Rabbi David Wolpe

An indelible film, ‘Shoah’ also reflects an extraordinary artist

Published on April 11, 2012

Surely the most unpromising premise for a film ever conceived is this: Nine and one half hours of people speaking in languages you do not understand about mass murder. Yet “Shoah” offers an experience unlike any other film, and its creator has written a memoir introducing us to the extraordinary man responsible for its existence.

Beinart’s Crisis

Published on March 23, 2012

Peter Beinart’s new book showcases its deepest flaw on the very first page, courtesy of his grandmother. From her home in South Africa, she says to her American grandson who is boasting about his country, “Don’t get too attached. The Jews are like rats. We leave the sinking ship.”

Wolpe vs. Beinart

Published on February 13, 2012

Announcing his new book in a hucksterish email to J street members, Peter Beinart details the truths vouchsafed to him and his fellow enlightened acolytes. A brief sampler:

Guide to a master reader’s works

Published on January 26, 2012

In a moment of unwarranted despair, the young Keats wrote his epitaph: “Here lies one whose name is writ in water.” Yet creative geniuses achieve such immortality as human memory bestows. Those who exalt them disappear. The poet endures; the critic is destined to be forgotten.

Christopher Hitchens: A rabbi remembers a friend and fellow debater

Published on December 16, 2011

In his brilliant history of early modern England, “The Ends of Life,” historian Keith Thomas quotes a translator named George Petrie who wrote in 1581, “The only way to win immortality is either to do things worth the writing, or write things worth the reading.” Christopher Hitchens is, by this reckoning, twice immortal.

Let us reap wisdom sown by tragedy of Tisha B’Av

Published on August 2, 2011

This week we observe the fast of Tisha B’Av, commemorating the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Bobby Fischer: The decline of a troubled genius

Published on July 19, 2011

The world is rich in ability, awash in talent. But, though we use the word with abandon, genius is rare.

Christian charity in Haiti is the Jewish thing to do

Published on January 19, 2011

Dona is a 14-year-old boy in Port-au-Prince. When his mother was pregnant with him, she hid in fear from his father. In time, he found her and insisted she have an abortion. She refused. They fought, and she ran.

Stories bring a life full circle

Published on September 1, 2010

Elie Wiesel often recounts the tale of Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sasov, who needed a miracle. His predecessors had gone to a particular spot in the forest, lit a special candle, said a certain blessing and were able to evoke a miracle. Throughout the generations, much had been lost. Now the poor rabbi no longer knew where in the forest one should pray, no longer possessed the special candle, did not even know the secret blessing. What he knew was the story. Dear God, he prayed, the story must be sufficient. And it was.

Obama hosts Jewish leaders at White House reception

Published on May 28, 2010

What Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg has called "Operation Desert Schmooze" continued at the White House yesterday. A group of some 150 people, mostly Jews prominent in their fields, gathered for the latest volley in the Obama charm offensive. This was the first White House event in honor of Jewish Heritage month which -- it may have escaped your notice -- was in May.

An ‘Intellectual’ Pursuit

Published on April 27, 2010

It might have been a grotesque scene out of a Dan Brown thriller: In the middle of the day, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a 26-year-old Moroccan Dutchman named Mohammed Bouyeri. Bouyeri shot Van Gogh, then slit his throat with a machete. After the murder, he affixed a five-page note to his victim by plunging a smaller knife into his chest.

Rethinking Judaism

Published on March 30, 2010

Where do we, boots thick in the modern muddle, turn to understand our faith? Some traditionalists stand athwart the contemporary world and insist that ancient convictions and practices are all that is required; new knowledge does not demand a revision of tradition. Others, surveying a world in which social hierarchies are gone and religious traditions develop historically, where we have learned that different traditions have similar stories and powerful insights and science has upended many classical convictions, are persuaded that we must understand Torah in a new way.

Zornberg Shines Light on Biblical Silences

Published on December 9, 2009

The classic Taoist text teaches: “Thirty spokes meet together in a single hub. The wagon’s usefulness depends upon their nothingness.” Everything depends upon the space between the spokes.

Five Reasons Vampires Aren’t Jews

Published on November 11, 2009

Their day begins at night, they show a certain aversion to the sign of the cross and they dress in black. Of course, I am talking about Jews.

B’nai Mitzvah Bind Our Tradition of God, Torah, Israel

Published on June 24, 2009

Who believes that the 13-year-old standing before the congregation is really a man or woman?

