Posts by Rabbi David Wolpe

Each of us has witnessed things that if unshared, the world will never know. I would like to tell you of a remarkable event I once saw, so that the image will live on. There is a custom in Israel on Independence Day, Yom Ha’atzmaut, for children, sometimes carried on the shoulders of their parents, to walk around the streets with plastic hammers, bopping people on the head. I don’t know its origin, but everyone who has been there has witnessed the glee. Many years ago on this day I was walking on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem and I spotted…

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Spirituality in modern teachings often emphasizes self-actualization. As a unique human being, you are called to develop your potential, your spark of godliness. The second side of this is the call of the ‘other.’A truly ethical life, in this view, is lived less by developing your own capacities than by devoting yourself to developing the capacities of other people. Sometimes the two are made into one – how do you awaken your own gifts? Through giving to others. While that is partly true, the simple solution is too simple. There are areas of cultivation that require solitude and even selfishness….

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I spent my junior year abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland. There I studied literature and wrote a letter to my parents about how deeply I was enamored of the great British poets – Wordsworth, Burns, Byron and others. I will never forget my father’s reply. He told me he was glad I was getting so much out of the year. But then he reminded me that English literature became the literature of the world “on the backs of British soldiers.” Jews, he wrote, had poets but no armies; I should not neglect Yehuda Halevy and Ibn Gabirol and Bialik and Tzernikovsky. For…

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In the book of Numbers, we are told that silver trumpets will summon the congregation and set the camps to march (10:2). In a beautiful comment, Rabbi Soloveitchik delineates the difference: “An encampment is created out of a desire for self-defense and thrives on fear. A Congregation is fashioned out of longing for the realization of an exalted moral idea and thrives on love.” People and nations often band together out of fear. But closeness that has roots in fear will dissolve when the threat passes. More than that, there is often a residual shame in caring for one another…

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The best resolutions are elastic—they cannot be broken with a single act. If you swear never to touch red meat, one burger ruins the resolution. If, on the other hand, you pledge to eat healthier food, each day you have a chance to fulfill the resolution anew. Below are five elastic spiritual resolutions that can carry you throughout the year. 1. Engage with people more than pixels. Looking at a phone is quick and undemanding. Texting is easier than talking—it gives you intimacy without danger. This year, resolve to spend more time looking into someone’s eyes when you communicate with…

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When we light the Hanukkiah we celebrate the last triumph of Jewish sovereignty until modern times. As the Rabbis instruct us, baseless hatred put an end to Israel as an independent nation. Historically this is not an idle homily. Jews fought among themselves and could not reconcile their own conflicts. Finally, the Romans did it for them, with disastrous consequences. We read these lessons. We do not always learn from them. With regard to Israel I have heard vituperation both right and left. Each side at times seems eager to believe the worse of the other’s motivations, assuming that their…

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Abraham greets angels in the book of Genesis (Ch. 18). Many years later, his grandson Jacob has a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder. Long after his dream, at the end of ch. 32, Jacob does not only dream of angels, but actually sees them as he is leaving his Uncle Laban. Why is it that Jacob who before had only night visions is now, like his grandfather Abraham, actually able to see the angels before him? Remember what happened in the house of Laban: Jacob married and had children. Running away from home he was a gifted…

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Sometimes life does not give you what you wish. Take the example of Moses ben Chanoch. A scholar in Babylonia, he took to the sea to raise money for his academy. He was captured by Pirates, and eventually ransomed by the Jewish community. This Babylonian scholar ended up in Cordova, Spain. At the time, Spain was a Jewish backwater, and when the congregation recognized they had a learned man in their midst, the Rabbi of the community voluntarily resigned and Rabbi Moses ben Chanoch became the Rabbi of Cordova. That was a turning point in the history of Spanish Jewry….

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We were in the middle of the Book of Esther, where the new queen is being prepared by the eunuchs of the court for a fateful meeting with the king. “I’ve got the movie,” Kirk Douglas said, eyes sparkling as he imagined a scene playing out. “What’s the movie?” I asked. “Well, I play one the of the court eunuchs,” he said. “I dress her and undress her. Only I’m not really a eunuch!” For the last 20 years I have studied Bible once a week with Douglas. In those years he lost his youngest son to a drug overdose,…

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In Jewish parlance, an unlearned person is called an “am ha’aretz” — literally, people of the land. Often this term is used disparagingly, to indicate someone ignorant, as opposed to a chacham, a learned, wise person. Judaism famously values study and learning and intellect. But in the story of Abraham, the founder of our people, there is the astonishing fact that he not once but twice, bows to “am ha’aretz” the people of the land (Genesis, ch. 23). Abraham our forefather teaches a valuable lesson. He esteems everyone, learned and unlearned alike. Abraham does not slight those who are of…

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