On this occasion of your Bar Mitzvah, as you have made so eloquently obvious in your address, you reach your majority. According to Jewish Law, you are an adult in the full sense of the word – with all the privileges and responsibilities that it implies. When your Father, just a short while ago, recited the traditional formula ברוך שפטרני מעונשו שלזה, he announced that from now on you are, so to speak, “on your own.” You are expected to act and behave as a mature Jew acts and behaves.Let me draw your attention to an episode recorded in this week’s Sedra in which another young man was just coming into his own and beginning on the adventure of mature Jewish life. Joseph was sent away from home by his loving father Jacob. He was sent to inquire after his brothers, to learn to live with them, to make headway in Society and in Life. And so often happens with so many Jews, as we begin our adventures in maturity, we find ourselves והנה תועה בשדה – wandering in the field. We feel lost. We don’t know the right way from the wrong way. Many such people continue to travel in circles, and never reach the desired goal, they never find the right path. Their life is all wandering aimlessly. But not a Joseph. Not the son of Jacob. Not a young man with a love for his family and his people and his G-d. When such a young man first leaves his childhood behind him and begins to feel lost, then וימצאהו איש, then, as with Joseph, a “man” finds him. This man, who our Rabbis say was an angel, sets him straight, shows him the right path, points out to him how he can find his brothers and ultimately, after many adventures, realize his great ambitions and becomes a source of pride to his family.As you go out on the great road of life, we hope and pray that you too may be guided by an angel, that you too – thanks to the training your parents and family and community have given you – will find the right ways and follow it.And do you know who this angel is? Some Rabbis said it was Gabriel, and ot…

This coming Thursday, Americans of all faiths and opinions will join their countrymen in giving solemn thanks to G-d Almighty for having founded this great country on the bases of freedom and responsibility, and for having protected and favored her until this day as the world’s greatest democracy. It is altogether fitting for us, therefore, on this Sabbath preceding Thanksgiving Day, to think seriously and deeply on the entire matter of thanksgiving to G-d. For indeed, thanking G-d, offering to Him our gratefulness and gratitude, is one of the 613 commandments every Jew is bidden to observe. For while some may believe with the cynical French philosopher Diderot that "gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off," we Jews maintain with David that TOV LE’HODOT LA’SHEM, that it is not only necessary but good to give thanks to G-d. Even non-observant Jews seem to accept this Mitzvah. After the recent Israeli War of Independence, one modern, left-of-center Israeli was heard to remark, "I don't know if there is a G-d, but every day I thank Him for the miracles He performs." In our day, then, people have come to prefer David over Diderot, and the Psalms over the French Encyclopedia. HODU LA’SHEM KI TOV — Give thanks to G-d KI TOV, not only "because He is good," but also because "it is good" — it is good for man to give thanks.What does thanksgiving to G-d mean for the Jew? Let us establish for our very first premise, that in the Jewish sense Gratitude is more than mere courtesy or politeness. It is far deeper than that. For the Hebrew word HODA’AH means not "thankfulness" but "gratefulness" or "gratitude." And there is a very real difference between thankfulness and gratitude. Thankfulness is the courteous expression of recognition for a convenience rendered. Gratitude is a sentiment which strikes deep into the soul of he who is grateful. Thankfulness is superficial; gratitude — profound. Thankfulness is lip-service; gratitude — soul-service. Thankfuln…

For eight days, beginning later this week, we shall be lighting the Hanukkah candles and, after reciting the blessings, shall read the Ha-nerot halalu, a brief excerpt from the Talmud, Masekhet Soferim. In the course of this passage, which explains the reason for the observance of Hanukkah, we shall add the following well-known words: ha-nerot halalu kodesh hem, v’ein lanu reshut le’hishtamesh bahem, ela lirotam bilvad, these candles are holy, and we are not permitted to make use of them, only to gaze at them. This refers to the law that Hanukkah candles, unlike Shabbat candles, may not be used for profane purposes; for instance, we may not use them to illuminate the house. (That is why we always provide an extra candle, the shammash, so that if all other lights are extinguished it will not be these Hanukkah candles alone that will provide the illumination for members of the household.) For the candles are holy, and what is holy may not be used, only gazed at and contemplated. There is something quite remarkable about this idea that what is holy may not be “used” for any other purpose, no matter how worthy, that there are certain things that are valuable in and of themselves even if they serve no other function. It is, let us readily confess, a fairly un-modern and un-American idea. The ideal American is tough-minded and eminently practical, and his guiding philosophy is pragmatism or instrumentalism: ideas are meaningful only if they work. Things have to work, wheels have to turn, projects must be completed, one must lead to another, things must get done. The most modern of modern questions is, “of what use is it?” And when the true modern wants to express despair and hopelessness, he says, “What’s the use!” – as if that which has no use is as good as dead, utterly worthless.Our Hanukkah lights, then, take exception to that rule. They have no use – we may not use them – for they are holy. The inventiveness of the practical man and the ambition of the pragmatist al…