HaLevi’s Philosophic Jewel Polished to New Gloss

Published on April 2, 2009

How Torah Revolutionized Political Theory

Published on February 11, 2009

Why do we read the Bible? For religion to be sure, but also for politics. After all, unlike the New Testament, which was written in the era of Roman rules and did not have to offer prescriptions for governance (the Romans handled all that), the Bible was a manual not only for individual piety, but also for setting up a society. What does it teach that the surrounding worlds did not know?

Disraeli: The curious case of England’s Jewish prime minister

Published on December 31, 2008

Disraeli: The curious case of England’s Jewish prime minister

Published on December 25, 2008

Benjamin Disraeli was born Jewish, baptized as a boy but (mostly) considered himself to be Jewish. He famously proclaimed to Queen Victoria -- who began by hating him and ended adoring him -- that he was the "blank page" separating the Old and New Testaments.

Facing God, and the challenge of individual conscience

Published on November 26, 2008

We were intended by God—we’re not afterthoughts

Published on October 23, 2008

Belief is not a static illusion to be knocked down at the introduction of a new scientific hypothesis or discovery. Faith is an orientation of soul, a posture toward God's universe that finds expression in many religious traditions.

Books: Epstein has a Yankee brio and a Yiddish wit

Published on February 14, 2008

For we have in our midst an essayist with a slightly more down-home American tang (Max Beerbohm was essentially, quintessentially, British). Joseph Epstein combines that Yankee brio with a Yiddish wit and an elegant erudition that recalls Beerbohm. He is funny, he is wise and you ought to be reading him.

Books: Philip Roth’s Zuckerman has left the building

Published on October 4, 2007

Books: The bible and history—facts or truth?

Published on September 20, 2007

Cline's book is a dispassionate recounting of the central issues that preoccupy scholars and pseudoscholars of the biblical text.

Books: Too fond of Jews

Published on August 30, 2007

By the age of 26, Winston Churchill had fought in several wars, become a hero by daringly escaping prison during the Boer War, been elected to Parliament and written several popular books (including "My Early Life," which dramatically recounts his escape). Already he was well on his way to becoming what we now know him to be, the most extraordinary character of the 20th century.

Books: Seeds of peace revealed in early coexistence of Jews, Christians and Muslims

Published on June 28, 2007

Zachary Karabell offers a different perspective on the question of Islamic rule in his history, "Peace Be Upon You: Fourteen Centuries of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence in the Middle East" (Knopf, 2007).

Chabon novel spins dizzying tale of alternative history, and Alaska

Published on May 17, 2007

Shysters chase ambulances; critics chase influences. How to characterize this Chandler-Babel stew? Let's try the Hollywood idiom. "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" is Woody Allen meets Cornel Woolrich. No, better, deeper: S.J. Perelman meets Y.L. Peretz meets Harry Turtledove. Martin Amis meets Stanley Elkin who is chatting with Sholom Aleichem about Jorge Luis Borges.

Atheism du Jour

Published on March 29, 2007

Atheism has become chic. In itself, this might be a helpful thing, after all faith, like every other system, strengthens itself by intelligent challenge. But too much of the contemporary attack on religion is just that -- an attack fueled by grievance and not by careful consideration.

When Ashkenazi and Persian worlds collide—community healing begins at shul

Published on February 22, 2007

I do not want an "us" and a "them." If you are not really ready to be part of one community, which means to have friends, to marry, to rejoice together, to grieve together, then all I can tell you is you should find another place. But I think that you are, I hope and pray and believe that you are.

The Spin on Spinoza—Rebel or Traitor?

Published on May 25, 2006

"Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity": Traditional Judaism feared and distrusted this child of the enlightenment. Although prominent Jewish thinkers, from Moses Mendelssohn to Solomon Maimon to modern Zionists, have claimed him as their own, every deliberation on Spinoza wonders -- is he a Jewish thinker?

We Must Treat Others With Kindness

Published on May 18, 2006

The Haggadah tells us "you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Here is the interesting thing -- because we were strangers, we are supposed to learn not how the Israelites should have acted, but -- how the Egyptians should have acted. We are supposed to learn how not to oppress others. Don't treat others the way we were treated.

A Manifesto for the Future

Published on December 1, 2005

In early November, I spoke at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. The topic was "The Future of Conservative Judaism." I prepared for the talk by asking colleagues, friends and congregants to define Conservative Judaism in one sentence. It was a dispiriting experience.

