except on the…

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.…