Category: Uncategorized
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Is the Corona-virus an Act of God?
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?…
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Pursuing Fame and Glory
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…
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Sacred Spaces – A Synagogue Initiative for the #Me Too Era
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…
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Let Our Daughters Dream Too
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,…
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Chanukah Sermon
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…
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To Be Blessed With Everything : A Thanksgiving Sermon
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…
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Anniversary of the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
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…
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A Born Chooser
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.…
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Exploring Beneath the Surface
Have any of you ever been scuba diving? I have been snorkeling. The two most memorable times have been on a reef at the tip of the Sinai desert at a place called Ras Muhammad, and off the beach on Culebra island in Puerto Rico. It was astounding to see an underwater world that I…
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All My Bones Cry Out
Recently a five-year-old girl was attending her first bar mitzvah our synagogue. She looked on expectantly as she waited for the service to begin. She saw the Cantor on the bima tuning her guitar. She saw the bar mitzvah boy all dressed up in suit and tie getting fitted with his lapel microphone. She saw…
Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph 