Kol Nidre begins with a dramatic declaration, “by consent of the court on high, and by consent of the court below, we permit prayer with transgressors.” This formula is attested already in the circle of Rabbi Meir of Rotenberg (Germany, 13C) as reported by his student Samson b. Tzadok (Tashbetz Katan 131), and then in…
Category: Ha’azinu
The Pupil of God’s Eye: YK-Ha’azinu 5780
The practice of hagba’ah, the lifting of the Torah scroll, is always dramatic, but especially when one can see unusual features of the scroll from a distance. This is the case with the poem Ha’azinu (Deut. 32: 1-42), which is presented as two narrow columns of parallel verse in phrases of three or four words….
Perfect and Whole in a Broken World Shoftim 5779
What’s our position on mediums? Years ago in Detroit some in the Jewish community were drawn to a woman who claimed that she could channel conversations with their deceased relatives. Families who with my help had faithfully followed the Jewish traditions of hesped, levaya, shiva and kaddish were, some time later, meeting with her to…
Rabbi Danny Nevins 