Hear Our Voice

To listen to Rabbi Scott read his blog, click HERE. 

About a month ago, three American Jewish families from a Conservative synagogue were celebrating their children’s B’nai Mitzvah in the Egalitarian section of the Western Wall when Haredi (Jewish fundamentalists) teenagers disrupted and defamed these families’ sacred moments. These families were holding their simchas (joyous events) NOT in the main part of the Western Wall...Read more...

Life is difficult and these days it seems only to be more so.  My heart is broken by wanton violence. I can’t stop thinking about the children of Uvalde. Yes… Those who lost their lives, their futures, their hopes, and dreams… And also for the children who survived and will have to live with this permanent but invisible scar upon their hearts for the rest of their lives. I don’t demand that they live this way but it’s hard to...Read more...

To Listen to this Blog article, click HERE. 

The tired adage carted out far too often is “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  I don’t think either is true.  Because what kills people are bullets.  Yesterday’s gunman in Uvalde, Texas had just turned 18; within days, not only had he come to possess two long guns, but 375 bullets, all acquired in one purchase! 

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I am thrilled to announce a gift to CSK of $614,250!  As you know, CSK normally does not offer public attributions in recognition of our supporters’ generosity. In this case, however, I hope you will agree that certain acts of generosity are just too significant to ignore.  $614,250 is just about 150% of our annual budget! $614,250!  Moreover, that isn’t even the top end of the yield of these donors’...Read more...

On the Shabbat that precedes Purim each year, the maftir (the additional Torah reading) comes from verses in Deuteronomy which describe the attack on the Israelites by Amalek soon after the exodus from Egypt and sets in motion the “feedback loop” of Shabbat Zachor (the Shabbat of Remembrance): the Israelites escape from the brutality of Pharaoh, only to then face the murderous indignities of Amalek, whose namesake later figures...Read more...

To Listen to this Blog, click here.

In the face of Queen Esther’s fearful reluctance to act at the behest of her Uncle Mordechai to break protocol and approach the King (even though she had not been summoned) to seek his help in saving her people, Mordechai retorted with these words:

כִּ֣י אִם־הַחֲרֵ֣שׁ תַּחֲרִ֘ישִׁי֮ בָּעֵ֣ת...Read more...

A couple of weeks ago, I received a “delicious” email.  A young Bat Mitzvah student named Violet, from Birmingham, whom I named some 12+ years ago, wrote me with the request to offer my thoughts on the meaning of Shabbat.  While watching Abraham sleep through his anesthesia-induced, post-surgery haze, I found a moment to respond to Violet’s question, which went something like this: 

Dear Rabbi...Read more...

For some of you, this will sound like “old hat.” And for some of you, this will sound like something you believe you know (or you knew) but haven’t paid so much attention to, and  perhaps you could use a primer.  But for not a small number of you who are reading this blog, I believe—based on experience and at least the sin of omission by our educational institutions—this is something to which you really need to...Read more...

The primary purpose of Jewish spiritual practice is the betterment of self and one’s interactions with the world. 

I’m not quoting anyone specifically, except maybe none less than Rabbi Hillel, who taught, “Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to others.  That is the whole Torah.  All the rest is commentary, go and learn it.”

And if it were easy…but since it’s...Read more...

If we are indeed God’s chosen people and if God is indeed in control of everything, then why do we have such a sordid history?

But if God is a presence, the force of creation, the common bond of all humanity that exists but without pre-ordination or even an authorial personality-- and we are thus the writers of the Torah--why then would we write and repeat our story the way we did and do?

Instead, why didn’t we just write and rally around a “Yay Jews!” narrative?  Why must we continue to toil in Genesis’ vineyards of rivalry, debasement and violence between our ancient kin?  Our patriarch abandons his lover and child to death in the desert; our matriarch abuses the trust of her husband and son; the namesakes of the many of our 12 Tribes sell their brother into slavery and lie to their father about his fictionalized demise-- these are the ones in whose names we pray the Avot v’Imahot? Read more...