We Must Condemn Heartless Bilge

Published on September 15, 2005

"It is not in our hands to explain the prosperity of the wicked or even the sufferings of the righteous." So said Rabbi Yannai in the Mishna some 2,000 years ago. The Talmud (Kiddushin 39b) insists "there is no reward for mitzvot in this world." We have had a long time to read and understand the Book of Job, and we know that the calculus of reward and punishment is more perplexing and agonizing than we can know.

Than we can know, but not, apparently, than Rav Ovadiah Yosef, a former chief rabbi of Israel, can know. Rav Ovadiah is an ilui, a genius of halacha.

His memory is astonishing, his range remarkable. Unfortunately, his theology is appalling.

False Promises in Berg’s ‘Becoming’

Published on December 16, 2004

I have never been to the Kabbalah Centre, never studied with one of their teachers, and cannot comment on their practices. My sole direct exposure was to watch a videotape produced by the center, "The Power of Kabbalah: A Documentary," from 1996, in which they claim, among other things, credit for producing the Oslo accords -- credit which they may be presently inclined to disavow. But no matter. I spent an infuriating hour reading "Becoming Like God" by Rabbi Michael Berg. If I can succeed in persuading one person not to buy this confused, contradictory, intellectually disreputable and Jewishly perverse volume it will be well worth the exasperation.

Lessons From Life’s Second Chance

Published on February 5, 2004

"I heard the rabbi is dying of brain cancer."

That was the word flying around the shul. I should have expected it. Rumors were rife, and they were uncomfortably close to the truth.

Last Oct. 23, I was speaking at the University of Pennsylvania, to inaugurate the new Hillel building on campus. At dinner, I sat beside my parents.

As I spoke, I felt a little strange, nervous and hot. I had trouble keeping to my train of thought. It occurred to me that I was coming down with a cold.

As I sat down after my speech, my father asked, "Is there anything wrong?"

"No," I said, and that is the last thing I remember.

The Sword and the Scroll

Published on October 2, 2003

As this Jewish year begins, we are once again assailed by the din of seemingly monumental events: the war in Iraq, the decision about our state leadership, the peril in Israel, the crises of human rights, environment, scientific progress and ethics.

Anne Frank’s Words Resonate In The Center Of World Power

Published on June 26, 2003

There is no better place to understand the powerful forces and fault lines of American identity than Washington. I arrived in the evening at Dulles Airport, and my cab driver, I soon discovered, was Iranian. As we drove, he told me his life story: He had been an ambassador to Moscow under Khomeini, the man who "ruined my country."

How did he feel about being in America?

Why Jews Don’t Accept Jesus

Published on January 9, 2003

Why don't Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah or son of God?

Growing up in Philadelphia, I attended Akiba Hebrew Academy, a private Jewish school. In 11th grade, a Southern Baptist preacher came to speak to our class. He looked around the room, and with a kindly smile said, "You seem like nice boys and girls. But I must tell you that unless you change your ways, you are all going to hell." I admired his honesty, but not his theology. I spent the next hour trying to think of a question that would stump him. As the class was ending, I raised my hand.

Spiritual Agoraphobia

Published on November 14, 2002

In the late Middle Ages, some Jews first banned and then instigated the burning of the books of Maimonides, the greatest philosopher Judaism ever produced. The book burning of 1232 was one episode in a controversy that lasted for some two centuries. The fight was not over Maimonides as an individual, for all agreed he was a great scholar and a pious man, rather the dispute centered on his incorporating Greek learning into his philosophy. Maimonides revered Aristotle; he called him "the philosopher." His opponents attacked him and the intellectual battle raged.

When I’m 44

Published on October 24, 2002

Each stage of life has its characteristic depressions and delights.

Torah to Tel Aviv

Published on July 26, 2001

We were together in a small room, about 10 of us. Four of us were from Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. I stood with Jimmy Delshad, our temple's past president; his wife, Lonnie, and Temple Treasurer Kam Hekmat, as well as two members of an L.A. fact-finding mission, David Rubin and Dr. Mark Barak. We were bending over the scroll of a Torah, along with five rabbis, all dressed in combat fatigues. Each rabbi was scrutinizing it with an erudite eye.

The Lessons of Yom Kippur

Published on October 5, 2000

Today you die. No one pronounces that horrible sentence on Yom Kippur, but it is true. Yom Kippur reenacts death. We wear white, like the shrouds we will one day be buried in. We do not eat, wash, procreate; we are as corpses. We recite the "Unetaneh Tokef," filled with graphic, even gruesome images about our death.