Parashat Tzav: Telling It Like It Is: A Haftarah Study on Jeremiah 7-8 (led by Student Rabbi Maayan Lev on March 19, 2022) This week’s Haftarah selection comes from the Prophet Jeremiah (7:21-8:3, and 9:22-23). It is a lecture that he gives to the Israelites shortly before the destruction of the First Temple. The people […]
Shabbat Pikudei: The Invasion of Ukraine–Where Is G!d? (Delivered by Student Rabbi Maayan Lev on Friday, March 4, 2022) For those of us in the building with me, it is so great to be together in our sanctuary once again. There is still great value in having hybrid services. It allows those of us […]
Parashat T’rumah: G!d’s Need for a Dwelling (A Torah study led by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on February 5, 2022) Our reading today mostly contained a detailing of the command to build the mishkan, a portable sanctuary, that our ancestors would carry throughout their desert wanderings. With our reading as background, let’s go to the beginning […]
Parashat T’rumah: Giving, Not Taking, Leads to Love (delivered by Rabbi Sacks on February 4, 2022) Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler[1] was an important figure of the twentieth century. A Talmudic scholar and Jewish philosopher, he served as the mashgiach ruchani, “spiritual counselor,” for the Ponevezh yeshiva, located in B’nei B’rak, a center of ultra-Orthodox Judaism just […]
Parashat Yitro: Nostalgia, Memory and the Building of Judaism (delivered by Rabbi Sacks on January 21, 2021) I am not sure how many of you are familiar with Manhattan. For some 13-14 years, I lived in Manhattan and right next door to it, in Jersey City, New Jersey, just across the Holland Tunnel. Tonight […]
“He–and We–Live”–A Torah Study for Parashat Vay’chi Led by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on December 18, 2021 Today’s Torah reading is Parashat Vay’chi. “Vay’chi” means, “And he lived,” and this portion ends the book of Genesis. It records a lot. Try to take in this listing: The last years and death of Jacob; Jacob’s request […]
Hanukkah and Parashat Mikketz 2021: The Importance of 2025 (delivered by Rabbi Sacks on December 3, 2021, the Shabbat of Hanukkah) Our Sages made sure that this week’s portion Miketz is read during or in immediate proximity to Hanukkah. They did so because of larger truths. Here the Rabbis and the Masoretes, the people […]
TORAH STUDY for VaYishlach–Jacob as “Jews”; Esau as “non-Jews” (taught by Rabbi Sacks on November 20, 2021) In today’s haftarah, the prophet Obadiah uses what is called typology. Typology is the doctrine or study of types or prefigurative symbols, especially in scriptural literature. That is, Obadiah presents Jacob and Esau, he does not see […]
Haftarah for Lech L’cha 5782/2021 – Torah Study Shabbat Torah Discussion with Rabbi Sacks (given on October 16, 2021) Once again, yasher ko-ach to Maayan on his chanting of today’s haftarah. In the haftarah, Second Isaiah wants us to see ourselves as a people who live and act in the world as Abraham lived […]
The Akedah, The Un’taneh Tokef and the Pandemic: Part 2: Lessons Learned and Lived Rosh HaShanah, First Morning 5782 (September 7, 2021) Boker tov. Good morning. L’shanah tovah to all of you. Last night I spoke mainly about the Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac which we’ll read tomorrow, and a bit […]