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Song of the Sea
This Shabbat is called Shabbat Shira, the Sabbath of Song, referring of to the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1) that we chant in the Torah this morning. The Song of the Sea marks the first time that the Jewish people gather as a congregation to pray. True, the patriarchs and matriarchs prayed, but they…
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The Kiddush for Friday Night
On every Friday night Jews around the world gather with their family and friends around the dinner table to inaugurate the Sabbath with a prayer called “The Kiddush”. This prayer notes that the Sabbath is both “a memorial to the days of Creation” and a “remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt”. In fact, the Torah…
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First things First?
“Only 75 more days until Passover,” says the man who has just found out that temperatures will plunge to 9 degrees Fahrenheit next week. But the days are getting longer, and the sun is rising earlier in the morning, making his 6:30 am commute to morning prayers easier to navigate. Yes, Spring is in the…
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Bearing the Burden of Oppression
This week we begin the Book of Exodus. It starts with “These are the names of the Children of Israel who came to Egypt, Jacob….” (Exodus 1:1) Rabbi Samuel Bernstein of Sochatchov, a Chassidic Rebbe who lived in Poland in the early part of the 20th century, writes about this verse: “When the people of…
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A Blessing in Disguise?
And it came to pass after these things that someone said to Joseph, “Behold your father is ill”. (Genesis 48:1) This illness of Jacob’s the first time any illness is mentioned in the Bible. It is taught that Jacob prayed to God to grant people a short illness before their deaths in order to put…
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Joseph the Righteous
The Rabbis of the Talmud call Joseph “Joseph the Righteous” – “Yosef Ha-tsadik”. No other Biblical figure is described in this way. Why is Joseph singled out for this appellation? When Joseph is brought to Pharaoh, he makes it clear that it is not within his power to interpret dreams: And Pharaoh said to Joseph,…
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Pharoah’s Dream
According to the rabbis, there is an internal struggle between good and evil in the human psyche. The force that pulls us to act morally and to think of others is called the “Good Inclination”. The force that pull us to act against moral and ethical standards and to act selfishly is called the “Evil…
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Young at Heart
Our Torah portion for this week introduces us to Joseph, describing him as a “na-ar” – a youth. Rashi tells us that in using the term “na-ar” the Torah means to teach us that “his actions were childish: he curled his hair, and he touched up his eyes so that he should appear good-looking.” The…
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Praying Together or Alone?
The emphasis in Judaism tends to be on communal prayer. We need a “minyan”, a gathering of ten adults, in order to recite the mourner’s kaddish and other prayers in our liturgy. Jewish law states that one should make every attempt to pray in a synagogue with the community. The rabbis even maintain that one’s…
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I Did Not Know It!
In this week’s Torah reading, Jacob flees from his brother Esau and settles down for the night to sleep. Jacob dreams of a stairway stretching to heaven, with angels going up and down. At the top of the stairway is God, who blesses Jacob. When Jacob awakens he exclaims, “Surely God is in this place,…
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Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph 