Rabbi Sherman - Honorable Mensch-ion

Our taste buds change over time. Be it different delicacies that exist where you live and where you move throughout your life, your social circles of where you eat, or the will to try new things, we change what we eat and what we like.

During the Yizkor service that we recite four times a year, on each pilgrimage festival along with Yom Kippur, the cantor chants the words from Isaiah, “Grass withers, flowers fade, when God’s breath blows on them, indeed, people are but grass.”

As we begin the last book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, Moses begins recounting the journeys of the Jewish people. In the first verse, he mentions specific locations along the way. Rashi notices it is at these places in which the Israelites rebelled against God.

The three weeks before Tisha B’Av are known as ben hamtzarim, translated literally as, “Between the narrow straits.” The letters of metzarim are the same letters as mitzrayim, Egypt, which represents our deepest troubles in our history: generations enslaved.

A rabbi must be proficient in speaking to different audiences. A bar mitzvah charge looks different than a wedding address. Teaching a Torah class is distinct from speaking to a group of a different faith.

We woke up to the news of a Houthi drone strike in the middle of the night in Downtown Tel Aviv. The explosion was heard around the city and beachgoers captured the footage on cell phones.

Twenty to thirty years is considered to be a generation. We often consider the days as long but the years as short. This shabbat marks 30 years since the celebration of my brother’s bar mitzvah, Parshat Korach. Eyal was a...

Judaism is a sensory religion. The tastes, the smells, the sounds, the sights, and the touches are what we carry with eternally. One of my formidable Jewish experiences is sitting next to my grandfather in the synagogue before I became a bar mitzvah while playing with the tzitzit, the fringes hanging from his tallit.

Jews often speak about light in the darkest of times. We kindle the Chanukkiah in the darkest days of the year. Yet this Shabbat, one where there is the most light, we read about the lights of the menorah, lit each day. Seforno, the Italian commentator, teaches that each candle of the menorah has a specific role in the world, conduits of spirituality to the Jewish people. He further explains a lesson of musar, ethical teaching. The right side of the menorah represents eternal values, life of the future. The left side represents physical life here on earth. We need both sides functioning properly in order to live a purposeful life.

Shalom. Hello, goodbye, and peace. While we focus most of our attention on peace, we must recognize that shalom can only come from the smaller actions that lead us to that point.