Messages from April 2023

**Rabbi O’s Weekly Parsha: Acharei Mot-Kedoshim (Leviticus 19-20)**

April 28, 2023
Leviticus
Achrei Mot

Lesson 1 for a Jewish Convert The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) mentions an incident involving a gentile who came before the sage Hillel and said, Convert me to Judaism on the condition that you will teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot. Hillel told him: “That which is hateful to you, do not […]

**Rabbi O’s Weekly Parsha: Tazria-Metzora (Leviticus 12-15)**

April 21, 2023
Leviticus
Metzora, Tazria

CHIRP Why is so much of Diaspora Jewry ambivalent toward Israel? A peculiar phenomenon mentioned in this week’s Parsha sheds light. A unique spiritual illness having physical manifestations similar to leprosy existed in Biblical times; it resulted from speaking senseless gossip or derogatory speech. Part of the purification process was to bring two birds. Although […]

Rabbi O’s Weekly Parsha: Shmini (Leviticus 9-11)

April 14, 2023
Leviticus
Shmini

Sometimes Silence is the Answer This past year I had the opportunity to be part of a group who visited Auschwitz. That evening, we stayed in a hotel across the street from one of the oldest and most renowned synagogues in Poland, the Rema’s shul in Cracow. Over 40 years earlier, in 1979, Professor Yaffa Eliach […]