Say What You Mean
Author
5766
Every four years, with each new presidential election, Americans come face-to-face with the unpleasant reality that we don't trust each other.
Blessings for the New Moon
Author
5766
The calendar of the Jewish holidays is an introductory course in Jewish theology and history, complete in itself. Through the cycles of holy days, festivals, memorials and fast days – all rich with traditions, readings, meditations and rituals – a Jew can become familiar with the basic values, beliefs and history which have sustained us as a people.
One celebration which used to be quite prominent in Biblical times has been relegated to a place of lesser prominence in post-Biblical practice, and it deserves another look: Rosh Hodesh, the New Moon.
No Longer A People Apart?
Author
5765
Recent studies of the Jewish population have confirmed what common sense already intuited: We are less and less different from the people around us. Our children attend the same preschools, the same public and private schools, the same dance classes or Scout troops and the same high schools.
On the weekends, they participate in the same athletic teams and they hang out at the same malls. When they select a college, their standards are pretty much the same standards as everyone else’s, and their choice of professions doesn’t differ much from that of our neighbors either.
The Guilty and the Innocent
Author
5766
The suffering of innocents raises one of the most painful and intractable moral dilemmas for people of faith: If there is a good God, then how can that God allow the innocent to suffer. A good God should be able to construct a just world, one in which people pay for their own evil, but don’t suffer as a consequence of wicked decisions or hateful actions that they did not formulate themselves. What a world that would be!
Facts vs. Values — Inseparable and Entwined
Author
5765
The task seems explicit: Moses instructs a select group of the leaders of Israel’s tribes to conduct a scouting expedition into the Promised Land. There, they are to observe carefully and return with the factual data that will allow Israel to plan the best approach to entering the land. Twelve individuals are selected – the spies – in later nomenclature. And Moses enumerates the facts they need to amass:
The “Pintele Yid”
Author
5766
When I first came to Congregation Eilat, in Mission Viejo, California, fresh out of Rabbinical School, many of my congregants were struck by how young I seemed. How, they wondered, could this kid be our rabbi? Others responded by trying to help me in the areas of my deficiencies, one of which is my lack of knowledge of the Yiddish language. One congregant in particular made it his business to teach me important Yiddish expressions. He was certain that these phrases captured the essence of Jewish wisdom and could spell the difference between a successful rabbinate and a disaster.
What Will They Think?
Author
5764
It's a familiar story: The Jews are wandering in the wilderness and Moses and the people decide to send spies into the Land of Israel to see what kind of a place it is they're heading toward. Of the 12 spies to go on this mission, 10 return horrified. The place is filled with giants! We don't stand a chance against them! The people, upon hearing this terrifying message, panic: "If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we might die in this wilderness! Why is the Lord taking us to that land to fall by the sword? Our wives and childre
Invitation to Conversation
Author
5766
On the eve of the Festival of Shavuot, celebrating God’s gift of Torah and our ongoing receiving of Torah, it is fitting to share Rabbi Artson’s words delivered at the most recent ordination celebrated by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism. 21 new rabbis were launched in their new service with a community of 1300 celebrants – family, friends, and community to cheer them on. May these words help you to receive the Torah anew this Shavuot, and throughout the year.
***
Torah Gone Wild
Author
5766
Judaism in antiquity was a rugged, grounded faith. Poised between wandering in the wilderness and entering a promised land, the spirituality of biblical Judaism was one of creation as a sign of God’s greatness and munificence, of learning to love a particular land as our inheritance and as God’s gift. Biblical festivals and holy days pulsated to the cycles of agriculture and of weather, recalling not only the great events of Israel’s past, but also the way the earth could adorn itself and provide for its denizens throughout the year.
This Little Light of Mine
Author
5766
With Parashat Be-Hukkotai, the Book of Leviticus comes to an end. The central book of the Torah, Leviticus is the book of priestly holiness, enjoining the people Israel to become a nation of priests and a holy people. Laws pertaining to ritual purity and impurity, to sexual ethics, as well as a magnificent summation of Torah itself, in the Holiness Code, give this book its abiding value and depth.