Judaism

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO– In my Community Jewish High senior class we are studying about Israel. We just read and analyzed Israel’s Declaration of Independence which was proclaimed and signed in Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948. The founding fathers and mothers of Israel were greatly concerned with “normalizing” the Jewish People. Instead

By  Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEGO — After the plague of Hail, Paroah summoned Moshe and Aaron to his palace and proclaimed “Hashem (G-d) is righteous.” (Ex.9:27). What made him say this? He never said anything like this before. One Rabbinic opinion states that he was reacting to Hashem’s  warning “Send forth, gather in your

By Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb NEW YORK — Over the course of the past several years, we have had some marvelous opportunities to visit places where I had once lived. My wife and I had moved away from some of these communities ten or twenty years ago, and in one case, forty years ago. It

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO – Although midrash at times attempts to solve textual problems, at other times midrash seems an illogical flight of fantasy that creates more problems than it solves. Such is the rabbinic comment about Pharaoh’s daughter pulling Moses from the Nile River. The Torah says: “The daughter of Pharaoh came

 By Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb NEW YORK — Can you sleep at night? There is so much trouble in the world. Violence, wars large and small, natural disasters, disease. We all personally know many who are suffering at this very moment. Some are friends and acquaintances living in plain sight. Others are individuals in the

By Rabbi Ben Kamin JERUSALEM—It’s different each time, the sensation driven by my religious body temperature at the moment, each occasion leavened by the vicissitudes of life, by doubt, skepticism, spiritual immobility or vague rhapsody—and certainly by my own vanities. One first has to get past the sense of being an intruder, even if one

By Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEGO — Yaakov gathered his sons around and asked them if they would be true bearers of the faith. His son’s answered in unison, “ShmaYisroel Hashem E-lo-keinu Hashem Echad.” “Here, O Israel, The L-rd our G-d, Hashem, the One and Only.” (Yaakov was alsoknown as Israel).  This moved Yaakov and he

By Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb NEW YORK –It was the last session of the course in which I was utilizing the book of Genesis as a text for the study of leadership. Since it was the final session, I decided that I would structure the discussion in a very different manner. I began by reminding