Temple B’nai Abraham

Parashat Terumah 5770

To-Marrow, To-Marrow, Is Just a Life Away

Right before leaving for a short weekend trip to Houston to celebrate my Mother-in-Law’s 85^th birthday party with my wife and her seven siblings, their children, and grandchildren – close to sixty in all – I stopped at the bookstore to pick up my daughter who needed a book to read for school.  I had no intention of buying myself another book since I had plenty of others unread sitting on the shelf in my bedroom waiting for my attention.  No sooner had I crossed the threshold of the entrance when I was greeted by a gentleman in a suit who was attempting to sell a book that he authored.  On the cover was a picture of Kevin Walsh, the author and the man standing before me, contemplating a final golf shot.  For a man who is more interested in baseball than golf, on the surface, this was not the book I would have chosen to take with me on the plane.  I told the author that I would come back to talk to him after I found my daughter.  Being true to my word, I returned to the store entrance to share a kind word with Kevin while my daughter stood in line.

Kevin was determined to convince me that his book would be well worth my while.  He asked me if I had read “Tuesdays With Morrie.”  Who hasn’t read Mitch Albom’s epic story about his professor who died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease and the wisdom that he shared with one of his students?  Kevin then said to me that his story would match the heart-felt warmth that was a major part of that story.  It was then that I focused on the title of the book, “The Marrow In Me,” and it dawned on me how beshert this moment had been.   While reading his book, it became even more evident how these moments of “beshert,” more than just chance circumstances, influence us in our daily lives as we look for purpose and meaning.  As Kevin mentions several times in his book, God works through us in mysterious ways that cannot be explained otherwise.

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Parashat Terumah 5770

The Best Gift of All – Finding Our Lost Spirituality

I thank my teacher of Midrash, Uriele Brule, for the following insight into this week’s Torah portion about the giving of gifts for the building of the mishkan, a place (in our hearts) where God can dwell inside of us.  Too often I have heard people complain that they have lost their sense of spirituality.  When I ask them where they think they “lost it” or when they thought they had it last, I have received a myriad of responses, many of which claim a lack of attachment to worship and to the Torah in general.

Each week, I read a number of commentaries regarding the weekly parashah, choosing one as the message I wish to deliver as my connection to the Torah and to the community whom I serve.  Often it is based on the human side of things as opposed to politics.  Almost always there is a moral to be learned from the personalities that interact with one another and with God, and what kind of an example they set for us in our own generation.  Times may be different, but the hidden messages of the Torah are timeless.  They are true for every generation.  So, we are not unique in that regard.  However, it does connect us to a long tradition that has much to offer each successive generation who builds on the learning of the previous one.

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Parashat Yitro – February 6, 2010 – 22 Shevat 5770

Before the recent Senatorial election, I had the opportunity to ask my favorite (retired) professor of government studies for whom I should vote. Needless to say, I was greeted with a clamor that spoke volumes about the loyalties of those family members who were also in the room and took the liberty to respond as boisterously as my teacher and mentor on the process of governing.

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Parashat Beshallach — January 30, 2010 – 15 Shevat 5770

I have a colleague who is quite expressive with her aphorisms and her wisdom. She once said to me that we are all familiar with the phrase that when one door closes, another one opens.  However, how many of us take the time to realize that being in the hallway between them is what causes us the most difficulty in life?

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Parashat Beshallach — January 30, 2010 – 15 Shevat 5770

Who is the best man for the job of leading the Israelite nation out of Egypt is not the same question as asking who is responsible for the Israelites leaving Egypt. Words are important in the Hebrew text of the Bible. We look at them for hidden meanings in order to gain a better understanding of what it is that God expects of us through our examination of the characters of the Bible.

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Parashat Bo — January 23, 2010 – 8 Shevat 5770

Patient: Rabbi, how can I ever get over what my father did to me when I was a child? He abused me when he came home from work angry! He hurt my mother and my other sister as well. He said that he didn’t mean it, when he calmed down. However, over the years I have learned to hate him for what he did to us, what he did to… me. It has changed me to the core…

Rabbi: I know that you will never be able to forget what happened. That will stay with you for the rest of your life. However, how long will you continue to carry the burden of the emotions that continue to enslave you to your hatred of your father? In other words, can you find a way to forgive him for what he did, even if he is no longer alive, so that you can move on with your life in a way that is more free of the guilt and the shame and the anger that has put you in this place?

Imagine being with your father in a place that is secure, where he cannot harm you physically any more. What words from him would serve as a gift to you that would set you free from all of the hatred that you have built up over the years, the feelings that have enslaved you to your tears and to your anger, and your low self-esteem…? What words could you offer him as a gift that would free you from the pain that keeps you from living more freely?

Perhaps there is something that we can learn from the Israelite community that trusted the Pharaoh to provide for them in the same way that he cared for the other citizens of his country. However, as their parental caretaker, he turned on them, enslaving

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Parashat Va’eira – January 16, 2010 – 1 Shevat 5770

When Moses and Aaron confront the Pharaoh to request the release of the Israelite community, each denial is met with what appears to be a miracle of God, a sign that the natural order of the world has been disturbed in some way to demonstrate God’s power over those gods of the Egyptian pantheon.

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Parashat Shemot – January 9, 2010 – 23 Tevet 5770

“Why me?” It is a question that I have heard asked a thousand times or more in my travels as a rabbi. “Why me?” is the first thing that comes to mind “when the diagnosis of illness shatters the veneer of ease and immortality… When the nice, normal, comfortable, predictable course of life is broken, and unforeseen and undeserved calamity strikes, and we are embittered and confused…” (Rabbi Douglas J. Kohn, page 22, Life, Faith, and Cancer .) If we only had an answer, spiritual leaders and chaplains, and physicians would find it easier to deal with the politics of religion and medicine. “Why me?” would become easier to digest if… “our condition, albeit unwanted, would be rendered sensible, intelligible, justified, and valid, and acceptable, all for want of a clear and acceptable (valid) answer,” so says Rabbi Kohn, who went through such questioning when he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

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