Several times in the book of Genesis, the Torah summarizes the biography of a protagonist of the biblical narrative, introducing this spiritual profile by the words ve'eleh toledot, "And these are the generations of,” or, in more colloquial English, “this is the story of” such-and-such an individual. Four such instances are particularly worthy of our attention: those referring to Esau, Noah, Isaac, and, in this morning’s Sidra, Jacob. The differences between them are noteworthy, for these are four archetypes that are still very much with us, and they represent four attitudes toward spiritual fulfillment.The first of these, and the one who is of least concern to us, is Esau. Of him we read, v’eleh toledot Esav hu Edom, lakah et nashav mi’benot kenaan, “and these are the generations of Esau, he is Edom; he took wives from the daughters of Canaan.” Esau is a man whose life begins and ends in the satisfaction of his own concupiscence; the v’eleh toledot of Esau is – Edom, which implies the redness of heat and passion. He is a man who believes that one's manliness can be expressed only in the number of wives he amasses, in the harem that he builds for himself, in the natural appetites that he succeeds in indulging, in the conquests that he makes. He has no spiritual pretenses; he lives only as an animal in human form. We need not belabor the point about the prevalence of this type of personality in our own society.The second of the four, is a much higher type – Noah. V’eleh toledot Noah, “these are the generations of Noah,” Noah ish tzaddik tamim hayah be’dorotav, et ha-Elokim hithalekh Noah, “Noah was a righteous man, whole in his generation, a man who walked with God.” He was a man who saw his destiny not in the satisfaction of every personal impulse and erotic whim, but rather in transcending these material desires. However, the problem with Noah is that his spiritual aspirations are entirely self-centered. We look in vain in Noah's biography for some hint that there…

Two themes are central to the festival of Hanukkah which we welcome this week. They are, first, the nes milhamah, the miraculous victory of the few over the many and the weak over the strong as the Jews repulsed the Syrian-Greeks and reestablished their independence. The second theme is nes shemen, the miracle of the oil which burned in the Temple for eight days although the supply was sufficient for only one day. The nes milhamah represents the success of the military and political enterprise of the  Maccabees, whilst the miracle of the oil symbolizes the victory of the eternal Jewish spirit. Which of these is emphasized is usually an index to one’s Weltanschauung. Thus, for instance, secular Zionism spoke only of the nes milhamah, the military victory, because it was interested in establishing the nationalistic base of modern Jewry. The Talmud, however, asking, “What is Hanukkah?,” answered with the nes shemen, with the story of the miracle of the oil. In this way the rabbis demonstrated their unhappiness with the whole Hasmonean dynasty, descendants of the original Maccabees, who became Sadducees, denied the Oral Law, and persecuted the Pharisees.Yet it cannot be denied that both of these themes are integral parts of Judaism. Unlike Christianity, we never relegated religion to a realm apart from life, we never assented to the bifurcation between that which belongs to God and that which belongs to Caesar. Religion was a crucial part – indeed, the very motive! – of the war against the Syrian-Greeks. And unlike the purely nationalistic interpretation of Hanukkah, we proclaim with the prophet (whose words we shall read next Sabbath), “For not by power nor by might, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.” In fact, the Maccabeean war was to a large extent not a revolution against alien invaders as much as a civil war against Hellenistic Jews who wanted to strip Israel of its Jewish heritage. Hence, Hanukkah symbolizes a victory through military means for spiritual…

