Rabbi's Message

This Shabbat is characterized by teshuvah, repentance. Of all the Mitzvot in the Torah, Teshuvah is the most potent. Each Mitzvah forges a bond between a finite human being and an infinite G-d. No small feat. But teshuvah reconnects us after that bond has been severed through sin. No other Mitzvah can act as an antidote to sin. No other Mitzvah can rebuild a fence that was trampled in our haste to pursue our fancy. Only Teshuvah can do that. The difference between teshuvah an

“Rosh Hashanah is our day of enlightenment; Yom Kippur, our day of salvation. (Midrash Tehilim 27:1) Two questions: It makes sense to call Yom Kippur a day of salvation, but how can Rosh Hashanah, the day of judgment, when our lives and fortunes are on the line, be called a day of enlightenment? 2. If G-d is the epitome of endless love, why doesn’t He give us Yom Kippur (forgiveness) before Rosh Hashanah (judgment)? Then we wouldn’t need to tremble in fear at all. 3. The Shof

The Torah portion that we read this Shabbat describes the Jewish people as a nation of one. “You all stand this day before G-d, your G-d the leaders, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, every man of Israel. your young children, your women, and your convert within your camp, your woodcutters, and your water carriers.”[1] There are ten classes of people listed here, but Israel was not a class society—all stood equally and firmly before G-d. In the words of our sages, “

August 22, 2026 10 Elul I know the title of this article will trigger almost every Jew and please every antisemite. But I say to both of you, don’t judge an article by its title. Read on and see what I mean. Israel is one of the smallest countries in the world, and the Jews are one of the smallest nations in the world. You would never know it from the attention we garner. El Salvador and Rwanda are similar in size; how often do you read about them on social media? E

August 16, 2026 3 Elul We are not just a united nation. We are a nation of one, so interconnected that we are like a single person. Wait. Is that not discriminatory? Are we really saying that Jews are different from everyone else? The Torah itself seems to raise precisely this question. Two laws in this week’s Torah portion distinguish between Jews and non-Jews. The Lost Item The first is the Mitzvah to return a lost item (Deuteronomy 22:1). We are required to

Eroding the Fabric of Society The other day I was at the supermarket making small talk with the cashier. I did the perfectly Canadian thing and talked about the weather, but Sharon had something else on her mind. She was complaining about shoplifting. She heard on the news that shoplifting was becoming a way of life in larger cities. People enter stores in broad daylight with large boxes and fill their containers with merchandise to resell for profit. Just the other day, she

August 2, 2026 19 Av Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof famously told G-d that if money is a curse, he would like G-d to smite him with it. This raises an important question. Is money a blessing or a curse? The answer depends less on money than on us. If you were content when you had little, but wealth placed you on the hedonic treadmill, then your money has become a curse. The more you own, the more you want. Yesterday you were happy with

We all take for granted that food nourishes the body and keeps us alive. But let me ask a simpleton’s question: why does physical food keeps the spiritual soul, our spark of life, in the body? The soul is spiritual. Food is physical. How can something material affect something spiritual? Yet when the body can no longer digest food, the soul departs. What possible connection is there between a loaf of bread and a spiritual soul? You might argue that food doesn’t sustain the so

This Shabbat, we read that we are not permitted to add to or subtract from the Torah. We are to take the Torah as G-d gave it, not less and not more. If G-d told us to hang four fringes on a four-cornered garment, we hang four, not five, and not three. If someone asks whether you are observant, the proper answer is yes. The improper answer is “more or less.” Don’t be more or less observant. Be observant. On Yom Kippur following 9/11, I spoke about this idea. Ten is a complete

July 12, 2026 27 Tammuz This is the time of year when we mourn the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem. Their destruction and the exile that followed had long been foretold. G-d sent prophet after prophet to urge our ancestors to change their ways, but they refused. Eventually, the warnings gave way to punishment. Yet a question remains. We understand why the Jewish people were punished, but why destroy the Temple? The Temple was the heart of Jewish life

