Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

You cannot sustain the miraculous. It is a flash that quickly dissipates. And yet people still chase after them. That’s why they pilgrimage to religious sites, hoping to recapture the spirit of what once happened there. They spend inordinate resources to travel back to where the inspiration for their faith first occurred. This is a mistaken effort and one which Judaism by and large rejects, although more by accident rather than design. We do not know the exact location of Mount Sinai. The Torah does not record the burial place of its hero Moses. We cannot even find the Sea of Reeds. And yet the impulse to rediscover such miraculous inspirations still drive religious followers. The medieval philosopher and poet, Yehudah HaLevi, who authored countless poems, most notably the words, “My heart is in the East, but I am trapped in the depths of the West,” died during his journey to reach the Holy Land. Legend records that he was killed as he reached out to touch the stones of Jerusal

Our central prayer, the Shema is recited two times a day, once in the evening and again in the morning. The question arises how a person determines when it is evening and when morning. When is the first moment someone can recite the Shema, for example? Is it when we see the first glimmer of light, peering out of night’s darkness? The rabbis of the Talmud argue at length about this question. One responds, when one can determine between the sky’s blue and white. Another retorts, when one can distinguish between two similar animals, such as a wolf and a dog. The sages respond, when one can recognize an acquaintance from a distance of four cubits (six feet!). Jewish law follows the sages’ majority opinion. (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 9b). Dawn is not about the glow of red and orange emerging at sunrise. Instead, it is about seeing, and in particular our seeing each other. The distinction between day and night is determined by our ability to see others. Darkness is not so much th

I have been thinking about the divisiveness we now face, and the unity that so clearly eludes us. Looking back on our history, we tend to diminish disagreements, and naysayers, and amplify agreement, and even exaggerate cohesiveness. When we peer at the events of yesterday, we tend to forget the pain that separated us from our neighbors. Think about how we retell our experience of going out from slavery in Egypt to freedom and wandering in the wilderness. And yet we read over and over again, that the people doubt Moses and even God. The Torah reports: “Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: ‘I am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage….’ But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.” (Exodus 6) Once free, we spend the remainder of the Torah arguing and fighting with each other. Moses dies in the Torah’s last chapter, his dream of touching the land of Isra

Like so many proud Americans I was shocked and dismayed by Wednesday’s events. To see the Confederate flag marched through the Capital, rioters wearing Proud Boy slogans and QAnon paraphernalia, groups who traffic in conspiracy theories and antisemitism, to see people smashing the Capital’s windows, the mob desecrating the American flag and climbing Congress’ walls as if it were a jungle gym, to stare in disbelief as rioters vandalized our government’s sacred halls while senators and representatives scurried to safety, to read that people were killed and officers were injured and that one then died all on the day in which Congress was supposed to formally recognize the Electoral College votes and affirm Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris as our next president and vice-president, and finally, to hear President Trump’s earlier words exhorting the crowd to do such violence, was more than I could take. It was more than I could bear. Never was I more ashamed, and frightened to be an American

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an infamous antisemitic tract written in the early 20th century advancing the conspiracy theory that Jews seek to control the world through a secret cabal. Scholars have long suggested it was written in Russia around the time of deadly antisemitic pogroms in the early 1900’s. In the 1920’s Henry Ford published 500,000 copies of this tract and distributed them throughout the United States to English reading audiences. Despite the fact that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was long ago debunked, it continues to find audiences and sympathetic ears. Today QAnon and its followers allege an equally outrageous conspiracy theory. A group of Satan worshiping pedophiles is running a sex-trafficking ring whose goal is the downfall of President Donald Trump. According to QAnon, among the ring’s followers are some Democratic leaders and liberal Hollywood actors who secretly meet in the basements of Washington DC pizza restaurants. There are of course o