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Rabbi Dan Moskovitz

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz

Valuing the Reform perspective in the Pew report

The historian Simon Rawidowicz wrote a famous essay in which he described Jews, with our constant fear of extinction, as the “ever-dying” people. He wrote the essay approximately 60 years ago. Does that make him wrong or prophetic?

Voting with your feet: Parashat Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1-17:27)

The existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard famously observed, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Often the same is true of Torah. Sometimes in order to understand what is happening now, you have to know what has happened before.

Circumcise your hearts

Consider the artichoke for a moment. It is an odd but instructive vegetable. An artichoke is prickly and surrounded by an armor of leaves protecting the soft center, the heart of the food. Boiling or steaming it loosens the protective leaves, permitting you to pick them off one by one, unwrapping the delicious gift that lies inside.

Why I love Jews by Choice

The first conversion I ever performed as a rabbi was for a 45-year-old father of two who was in the final stages of liver cancer.

More than skin deep

Yuck, skin disease! This has been the cry of many a bar and bat mitzvah student when informed that this week’s Torah portion will be their Torah reading on their big day. I empathize with them, for I have had the same reaction in preparing this column. But as is so often the case with the Torah (and with skin disease), to get to the root of understanding, you have to go below the surface.

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