D'var Torahs

Before Whom We Stand Our Prayers on Rosh Hashanah Rosh Hashanah is a day of recognizing the power and majesty of G-d. We stand before the Creator of the universe and acknowledge that our lives, our futures, and the world itself are in His hands. Prayer is an expression of our belief that we matter and are worthy of G-d listening to us. Our individual voices matter. Our hopes, fears, disappointments, gratitude, and tears are worthy of being heard and seen. Descartes said, “I t

The Path Back to Ourselves and G-d During these days, we are given three great pathways towards the goal of a meaningful, close and intimate relationship with G-d. These tools help us create a relationship with G-d who loves, is close to and wants a relationship with us. In addition, G-d created us to partner with Him to rectify and to bring light and holiness into the world These 3 pathways are Teshuvah (returning), Tefillah (Prayer), and Tzedakah (Charity). Teshuvah literal

Ki Tavo: The Silence Before the Sound Parashat Ki Tavo repeats the words “Shema Yisrael” again and again. It is a cry for the Jewish people to listen, to hear, to pay attention. Moshe tells the Jewish people, “Hasket u’shema” be silent and listen. And then he tells them that on that very day they are becoming a people to Hashem. The important message here is that before we can truly hear, we have to become quiet, be silent. We live surrounded by noise, voices, opinions, e

We Don't Fight Alone Parashat Ki Teitze begins with the words: “When you go out to war against your enemy…” We often read this as a command about a physical war. But perhaps there is another battle being described here. The battle that takes place within every human being. Our soul agrees to leave the purely spiritual world and to enter this more physical one where combined with a body it has a lifetime of work to do. This miraculous coupling of body and soul is given the ext

Wholehearted with Gd Parashat Shoftim gives us a beautiful and challenging command: “Tamim tihyeh im Hashem Elokecha” “You shall be wholehearted with Hashem your G-d.” The Torah then tells us not to turn to witchcraft, divination, or those who try to predict the future. Perhaps because underneath our desire to know what will happen is a desire to control what will happen. We want reassurance. We want to know that everything will work out the way we hope. We want to remove all