The Gift: A Song of Love
There were about a hundred of us standing around in a room, the same room we had been in since early morning. Only now it was evening. We had spent the day listening and learning about the significance of life.
The Song Is Still Alive
You're driving along the freeway and that song comes on the radio. You travel back-first love, high school dances, vacations, summers at the beach. As soon as the first notes register in your mind, the memories come flooding back.
How the Heart Relates to Moral Judgments
The Bible, with 850 attestations of lev and levav, the Hebrew words for heart, portrays that organ as the center of emotion, intellect, and personality.
Escape from Freedom
What is it that Moses demands of Pharaoh? Ask most people and they will respond,"Let my people go." Indeed, in Cecil B.
Everything Flows from God: Everything Depends on You
This year, I have the pleasure of studying the Book of Exodus together with the lay-led Hebrew Bible study group at Temple Beth Or in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I serve as senior rabbi. Thisd’var Torah draws on comments and realizations from members of the study group.
Be One with "The One"
Take yourself back. Stand in that holy place. Be one of the myriad of Israelites assembled at the foot of Mount Sinai, preparing to encounter God, to meet God face-to-face, to see God’s Presence, to hear God’s Voice.
Be Careful What You Want
I spend a lot of time with preteens, young people about to celebrate their becoming b’nei mitzvah.
“In Your Face!” Ropczyce on Sinai
What reallyhappened up on Mount Sinai is, for Jews, the whole kazoo. Everything depends on it.
The Ten Commandments: Israel’s Shared Purpose
Focal Point
All the people answered as one, saying, “All that the Eternal has spoken we will do!” (Exodus 19:8)
D'var Torah