Ted Lasso’s Lech Lecha Moments
The second season of Ted Lasso, Apple TV’s award-winning TV show, finished last week, and I’m left with so many questions about what’s going to happen next season! If you haven’t been watching, Ted...
Author: Rabbi Elkodsi
Noah: Because God Had To Grow Up Too
For a variety of reasons, I’ve been thinking very differently about this week’s Torah reading, Noach. In the past, I’ve focused on how Noah was ish tazdik tamim hayah b’dorotav, “a righteous and whole-hearted...
Ki Tavo: What Are We Really Afraid Of?
In this week’s Torah reading, Ki Tavo, we have what’s called the Tochecha, the curses or the rebukes; essentially, the terrible things that will happen if the Israelites, once settled in the Promised Land,...
Ki Tetze: A Divine Challenge
Parashat Ki Tetze is one of my favorites–not because of the litany of seemingly unrelated, and in some cases, harsh laws, but because it contains the first topic I studied in my “Intro to...
Seeing and Appearing
Re-eh, anokhi notayn lifnaykhem hayom b’rakha u-k’lalah “Re-eh, I am placing before you today blessing and curse” This week’s Torah portion is all about vision; the open word, re-eh, can mean “See!” or “Look!”...
Sukkah and the Olympics, How Does The Wind Blow?
For many people, reading Talmud is like Joan Rivers’ z”l comment about how calculus might have prepared her to be a housewife; “so I can calculate the size of the living room? It’s six inches...
A Prayer and a Pitchfork
I love studying Talmud, and one of the reasons is because it allows me to get into the hearts, lives and minds of our rabbinic sages, the people who struggled to make our sacred...
Eicha and Lamentations-Giving Structure to Grief
In “To Life, L’Chaim” from “Fiddler On The Roof,” the villagers of Anatevka sing, “God would like us to be joyful even when our hearts lie panting on the floor.” And as we head...
Mourning and Memory
Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, is a day of national and collective mourning for the Jewish people. On this date in 586 BCE and again in 70CE, Jerusalem,...
The Challenges of Leadership
A record (remember those?) I used to listen to was called “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish” by Bob Booker and George Foster. At about the 12-minute mark is a sketch called, “The Presidents.”...
