Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

Last week we began reading the fourth of the Five Books of Moses in our synagogues. In Hebrew we call the book “Ba-midbar” which means “In the Wilderness” because the book opens with the verse, “God spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai”. In English we call the book “The Book of Numbers” because…

The sage Hillel had a saying, recorded for posterity in Pirke Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers: Be like the disciples of Aaron, love peace and pursue peace, love people (habriut) and bring them close to the Torah. In his commentary on Pirke Avot, Avigdor Shinar, Professor emeritus at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, asks…

In this week’s Torah reading, Aaron and his four sons are ordained as be priests. This must have been a glorious day for them, and for Aaron’s wife, who no doubt was bursting with pride to see her husband and sons take up the mantle of religious leadership for the People of Israel. But suddenly,…

Jewish tradition encourages the study of Pirke Avot on Sabbath afternoons in the Spring and the Summer. As meteorological spring is here and hopefully the weather will soon become warmer (it was 35 degrees when I awoke this morning) I share a teaching (Chapter 1, Mishna 5) that will, I hope, encourage you to study…

Our Torah reading for this week which opens the Book of Leviticus, begins “He called to Moses”. That is an unusual beginning to a verse. The “He” in the verse is anonymous. In the words of Leonard Cohen, “Who should I say is calling?” There is another unusual feature of this opening verse. The final…

On the Sabbath it is not permitted to carry from inside the home to the outside of the home, or from the outside of the home to the inside of the home, without setting an “eruv”, a boundary set before Shabbat that allows one to carry within its domain. In keeping with this restriction, the…

In Parasha Ki Tissa the instructions to build the mishkan are immediately followed by six verses on keeping the Sabbath. The latter three verses are our well known “Veshamru” prayer that we recite on Friday night and at Kiddush on Shabbat morning. But the second verse has a curious word introducing a phrase. Instead of…

Our Cantor was about to call me up for an aliyah. He turned to me. “Is your father’s name “Avraham Laib, Avraham Lev, or Avraham Lave?” he asked. “That’s right,” I replied, not able to distinguish one pronunciation from the other. You see, our Cantor is a very learned man, and an Israeli as well.…

Our Torah reading begins this week with God commanding Moses to solicit voluntary contributions from the Israelites to build the “Mishkan”, or tabernacle, the portable worship space for the Israelites. The description of the materials and the construction of the Mishkan is given verbally by God to Moses. It is a long and complex description,…

There are times in our lives when the presence of G-d is almost palpable – standing at the Grand Canyon at sunrise, witnessing the arrival of our children, experiencing the tenderness and concern of a community at times of loss.  A bar or bat mitzvah is usually one of these experiences in the life of the…