✡ We Stand With the People of Israel ✡
By Rabbi Matt Derrenbacher On the Shabbat before Rosh HaShanah, we read: You are standing here today, all of you, before your G-d, the Holy One of Blessing: you communal leaders, you elders, you officials; every Israelite. You children, … Read More
By Rabbi David Ariel-Joel What is the biggest challenge for our community in Louisville, Kentucky? How can we meet this challenge? There is a wonderful debate in the Babylonian Talmud asking: What is the most important principle of Judaism? What principles should … Read More
By Rabbi Shani Abramowitz For nearly all 49 days of the Omer, I am simultaneously blessed with and plagued by one persistent question: How do we unlock and open the doors to our tradition, whittle down barriers, and make our shuls more open, expansive, … Read More
By Rabbi Scott Hoffman Far and away the most confounding part of the Jewish calendar occurred this past week and the previous one. We observed Yom Ha-shoah, the day of Holocaust Remembrance, and marked the greatest tragedy in the four-thousand-year history of our people last … Read More
By Rabbi Matt Derrenbacher One of the best-known texts from the entire Torah is the Sh’ma: וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔ אֵ֖ת יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ בְּכׇל–לְבָבְךָ֥ וּבְכׇל–נַפְשְׁךָ֖ וּבְכׇל–מְאֹדֶֽךָ: “Hear/Listen/Understand, Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4). The Sh’ma is recited every single day, once … Read More
By Rabbi Beth Jacowitz Chottiner This month, we started the book of Exodus. We read the well-known words that we recite each year at the Passover Seder: “There arose a king who knew not Joseph.” We were reminded that the … Read More
By Rabbi Yoni Rudansky Last year, I wrote a D’var Torah in these pages. Many of you commented and enjoyed it, and I appreciated that (as my Zaidy used to say, “Flattery will get you…Everywhere!”). But it was premature. My … Read More
By Rabbi Avrohom Litvin I am writing these words while sitting among more than 5,000 of my fellow Chabad Shluchim at the International Conference of Chabad Emissaries in New York. It is a sight that defies description. Rabbis and community … Read More
By Rabbi Scott Hoffman Between 2018 and 2025, I moved from Long Island to suburban Philadelphia, then to suburban D.C., then to New Orleans, then back to suburban D.C. before arriving in Louisville in May. I’ve learned to make the … Read More
By Rabbi Chaim Litvin As we prepare to close the year and enter the new one, the Torah reading offers us a timeless message. In Parshat Nitzavim we read: Atem nitzavim hayom kulchem lifnei Hashem Elokeichem (“You are all standing … Read More
