Category Archives: Dvar Torah

How ungrateful can they be, our ancestors who left Egypt? The Torah makes it a point to tell us that the Children of Israel were constantly whining. Wherever they went, it was always something new, as well as the usual things. “We’re hungry! We’re thirsty! Aren’t we there yet!” I can hear Moses saying to the council that he set up to take care of the day-to-day business of the Israelite community when they met for their weekly updates: “Nu, so what are they complaining about now? Isn’t it enough for them that they live in a day and age when they have a direct audience with God whose presence can be felt so palpably? Don’t they know that this can change at any moment if God decides to withdraw back to the Heavens above? What about asking for safe passage once in a while? What ever happened to wishing for peace and goodwill towards all humankind – is that a thing of the past? Maybe future generations will see some gratitude in praying for wholeness and serenity instead of the meat that they ask for? I know, what about a prayer for healing? I could use some medical attention about now. Any of you know a good chiropractor … Continue reading →

I can remember vividly the day when I came home with a floppy disk from the computer store with a free version of America Online 1.0, somewhere in the vicinity of January 1993. At the time that I was installing the program, DOS was still the way we navigated through our word processing and dial-up times with that annoying sound of a handshake was the norm. It often took several attempts to retrieve all of the information that one was seeking. OK, some things don’t change very much. It still takes several attempts to download information, but that is the result of much larger files and congested fiber-optic lines. I was in the middle of setting up my account so that I had a boost in my coursework for rabbinical school when Batya, who was no more than three years old at the time, showed up in the doorway to my former bedroom as a child and announced, “Abba, supper!” I innocently asked her what we were eating for supper, and she responded with a broad smile, “My favorite! Rabbiolis!” This is how I entered my screen-name with AOL – Rabbioli@aol.com.

The last of three quotes has been received. After promising to pare down what is in the boxes in my storage container, and as moving company representatives estimate what I will be taking with me to Colorado, I am still trying to achieve my goal not to exceed 12,000 pounds. The furniture is not the problem. As one estimator said before even looking at my stuff: “Oh, you’re a rabbi. That means you must have a lot of books!” I didn’t know whether I should feel a sense of pride in that moment, or begin to fear what numbers she was planning to calculate as she added up my load. My books are a part of my livelihood. I use them for reference whenever I need to search for an answer to a question that is posed to me that is not readily available on the Internet.

All I Really Need To Know… I Learned From My Bat Mitzvah A message to Zoe Stock, on the occasion of her Bat Mitzvah. Zoe, it has been more than 15 years since Robert Fulghum popularized the phrase “All I really need to know…”  In his case, he learned all of life’s lessons while in kindergarten.  “Bekitzur,” which in Hebrew means, “in short,” here is a list of what he learned, in his own words:

The Greeks renamed Bamidbar, the opening section of the fourth book of the Bible, to Numbers, changing the focus from what happens to the Israelites “in the wilderness” (to accurately reflect the Hebrew) to the census that starts us out in that direction. Moses conducts yet another counting of the population in an effort to assess the military strength of his people as they move forward to their final destination. In America, we conduct a census every 10 years to assess other factors that determine the strength of our nation and where the population shifts have occurred as people move about this great country of ours. In the Jewish world, it appears as though a census occurs every so often by sociologists who wish to determine the strength of our numbers and what that means in regard to our institutions and the services that they provide to a “dwindling” population of affiliated Jews.

We have all heard someone saying at some point the idiom, “If you’re going to talk the talk, then you’ve got to walk the walk.” Another way of saying the same thing in more modern language is, “Walk it like you talk it.” In other words, you better back up your talk with some action. A more appropriate way to convey the same message is to declare that “talk is cheap,” that “action is louder than words,” and “practice what you preach.” To be honest with you, I feel as though I am reliving a scene from one of my favorite movies, Bull Durham, when the over-the-hill catcher, Crash Davis, tries to teach the young rookie pitcher how to behave in the big leagues when it comes to meeting the media, and he says to him “you’re gonna have to learn your clichés … They’re your friends…”  The net result of this conversation is that “talk is cheap,” both in real life and in the life of the Torah. Better for a man to walk in God’s ways than to make empty promises. This week’s Torah portion begins with a similar experience with God doing much of the talking. He begins, “Eem bechukkotai … Continue reading →