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Loyalty in deed, Indeed! Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach. I hope this finds you all well. My wife said something truly powerful to me in the car the other night that she heard from attorney Elica Le Bon: “It’s more important to be good than to appear to be good.” She couldn’t be more right. Think about it- who do you want in your life: the friend who tells you they’ll show up for you and never does, or the friend that says they’ll show up and actually does? The choice is pretty clear. On the joyous holiday of Shavuot which starts this year on Sunday, we read the story of the Book of Ruth. In it, the elderly and impoverished Israelite Naomi, after having lost her husband Elimelech and two sons Machlon and Chilion, tells her Moabite daughters-in-law Naomi and Orpah to return to their parents as she has […]

This D’var Torah is dedicated both to Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, who were senselessly murdered on Wednesday in Washington D.C., outside the Capital Jewish Museum in a disgusting and depraved act of terrorism and antisemitism. This D’var Torah is also lovingly dedicated to our nation’s fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Space Guardians, who from 1775 through the present, have laid down their lives in every generation to protect our beloved country, our fellow Americans, and our cherished way of life. May their memories be for a blessing, now and forever. Shabbat Shalom. I hope this finds you all well. There’s this guy. He buys a brand new jeep. He is so excited about his new ride. And he does everything with it- hauling equipment, off-roading, the daily commute, long family trips, going to the grocery store…you name it. When his wife offers to drive them […]

Shabbat Shalom! I hope this finds you all well. There’s this kid, and he’s fast, and I do mean fast.  When he runs the 100 meter, everyone else is just fighting for second place. Given his speed and maneuverability, playing as a wide receiver seems like a natural fit. He exceeds expectations and performs brilliantly during his pee-wee and middle school years. His major flaw is that he’s good and he knows it all too well. Instead of confidence, he displays arrogance; instead of a desire to learn and improve his game, he brags constantly about all his achievements; and instead of humility, he gives off an air of hubris a mile away. Well, high school comes around and he shows up for the football team’s training camp. Everyone thinks he’s a shoo-in for starting wide-receiver. When the results come in after camp, he shockingly doesn’t make first-string. He doesn’t […]

Shabbat Shalom! I hope this finds you all well. In the film The Free State of Jones, Newton Knight (played by Matthew McConaughey) and his followers hold a Confederate Lieutenant and his soldiers at gunpoint after they try to confiscate the local farmers’ corn crops. He declares: “He’s asking if I ought to kill a man for some corn … I don’t know … See here, lieutenant, you steal our corn, we got nothing to feed the hog. If we can’t feed the hog we got nothing to put in the smokehouse, we got nothing to put in the smokehouse we starve in the winter. That’s murder, ain’t it? You know what the penalty for murder is, don’t you, lieutenant?”[1] Often in life, we only think of the immediate impacts of our words and actions. But how often do we think of the many long-term ramifications and secondary, and tertiary […]