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Choosing in Life
In our Torah reading for this week, Moses tells the Israelites, “I place before you today life and goodness, death and evil” (Deuteronomy 30:15). The rabbis ask a question: Does this mean that Moses is giving the people a choice, and that they are free to choose death and evil over life and goodness? That…
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The Universal Word
What word in the English language is the most understood around the world? This word appears in our Torah portion this week. When you say this word, people in Europe understand it, people in South America understand it, and in Africa, and across the Middle and the Far East all understand this word. In fact,…
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Shaping our Lives
This week we begin the Jewish month of Elul. It is the month leading up to the New Year, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is the month when we engage in heshbon ha-nefesh, an accounting of our strengths and our weaknesses, our struggles and our failures. It is a time…
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Double Blessings
A few weeks ago, my seminary sent out a fundraising pitch that was hard to refuse. The letter said that if we contributed to the fund raiser in the next two weeks, our gift would be matched by an anonymous contributor up to a certain amount. My contribution to a cause I believed in would…
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Purim In August
When I was in the eighth grade my friend Ted accosted me excitedly one morning before class. “I have a hilarious joke that I just learned,” he said. “There were two bears in a bathtub. One bear said to the other, ‘Pass the soap please’. The second bear said, ‘No soap radio’.” Ted began to…
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A Faith of Listening
Judaism has always been more about belonging than believing. When Ruth expresses her desire to join Naomi following the death of Ruth’s husband, rather than return to her native Moab, she says, “Your people will be my people, your God will be my God”, (Ruth 1:16) preferencing “peoplehood” over belief in God. The most famous…
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The Miracles of Everyday Life
In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses assembles the Israelites and recounts the past forty years of their experience together. He reminds them of “the wondrous feats that you saw with your own eyes, those prodigious signs and marvels.” “Yet,” he continues, “The Eternal has not given you a mind to understand or eyes to see or…
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A Summary Execution?
Last week’s parasha closed with the Israelites, encamped at a place called Shittim. There, they begin to commit harlotry with the daughters of Moab, a pagan people. A plague breaks out among the people, an expression of God’s displeasure (to say the least) with the Israelite’s descent into paganism. An Israelite prince named Zimri brings…
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Extra Sensory Perception?
Our Torah reading (Numbers 22:2-25:9) this week opens with the Israelites encamped on the steppes of Moab, on the east side of the Jordan River, across from Jericho. Thay are poised to enter the Land of Canaan. Balak, King of Moab, has heard of the military victories of the Israelites and offers the prophet, Ballam,…
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A Crisis of Leadership
“Moses and Aaron assembled the congregation in front of the rock; and he said to them, ‘Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?’ And Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod. Out came copious water, and the community and their beasts drank. But God…
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Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph 