Judaism

  By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — A few years ago our youngest daughter, Margalit, called us on my day off. “Where are you?” she asked. “At the cemetery,” we replied. “What are you doing there?” she asked. “Picking out graves!” we answered. We freaked her out. While Judy and I were not expecting

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal  SAN DIEGO — When Abraham bargained with God to save the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, he prefaced his challenge by telling God, “Here I venture to speak to my Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.” (Gen. 18:27) With these words Abraham acknowledged the inadequacy of his position and

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — Last week I wrote about the well-known midrash that compares Noah’s moral immaturity to Abraham’s moral maturity. Noah, the “hero” of the flood story, was saved because: “…Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noah walked with God.” (Gen 6:9) However, later on when

By  Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEGO — When we think of Avodas Hashem (Service of G-d) it pays to think of it as we would think of a business, as the following story  illustrates: One day, at a top-level meeting of a successful corporation: “Please bring me the test results of the new personnel. I