One of the greatest difficulties for and challenges to Orthodox Judaism, is modern man’s lack of appreciation of the value of tradition for its own sake. Indeed, modern man often seems to be antagonistic to the past, and anxious to disassociate from it. He worships change, which he often regards as synonymous with progress. Why not, he asks, discard the old and substitute the new for it? Moreover, contemporary man is anxious to take new notions and put them into practice immediately. Theory should not remain theoretical, but should at once be converted into action. After all, that is the secret of the success of technology which has done so much to transform our lives and make life more livable: a pure scientist formulates an idea, and immediately the engineers and the inventors begin to develop it into practical gadgets or medicines or equipment. A secularized world, for whom the category of the holy is alien, would like to do the same with religion. It sees nothing wrong with experimentation, innovation, and constant change in the realm of religion and the spirit. This, indeed, is the spirit of the age, the zeitgeist. Hence, it is common for people to consider tradition dated and ready to be jettisoned in favor of anything that is new either in content or in form. Morality? – out with the old “code-morality” and in with the New Morality? Services? – we are bored with the traditional services and the cadences and rhythms of the ages. Let us, rather, write our own poetry, and worship to the tune of “rock-n’-roll.”And yet, this is so dangerous – and, even worse, so foolish! A great Anglican thinker, Dean Inge, once said: “A man who marries the age will soon find himself a widower.”The kernel of this idea may be found in symbolic form in the Haftorah we read this morning, from the book of Amos. The Prophet tells us that one of the sins for which God will not forgive Israel is על מכרם בכסף צדיק ואביון בעבור נעלים – selling the righteous man for silver and the poor man…

There is an important and apparently ancient theme in the Agadah concerning the episode of Jacob and his children that is both intriguing and disturbing. The Scriptural tale is well known. The brothers decided to sell Joseph as a slave, removed his “coat of many colors” and dipped it in blood, and then showed it to their father Jacob. Jacob was convinced that the blood-stained coat indicated that Joseph had been devoured by a wild beast. He went into mourning for Joseph, and refused ever to be consoled. For 22 years, Jacob did not find out that Joseph was still alive. So many people knew the truth, but the secret was never revealed to the old patriarch. Was this a plot against Jacob? Indeed so! It was a true conspiracy.The Agadah tells us that the brothers, in order to protect themselves against the wrath of their father, pronounced a חרם or excommunication against anyone who would reveal the true story to Jacob. They even included God, as it were, in their ban! And the Almighty went along and agreed to be bound by the excommunication uttered by the brothers. Thus, the Agadah states, God withdrew His שכינה or Presence from Jacob, and it did not return to him until he learned, over two decades later, that Joseph was indeed alive. (Thus, ותחי רוח יעקב אביהם, “and the spirit of their father Jacob lived again,” is interpreted as referring to the “spirit of God” or the presence of the שכינה). Joseph himself did not contact his father during this time. Moreover, the Rabbis interpret the words ויבך אותו אביו, “and his father wept over him,” as referring not to Jacob weeping over Joseph, but to Isaac weeping over Jacob! At this point, Isaac was still alive, and he knew that Joseph had been sold by his brothers. He wept bitter tears over the anguish that his son Jacob was going through, but he did not reveal the secret to Jacob מפני כבוד השכינה, “out of respect for the divine Presence,” arguing that if God wanted to keep the secret from Jacob, he had no right to break the c…

I. In the whole sordid story of the selling of Joseph, it is the oldest brother, Reuben, who comes out better than all the others. “And Reuben heard, and delivered him out of their hand, and said, ‘let us not take his life.’ And Reuben said unto them, ‘shed not blood; cast him into this pit that is in this wilderness, but lay not hands upon him’ – that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father.” (Gen. 37:21, 22) Yet, Reuben’s plan comes to naught. At the crucial moment, Reuben fails. When he is most needed, he is not there. For by the time he has returned to the pit in order to release Joseph, the brothers had already sold him into slavery. “And Reuben returned unto the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit; he said, ‘the child is not there; and as for me, whither shall I go?” (Gen. 37:29, 30). Where was Reuben? Why wasn’t he there in time to avoid the tragedy? The Rabbis give a number of answers, one of them somewhat surprising: עסוק היה בשקו ותעניתו על שבלבל יצועי אביו Reuben was preoccupied with doing penance because of his previous sin of “changing the bed of his father” – in taking up the cudgels for his mother Leah, he offended his father Jacob by removing Jacob’s bed from Bilhah’s tent, into Leah’s tent. He meant to establish his mother’s primacy as chief wife over her co-wives. But in so doing, he deeply hurt Jacob. Reuben was seized by remorse and contrition. He was so engrossed in his own spiritual rehabilitation – that he missed the opportunity to save Joseph.Reuben meant well, but it came out all wrong. His priorities were jumbled. He failed to appreciate that life and survival come first, and only then can one attend to his own spiritual growth and religious development. Pikuah nefesh (saving a life) precedes teshuvah (repentance).IIAt the recent National Convention of the UOJCA which was attended by myself and a number of leading members of the Jewish Center, the focus of debate was the problem whether or not the UOJCA …