Posts by Rabbi David Wolpe

Humor is the balancing pole of the tightrope of life, and Jews have always used humor to remain upright. So for example, the Talmud teaches that if a fledgling bird is found fifty cubits within a man’s property, it belongs to the owner of the property. If it is outside fifty cubits, it belongs to the person who finds it. A reasonable law, surely.  Along comes Rabbi Jeremiah and asks a question that actually got him thrown out of the academy: “What if one foot is within fifty cubits and one foot is outside fifty?” I can just imagine the…

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“So Moses said, ‘I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.’ When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’”   Our Rabbis teach that Moses was distinguished by being the first who noticed the bush on fire but not turning to ashes. Only when God saw Moses turn aside does God call out. For some the burning bush is a metaphor of faith, that we should be on fire but not consumed. It also reminds us…

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After drinking the third cup of wine at the Seder, we open the door for Elijah and speak harsh words, asking God to pour out wrath on those who have devastated Jacob and laid waste to his dwellings.  Some are uncomfortable with these verses. Yet they are important for at least two distinct reasons.  First, we owe a legacy of anger to the past. The Jews who suffered for generations deserve our indignation for everything they endured. Our own good fortune does not cancel their anguish, and their right to anger that we express on their behalf. Out of all…

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You can find almost every important Jewish value in one ceremony, the Passover Seder:  1. The story — The story of our people, biblical, rabbinic and beyond, retold through the generations, always with new interpretations.  2. Food — When the prophet Elijah is stranded in the wilderness and an angel comes to comfort, what does the angel say? “Eat something!” (I Kings, 19:5). No Jew without food. 3. Children — The Seder is taken from the past and points toward the future. It is a clebration with children always in mind, from the opening words to the closing song.  4….

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Ours is the age of translation. There are more Jewish texts available in English than in any language at any time in history. Not only are Hebrew and Aramaic texts translated, but also works in Yiddish, Ladino, German, French, and the countless other languages Jews have spoken throughout the centuries.  From beginning we were a polyglot people. It is part of the condition of exile. Moses was raised speaking Egyptian, in ancient times the Torah was rendered into Aramaic and Greek, and some words in old French are known because the medieval commentator Rashi uses them to illuminate phrases in…

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All of the Torah points to arriving in the land of Israel. How is that grand arrival announced? Right before the conquest of Jericho, in Joshua, (5:11,12) we read: “On that day when they ate the produce of the land, the manna ceased. The Israelites got no more manna.”  That is the grand declaration. No fanfare. You are in the land because food no longer drops from the sky. You know you’ve arrived when the miracle is over. Of course there are other miracles to follow in the Tanach. Nonetheless the message endures: once you inherit the land of Israel…

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A little over a year ago my daughter told me how my Apple iPhone counts my steps each day  I had lived in blissful ignorance of this invention. Now I check my steps, wonder whether I should have more steps, worry on Shabbat (when I do not carry my phone) how many steps I am ‘missing” and generally have found an entirely new field to uselessly obsess over.  We measure everything about our lives these days — not only calories but our cholesterol, our heart rates, our income; we are subjected to an endless stream of poll numbers and surveys…

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All discovery creates new senses of possibility. The motto on the crest of Ferdinand and Isabella had been ne plus ultra — no more beyond. After Columbus discovered America, the ne was removed. Now the crest read: beyond this, more.   When we discover a sense of God in our lives, a new dimension is opened up for us. Before there was a limit on reality, now it soars beyond anything we had imagined. Where there were walls, there is an intimation of sky.  For Judaism the sacred is a realm that both permeates the everyday and extends far beyond…

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In Torah class we are studying the Song of Songs. Verse 3:1 reads: “Upon my couch at night I sought the one I love. I sought but found him not.” Sometimes we feel another most keenly through absence.  The French philosopher Sartre spoke about the absence of God using the analogy of waiting for someone in a café. As you fix on the door, waiting for your friend to come, you are more focused on her nonappearance than on the presence of all the other people who actually walk in the door. Similarly, said Sartre, God in absence sometimes feels…

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How often do I hear people praised for not judging others? I know the point — such people are not harsh, they are not unkind, they do not judge character by reckoning irrelevancies. But there is no merit in not judging; rather there is great merit in judging fairly and kindly. “We must be courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.” So wrote Emerson. We all judge: this person is more worth spending time with than that one. This individual is more skilled, more humorous,…

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