Posts by Rabbi David Wolpe

There are different kinds of worth. This is illustrated in the old story of an entrepreneur who approaches a fisherman with an idea for a business. He can sell his catch for a higher price, buy a bigger boat, franchise, make a fortune and live a life of leisure. “What would I do with all that money and leisure?” he asks. “Why, you can spend your life lazing in a boat, fishing!” The Chofetz Chaim is quoted as observing that “People say ‘time is money.’ But I say, ‘money is time.’ Making enough to live extravagantly costs precious hours of…

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Do you know when to bow? When to stand up? Do you avoid synagogue because it is alien? You’re an immigrant. Not to the US of course, but to Jewish prayer. I realized this many years ago when I saw how immigrants to the United States felt uneasy, worried they were doing or saying something foolish, something against the mysterious rules silently cultivated by every society. And they also realized that other people thought they were stupid simply because they couldn’t speak the language. English speakers would speak loudly and slowly, as if that would close the gap.  Yes, we…

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Can we talk money? I mean, religion and money. Every religious organization I know has to raise money. Synagogues raise money all the time, because dues, high as they may seem, never cover the expenses of the synagogue. Yet people feel that having to pay money to pray to God is unseemly. So synagogues dance around the issue. They speak of “pledges” and “resources” and “Tzedakah” and “contributions.” They ask those who come week after week but do not join, because they do not wish to pay, to “participate.” They use a minyan of euphemisms to avoid saying the plain…

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Although the morning blessings are now recited in synagogue, originally each was tied to a morning activity. The blessing “who opens the eyes of the blind” was said when we first opened our eyes. “Who clothes the naked” was when we dressed, and so forth. “Who has provided me with all my needs” was recited when tying shoelaces, beautifully explained by Rabbi S.R. Hirsch. He said that shoes indicate self-reliance. By contrast, when individuals in the Bible stand on sacred ground, they are told to take off their shoes, for to be barefoot is a sign of dependence. Each morning…

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When God exiles humanity from the Garden of Eden at the beginning of the Bible, God stations a spinning sword at the mouth of the garden. That sword prevents humanity from reentering the garden. Back in 1927, slightly more than a decade before the worst catastrophe in human history, Rabbi Israel Leventhal preached a sermon about that sword. He said that indeed the sword continues to prevent human beings from entering the garden: “Civilization and the sword cannot go hand in hand.” Rabbi Leventhal could not know the tragedies that the sword would create over the century following his words….

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In the seven days of creation, the second is distinguished by not being called “good.” Why is that? According to one commentator, it is because on the second day God separated the waters (Gen. 1:6). It is one thing to separate light from darkness, since both cannot serve together. But waters are the same substance, and to introduce division in the two things that are the same cannot be called good. We live in a time of deep divisions between like: between Jews, between Americans, between civilizations. In the story of creation, the Oneness of God superintended the divisions and…

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Our treatment of animals is increasingly part of the public conscience. So let’s remember why, according to the Rabbis, Moses was chosen for leadership. In the Midrash we are told: When Moses shepherded the flocks of his father in law Jethro, on one occasion a kid ran away and Moses ran after it until it came to a tree with a pool of water. The kid stood there and drank, and when Moses overtook it, he said, “I did not know you ran away because you were thirsty. You must also be tired.” So he raised the animal on his…

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Why is it so hard to forgive? We have each committed sins, we all need to be forgiven, yet for many who have been hurt, it is a great struggle to forgive. One reason is that to forgive means giving up one’s superiority. As long as I bear a grudge I am better than you — you hurt me, you acted badly, and I am more moral and kinder than you are. But if I forgive you, truly forgive you, then I must restore moral parity; I am no better than you. We are equal again. Therefore we are not…

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Yom Kippur is a full day but its spirit is captured by the night. Although the Kol Nidre prayer begins before the sun has set, when we walk out of the synagogue, the sky is dark and our souls are in the solitude of evening reflection. The final hours of Yom Kippur, during the Neilah service, we anticipate the night to come. For as the sun is setting we grasp the last hours of repentance, our final chance to pray and chant and cry together with the community, seeking magic and feeling foreboding, as children do in the dark. The…

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On Rosh Hashana we celebrate the creation of the world and ten days later, on Yom Kippur, we recite Yizkor, a prayer of memory for those we have lost. It might seem that we go right from joy to sadness, but there is a lesson in the linkage that can help us in difficult times. What is the beginning of creation? “Let there be light.” Creation happens against a background of darkness. In order to make something in this world you must insist on light even when all the world seems sunk in night. On Yizkor, we do not only…

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