I know I speak for all of us when I say that summers were longer when we were younger. These days, it seems the snow starts falling again before it has even finished melting. I know moving to Canada extended my winter, but not by that much. This shift is in the mind. Time is relative: the older we get, the faster it moves. Today, I want to suggest a method to slow it down. I’m not talking about a genetic resequencing to slow down aging. I’m talking about a mental technique th

The Torah, our tradition teaches, was written before G-d in letters of black fire upon white fire. Yet Rabbi Moshe Sofer (the Chatam Sofer) taught a startling idea: some of those letters remained scrambled until the daughters of Tzlafhad appeared and gave them voice. The letters were always there. The message was always true. But until someone possessed the courage to untangle them, the law could not be read. Perhaps the same can be said of us. G-d creates every soul upright

11 Tammuz June 26, 2026 Springing the Well Wellsprings are G-d’s gift to the world. Arid climates become fertile when wells are discovered. Parched and thirsty souls find life, salvation and hope with the discovery of a well. A well discovery is cause for celebration and certainly a reason to praise G-d. It comes as no surprise that our ancestors wrote an ode to G-d to thank Him for a well.[1] It is remarkable when you think about it. Subterranean waterways c

29 Sivan June 13, 2026 In this week’s Torah portion, we read of the rebellion led by Korach against Moses and Aaron. Korach’s accusation was a classic populist play: he argued that Moses and Aaron had staged a power grab, appointing themselves to leadership without G-d’s mandate. His “glib” proof? Because the entire Jewish nation is holy, they didn’t need leaders at all. G-d did not appoint Moses and Aaron; they appointed themselves. This rebellion occurred shor

In this week’s Torah portion, Shelach, we read the famous account of Moses sending spies to scout the Land of Israel. The narrative begins with a curious nuance: G-d tells Moses he may send spies if he wants to. Essentially, G-d declined to command the mission, leaving the decision entirely in Moses’ hands. One might wonder why Moses didn’t take this as a hint that the mission was a bad idea. Why did he proceed? Fascinatingly, we read this story this year on the very day it o

15 Sivan May 30, 2026 For millennia, the Jewish people have been buffeted by global forces. This pressure has not only manifested as oppression, expulsion, and extermination, but also as a powerful cultural pull. Although Judaism introduced revolutionary ideas that reshaped ancient civilization—including human dignity, universal education, and the sanctity of life—we have often felt drawn to the beliefs, lifestyles, and value syste

8 Sivan May 24, 2026 The sacred tasks associated with the Tabernacle that travelled with our ancestors through the desert were divided among the families of the tribe of Levi. The Kohanim performed the sacrificial service, while the Levites served as honor guards and were responsible for assembling, disassembling, and transporting the Tabernacle.When the Tabernacle was inaugurated, the princes of the twelve tribes brought inaugural

This week, we celebrate Shavuot, the day we received the Torah on Mount Sinai. It was 3338 years ago, in 2448 in the Hebrew calendar. Our ancestors arrived at Sinai six days earlier and spent the time preparing spiritually for this pivotal moment. They resolved their arguments and forged true national unity. They accepted an invitation to be G-d’s chosen people. When asked, they replied, “We will do, and we will listen.” They were primed. They were excited. What did G-d do d

23 Iyar May 9, 2026 The title of this week’s essay, “How to Talk So Children Will Listen,” borrows from the well-known parenting book by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Here, however, the lesson comes not from modern parenting literature, but from this week’s Torah portion. The Torah presents some of the laws of the priesthood and introduces the first priests: “These are the descendants of Aaron and Moses on the day G-d spoke to Moses at Mount Sina

16 Iyar May 2, 2026 The Torah portion we read this week is not easy to absorb. It is one of two places in the Torah where G-d describes the severe consequences of sin. The imagery is so stark that it can leave one shaken. In Chabad tradition, it is said that Rabbi Dovber, the second Rebbe, fainted as a child upon hearing the rebuke read aloud. Though that story refers to the other rebuke I mentioned earlier, the emotional truth is the same. The Love