Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner is the Emanu-El Scholar at Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco. He is the author of several books on Jewish spirituality published by Jewish Lights Publishing in Woodstock, VT and a new novel, Kabbalah: A Love Story (New York: Morgan Road Books, 2006). 

This Light’s for You

D'Var Torah By: Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

"The Holy One spoke to Moses, saying: 'Speak to Aaron and say to him, "When you cause the lights on the menorah to ascend . . . "'" (Numbers 8:1-2). The image (and task) of causing light to "ascend" strikes us as so intuitively correct, so aesthetically appropriate, and so

The "Business" with the Calf

D'Var Torah By: Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

"They exchanged their glory for the image of a bull that feeds on grass!" (Psalm 106:20) We Jews may have invented monotheism, but that doesn't mean we're monotheists. Indeed, for most of our history, it seems, we have all been idolaters. In Judaism, the maaseh ha-aygel (literally, "the business with

Being Who You Are

D'Var Torah By: Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

Parashat Vayeishev is always read on, or near, the beginning of Hanukkah. Indeed, Jewish tradition frequently employs this week's story of Joseph's harrowing descent into Egypt as a refractive lens through which we might understand the Festival of Lights and its celebration of our people's triumph over the seductions of

Berdichev on Creation

D'Var Torah By: Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

In his K'dushat Levi on Genesis 1:1, the third-generation Chasidic master, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev (d. 1810) notices a curious grammatical inconsistency between the opening verse of Genesis, "In the beginning, God created. . . ," and the language of the Yotzer blessing, directly after the Bar'chu of the

Balaam’s Talking Ass

D'Var Torah By: Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

The parashah for this Shabbat is a fundamentalist’s nightmare. This week we read the lollapalooza grand­dad­dy of all the off-the-wall Bible stories. It’s so preposterous it makes splitting the Red Sea look like child’s play. This week Balaam, the seer, is riding on his she-ass to deliver a paid-for-in-ad­vance imprecation