Life is often about making compromises. Sometimes we compromise because it’s the easiest solution. I work on one side of town, you work on the other, and we pick a place in the middle for coffee. Other times compromise means one person bends a little bit further than the other to make the situation work.
Don’t you kind of wish you had a protective cloud like the one described in Parshat Beha’alotcha following you and ushering in one phase after the next? Toddler phases too are Torah.
D'var from Friday, June 17th - Rabbi David Kosak and d'var from Saturday, June 18th - Rabbi David Kosak. Recorded and edited by Ed Kraus.
I snuck a couple of hours to watch the game with my kids last night. That's what I really want to write about--the Cleveland Cavaliers game last night. How the Cavs hung in there against the Warriors, fighting their way back to an even series. Of LeBron James, never the most elegant of players, yet a persistent and often unstoppable force of nature.
Does prayer for healing after a tragedy actually work? I’m not sure the answer is black and white, but I’m sure it’s a question worth asking. As you can imagine, it’s difficult to write a d’var Torah this week without the tragic loss of life in Orlando influencing my thoughts.
The contrast between joyous Shavuot (when we receive, along with the rest of the Torah, the commandment “Thou shall not kill”) and the horrific events in Orlando and Tel Aviv is jarring and nauseating. Today I offer a departure from my usual lighthearted parenting lessons as I grapple with what it means to give and receive blessing in this world my daughter will inherit. But perhaps this struggle too is Torah.
The previous September, a friend and I spent Rosh Hashanah on the large rocks outside the remains of Sutro Baths. At the end of the 19th century, the Baths had been a large complex of salt water swimming pools. In its heyday, it was impressive enough, that Thomas Edison is purported to have filmed the functioning baths in 1897.
