The Relevant Menorah

Here's a Chanukah present for your listening pleasure. Recorded before a live audience in the Gordon home last week.

The Relevant Menorah: Why Chanukah Just Keeps Getting Better

For more articles and audio on Chanukah, click the "Chanukah" label below.

Rosh Hashanah U!

Click the link to hear (or download) a new Shiur entitled "Elul: Preparing Ourselves for the Book of Life."  A special thank you to Beth Jacob Congregation for including the shiur in their Rosh Hashanah U program and to Selwyn Gerber of Gerber & Co. for hosting.

The title is vague, so here's a more detailed description: 

A surprising tradition about the sin of the forbidden fruit leads us to a new interpretation of the blessing on bread, a new and practical approach to Teshuvah, and a new take on Man's mandate in the New World outside the Garden.   

May we be blessed with more and more newness for the New Year!

For more on Elul and Rosh Hashanah, click on the labels below. 

God Wants... You? A Retelling of the Exodus Story

Click the link below for a recording of today's Pre-Pesach shiur at Gerber & Co.
In this shiur we pose a basic theological question: What motivated God to redeem the Jews? The answer may surprise you. In the process, we reevaluate the place of the individual vis-à-vis the community, finding interesting clues expressed both in the Mishkan and at the Seder. To summarize our conclusions on this front:
"Ask not what you can do for your community; ask rather, what is your community doing for you!"

The Mishkan, the Golden Calf & the Exodus:

Searching for a New Abraham

Shoshanas Yaakov

We all sing it, but what does it really mean? Click here for a line-by-line analysis of the everyone's favorite Purim song: Shoshanas Yaakov. Recorded live at Gerber & Co.

Aside from the standard tune for Shoshanas Yaakov, a lively and comedic operatic version was composed in 1920 by Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub, the Modzitzer Rebbe. You can hear it here, recorded in the sweetest of voices by Ben Tzion Shenker. 

For more audio and essays on Purim, click on the Purim label below.