From the Rabbi's Desk

Today we celebrate the incredible holiday of Purim. It’s a day of joy and merriment but its origin is one of darkness and fear. On Purim each year, we recall a time when a mad man tried to destroy our people. He did so out of deep anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Both of these forces are still real in the world today. While the words “Never Again” were not coined by Mordecai and Esther, I do think it’s fair to...Read more...

The history of the Nazi Death Camps is not all that well known. We often assume, wrongfully, that the camps had been planned out from the beginning of the rise of the Nazis and that all of the victims were in them at one point or another. The reality is quite different. When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, they had resolved to murder the Jewish people and other minorities but they didn’t have a well thought out...Read more...

There are many times where people mix up midrashim and stories from the Talmud with what’s in the actual TaNaKh, or in this case the Torah. When I ask people for their favorite story from the book of Genesis, they tell me the one about Abraham smashing the idols. That story is not in the book of Genesis but is in the midrash in Genesis Rabbah 38:13. Here’s the gist of the story. Abram’s (he would become Abraham later on) father was an...Read more...