Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

In his poem, “The Speaker” Louis Jacobs writes of the danger of sleepwalking through life The speaker points out that we don’t really havemuch of a grasp of things, not only the big things,the important questions, but the small everydaythings. “How many steps up to your back yard? Whatis the name of your district representative?…

“Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation”. In this first verse of our Torah reading for this week (Genesis Chapter 6:9) Noah is described as both “righteous” and “blameless”. But later on, (Chapter 7:1) when God addresses him directly, God says, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, for I have…

This High Holidays I had a pulpit in Newton, New Jersey, about a three-hour drive from my home. Over Yom Kippur Middy and I stayed at a lovely Bed and Breakfast called the Ampersand Inn. The innkeeper, Irene, bought the inn three years ago after retiring from the NYU School of Law. Shortly after opening…

Do you know the story in the Talmud where Rabbi Eliezer teaches his students that they should repent the day before their death? “But how do you know the day you are going to die?” asked his students. Rabbi Eliezer replied, “Exactly, you should repent today, for who knows when you are going to die?”…

Two friends, Reuven and Shimon, were traveling together in the desert. At one point, they began to argue. Then Reuven slapped Shimon. Shimon did nothing, but instead wrote in the sand, “Today my best friend slapped me.” Days passed and the friends continued their journey. They came to an oasis and decided to bathe in…