Recording from Shabbat Services, April 27, 2019 D’var from Saturday, April 27, 2019 – Rabbi David Kosak *If you would like to download the recording and listen later, right click on the link then click “Save as” and it will save onto your computer for later listening. Recorded and edited by Ed Kraus. Click here for an archive of past recordings
“Mitzvah goreret mitzvah” is a profound if commonplace phrase in the Jewish tradition. Literally, it means that one mitzvah, one good deed or commandment, pulls another one in its wake. While I sometimes insouciantly translate this phrase as “no good deed goes unpunished,” there’s a deeper reality at play, and one which is captured in an equally pithy statement that “skhar mitzvah mitzvah.” The reward for doing a mitzvah is either that action itself, or another mitzvah.
Recording from Shabbat Services, April 20, 2019 D’var from Saturday, April 20, 2019 – Rabbi David Kosak *If you would like to download the recording and listen later, right click on the link then click “Save as” and it will save onto your computer for later listening. Recorded and edited by Ed Kraus. Click here for an archive of past recordings
We have just finished bedikat chametz in my home, the final search for any leavening on the evening before Passover. This is primarily a symbolic search—by the time it comes, people have already cleaned their homes as thoroughly as they can manage and in a manner that meets their own sense of piety. So the search is a way we come to grant ourselves approval for the preparations we have undertaken.
Recording from Shabbat Services, April 13, 2019 D’var from Saturday, April 13, 2019 – Rabbi David Kosak *If you would like to download the recording and listen later, right click on the link then click “Save as” and it will save onto your computer for later listening. Recorded and edited by Ed Kraus. Click here for an archive of past recordings
Recording from Shabbat Services, April 12, 2019 D’var from Friday, April 12, 2019 – Rabbi David Kosak *If you would like to download the recording and listen later, right click on the link then click “Save as” and it will save onto your computer for later listening. Recorded and edited by Ed Kraus. Click here for an archive of past recordings
Three days ago, Israel voted. Speaking personally, I found the results of that national election both hopeful and discouraging. What was quite heartening was that in a very short period of time, Israel’s newest political party, Cahol v’Lavan (Blue and White—the colors of the Israeli flag) became a force to be reckoned with.
