Rabbi's Musings

Many years ago, an English family journeyed to Scotland for a summer holiday.  The mother and father were looking forward to the time away with their young son. But one day, the son wandered off by himself, and he found an abandoned swimming hole. Naturally, he took off his clothes and jumped in.
 
The boy was immediately attacked by vicious cramps, and he cried out for help as he struggled to stay afloat.  Luckily, a...Read more...

The story is told of a jetliner that abruptly stops after taxing down the tarmac.  It returns to the gate and stays there an hour.  Finally, the plane takes off.  A concerned passenger then asks the flight attendant, "What was the problem?" 

"The pilot was bothered by a noise he heard in the engine," explains the attendant.  The passenger then asks, "How were you able to take care of the problem so...Read more...

Writing a few years ago in the New Yorker magazine, Adam Gopnik recalled “a great four-funneled ocean liner, the biggest and most luxurious ever built, whose passengers, rich and poor, crowd on board, the whole watched over by a bearded man named Edward John Smith, with the chief designer, Thomas Andrews, along for the maiden voyage, too….the ship sets off from Southampton, sure of itself, unsinkable, until it comes to the ice fields...Read more...

This week is the holiday of Shavuot (Thursday night at 8 p.m. in the moadon for study and dessert, Friday morning services, including Yizkor, at ten a.m.), which celebrates the giving of Torah at Mount Sinai, fifty days after Passover, the holiday of liberation, begins. Freedom leads to obligation. These days in New York City or The Woodlands I see high school and college graduates sporting their academic robes. It makes me think...Read more...

There is an old comedy album my dad used to love to play for us, entitled, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish.” On the album there is a skit about a Jewish man who is very successful in business. To celebrate he buys himself a yacht as well as a complete captain’s uniform, including a beautiful, peaked cap. He goes to his immigrant parents and announces, in all his garb, that he is a captain. His parents reply, “Son, to your mother...Read more...

In a little more than a week, Israel will celebrate its 75th birthday. The modern Zionist movement did not begin as a celebration but as an admission of failure. Political emancipation had failed to free the Jews of Western European nations of antisemitism. As the trial of  Alfred Dreyfus showed in late 19th century France, the crowd had not forgotten to chant, “Death to the Jews!” One observer of this hate was...Read more...

Last week we spoke of the increasing alienation of German Jews from their tradition. Emancipation meant Jews need not be tied to their Jewish community. Enlightenment led to their questioning the foundation of their traditional beliefs. Someone like the poet Heinrich Heine converted to Christianity not out of belief but to make his way in German intellectual society. Into this crisis stepped lay people and later rabbis in Germany who offered...Read more...

In our yearlong examination of Jewish history (in honor of CBSW’s 40th birthday) we have reached the rise of Chassidic Judaism. Beginning in the 18th century, this movement began as a charismatic appeal to the spiritual in life. The rabbi was replaced with the rebbe, or tzaddik. Learning was replaced by charisma. The spiritual depression, influenced by economic problems, political persecution, and the collapse of traditional communal...Read more...

Program Note: Please join yours truly for a quick delve in the history of Jews in the American Civil War, today (March 7) at noon in the Moadon. Feel free to bring a lunch if you like. Also, at 7:30 pm on March 14, I will be teaching a class in the Moadon on the Jewish view of Jesus from a historical perspective. All are welcome!

Today’s topic in our yearlong study of Jewish history is the end of Iberian Jewry....Read more...

A major development in Jewish history was the maturation of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah. In the Middle Ages, Jews suffered at the hands of Christians and Muslims, but they also culturally thrived. Jews in Spain deepened their spirituality by developing a new approach to mysticism. When the Torah speaks of Abraham’s discovery of God and the revelation of the Law at Sinai, structures for later personal revelations were set. On the one...Read more...

This year, as we celebrate 40 years of our congregational history, we are also examining the broader journey of Jewish history. We are now in the golden age of Iberian Jewry, ca. 1000 CE. We have already reported on the rise of Islam and the numerous ways Islamic culture enriched Jewish scholarship. The golden age produced many great works of prayer, poetry, philosophy, and scholarship, but one man stands above the rest: Moses Maimonides....Read more...

As we enter a new year we continue our stroll though Jewish history in honor of CBSW’s fortieth anniversary. (We will also be studying American Jewish history in person at our biweekly lunch and learns this winter and spring.) Today we have reached the dawn of the Muslim era in the world at its impact on Judaism and the Jewish people.

Islam arose in the Arabian desert in the early seventh century. Muhammad, its prophet, taught that...Read more...

The biggest revolution in the history of Judaism was an evolution. Two thousand years ago, the leaders of Judaism pivoted away from Torah centered Judaism and began to create rabbinic Judaism. This new brand of religious observance made the best of having lost the Temple in Jerusalem and the priestly sacrificial service. Now, the rabbis became the leaders of Judaism. Prophecy had ended centuries before, the priests had no Temple, and the...Read more...

In our journey through Jewish history, we have focused on the centrality of Jerusalem in the spiritual life of the people. We reach a point, however, where Jerusalem must be abandoned if the Jewish people and Judaism are to continue. The city is under Roman siege. No Jews are allowed to leave because the Jewish zealots want every Jew to die in Jerusalem. Yochanan ben Zakkai must pretend to be dead to be carried out of the city. Once outside...Read more...

In our continued dive into the history of the Jewish people we have reached the historical dark era of the early second temple period.

Little is known about the activities of these years, during the last few centuries of before the common era. We do know that during this period Alexander the Great swept through the Middle East and encouraged a marriage between the local customs and Greek culture and technology.

The...Read more...