Rabbi's Thoughts

"War is an ugly thing,"   John Stuart Mill reminds us…  “but not the ugliest of things…  the decayed and degraded state of moral… feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war is much worse.

In last week’s parshah Avraham had to fight an ugly war, triumphantly saving the day in the War of the 4 Kings against the 5 for no reason other than his loyalty...Read more...

Heeding the Call of the Angel

It was the test of all tests.  The command to slay his beloved son. Avraham's entire world must have seemed to be crashing down. My son! Our family. Our legacy.  The nation we were supposed to build.  The lessons of ethical monotheism that we have been spreading throughout the land.  In asking Avraham to sacrifice Yitzchak,...Read more...

If you think about what television was like 20, 30, or 40 years ago and what it's like now, there is very little in common between the two. But there is one small line at one fixed hour that has been standard since the 1960's and has stood the test of time and hasn't changed: "It's 10 pm; do you know where your kids are?"

The line is important. But there is a problem...Read more...

I was standing right near the doors on a crowded train back to Rosedale from the city on Tuesday afternoon. A VERY crowded train. Next to me stood a man with two boys. The younger of the two boys was complaining incessantly to his father that he was tired and his legs were hurting. The complaints mounted, only rising in volume. The travelers were getting annoyed. The father was getting...Read more...

“How did I come to love Torah?” is a question worth answering, because not every Jewish child does love Torah, even those whose parents want nothing more for them.

The answer for me is simple. My father is the reason I love Torah. The joy on his face every time he shares a...Read more...