Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Everyone has their demons. And everyone has their angels. There are some that say that when our forefather Jacob wrestled with “beings divine and human” he struggled with his estranged brother Esau. Other suggest he wrestled with Esau’s protecting angel. Long before this mysterious encounter, Jacob stole the birthright from Esau. At his mother Rebekah’s suggestion, he tricked his father Isaac and took the first-born blessing for himself. Esau then threatened to kill him. Jacob runs. He has been running for some time. Afraid about the next day’s meeting with his brother he sends his family across the river and instructs his servants to bring gifts to Esau. “And Jacob was left alone.” He is alone with his thoughts. Should I have lied to my father? Why did I trick Esau out of his rightful inheritance? Regret fills the solitude. It feeds the loneliness. “A being wrestled with him until the break of dawn.” Jacob is unable to wrest free from his demons. The being wrenches hi

Place is central to our most important Jewish dream. That singular dream is recounted at our Passover Seders: L’shanah habaah b’yerushalyim—next year in Jerusalem. And now, as the Psalmist sings, we are in fact like dreamers who have returned to Zion. We can in a matter of hours touch the land that our ancestors only saw in their mind’s eye and sang about in their prayers. Vayetzei begins that dreaming. Jacob arrived at the place. And he dreamed of a ladder reaching toward heaven. And God reiterated to him the promise that the land on which he was lying will be assigned to him and his offspring. Today his dream has become real. Yama—West—becomes Tel Aviv. Tzafona—North—is now Haifa. Our dreams are now real places. For millennia this was not the case. The rabbis of old were forced to fashion Judaism out of the embers of a destroyed Jerusalem.... This post continues on The Times of Israel.

This Tuesday morning, I wore my kippah, the customary head covering many Jews wear in synagogue. We cover our heads as reminder that God is always present. As I entered the local elementary school to vote, I donned my kippah. I don’t wear a kippah all the time. Typically I wear one when leading prayer services or when teaching a class or when officiating at a wedding or funeral. I don’t wear one when doing any manner of everyday activities, such as grocery shopping or going for a walk or for that matter, venturing to town hall. This occasion, however, needed to be sanctified–most especially this year, and during these times. Voting seems like such a mundane affair.... This post continues on The Wisdom Daily.

At Shabbat evening services we gathered together to celebrate Shabbat and stand in solidarity with the Pittsburgh Jewish community. I began the service with these words: I never imagined that I would stand before our congregation and have occasion to speak about such violent and deadly antisemitism in our own country. The fact that someone acted on his desire that all Jews must die seems unimaginable to me. I recognize that violent antisemitism is part of our American history. Leo Frank, for example, was lynched in the early 1900’s. But that seemed a unique circumstance and I could dismiss it as “back then.” Sure, in my own day, there were antisemitic comments said here or there, and there was Nazi graffiti scrawled on synagogues, but nothing ever of this scale. Such acts only happened over there, in Europe. Perhaps, we even quietly said to ourselves, it could happen in the South or in the far reaches of the West. Such horrific acts of terror aimed at Jews happened in Israel.