Connecting Scripture and Life

In the infancy narrative of Jesus Joseph is a hero. This is a righteous and noble man who, without any prompting, would protect the life of Mary and her unborn child though by law he had the right to turn her over for capital judgement. Before his dream he made a heavenly choice. Then the prophetic voice comes to him in a dream to take the woman and her child into his home and name him Jesus. Jose...

Today we talk about lighting the Chanukah lights from passages in the Talmud. Chanukah is not spoken of in Torah and Maccabees is not part of the Jewish Canon and yet Jews worldwide light the candles over eight days until the whole house is glowing with warmth and the divine light of God. This is a beautiful tradition to remind us that the light coming into the world has always been here and will...

The wolf is the guest of the lamb, the infant plays by the viper's den, the lion eats hay with the ox, knowledge of the Lord covers the earth like water. All of these things are antithetical to the reality we live in and yet through the prophet, God has promised that this is what will be. This is an aspirational prophecy that shows us what we are and will be. It is for us to live toward this promi...

We usually hear about Jesus tempted in the desert at Lent. This conversation places it in the context of the season of thanksgiving. We know the story: Jesus, filled with the Spirit, is led into the desert, fasts for forty days and nights and undergoes three temptations from the devil. These are basic things we humans desire: food, power, self-possession. When we are at our most vulnerable an urge...

In this chapter God reminds us that when we are struggling he gives us the strength to carry on. When we are wealthy we must remember that it is through the power and gifts from God that we have accomplished. We often pray before our meals, but when we finish the meal do we offer thanks then? This is the moment, when we are satisfied, that we are to express our thanks. In the desert God tested the...

In this season of Thanksgiving we share this beautiful psalm of gratitude that is exquisitely simple and open to living right now. In its depths it calls us to praise God in a way that brings divine blessing on our service and lets us embraces the service of others. Shouts of joyful worship fill our hearts and the hearts of all God's people in every generation. This gratitude is both personal and...

In this episode we talk about the movement of the divine spirit within Jesus and ourselves. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Jesus who will bring us out of captivity to those things that keep us from recognizing and living out the divinity we are endowed with through our creation. To live out God's command to be happy by walking the way of Jesus requires humility. We must move past the question "Isn...

Today we share thoughts and reflections about the Vatican II document on the relation of the Church to non-Christian Religions. One of the beautiful things that came from the conversation is that it is the reason we are able to come together each week and share our faith with prudence and love. Join us as we embrace the beauty and wisdom of Mother Church and her acceptance of all things true and h...

Today we talk about the mitzvah (the commandment) of the sukkah, the booth built for the celebration of the Feast of Booths. God told the people in the desert to live in booths and through the generations the Rabbis have struggled to help the people live out this mitzvah. Sukkot is a time of great celebration, a harvest festival to experience life without analysis. The sukkah's roof allows rain to...

This prayer that culminates the celebration of Rosh Hashanah is about the day of judgement for God's people, an "awesome and frightening" day in which humanity passes before God like sheep. At first distressing at its deepest spaces this prayer is one of hope, of forgiveness, charity and repentance. It holds within it the promise of God's love for his people and God's desire that we do not die in...

We have heard it said to love your neighbor as yourself. It can mean to be kind to others, to challenge us to self-care, and in its deepest level to love others and ourselves for who we are in the truth of our lives. What does it really mean to love our neighbor as we love ourselves? In Leviticus 19:18 after the command to love we are essentially to do this because the Lord says, "I am God". What...

Leviticus 19 opens with the word of God to Moses: Tell the people to "be holy as I am holy". This chapter, rich in the commandments, teaches us how to be holy, how to exercise the power we have within us as people created in the image of God. It warns of the pitfalls of succumbing to cultures outside the law and helps to bring us back to where we belong, in fellowship with God and with each other.

This chapter, read on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, has us face the question of the ambiguity of meaning that caused Hagar and Ishmael to be driven into the wilderness. On this day of judgement we are compelled to ask many questions about our lives and relationships and how we understand words and actions and the consequences of our interpretation. It pushes our sight beyond the moment for a bro...

Chapter seven of the Sermon on the Mount speaks about judging as we would be judged, going through the narrow gate, the golden rule, and discerning what is good and what is evil. In all of the teachings Jesus challenges us to examine ourselves and our own motivations and to build on a foundation of rock that is the Word of God. In this conversation we ask those difficult questions that cause us to...

We continue our conversation sharing what it means to be salt of the earth and light to the world.

The Sermon on the Mount is a rich and textured teaching of Jesus that permeates the world, often without people even knowing where the wisdom originated. In this episode we come once again to the Sermon particularly the section about leaving anxieties of daily life behind and trusting that God knows what we need. We ask how to do that especially when we see suffering and poverty, hunger and despai...

In this seemingly simple yet complex parable Jesus teaches us to live side-by-side, wheat and weeds, good and evil, and to wait until the final judgement before we two are separated from each other. What does it mean for us to live our day-to-day lives in the struggle to be the "children of the kingdom" along side the "children of the evil one"? Please join us for this challenging conversation.

This is a powerful episode of Abraham imploring God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah, cities of sinfulness, for the sake of those who live a righteous life. In it we discuss God and the ability for us to ask that anger is quelled for the sake of others. In the Church we do this every Sunday when we offer the prayers of the faithful. In Judaism the prayer is that God move from justice to mercy. This is...

The Lukan story of the Rich Ruler is also in Matthew and Mark as the story of the Rich young man. The three are similar in that wealth and power take precedent over God. Jesus offers a difficult teaching that we place God above all else, not only possessions but family and friends. It is in the first love of God that the kind of love we need so that every person is our family has its origin. Are w...

Today we talk about hope. Our world is in great need of hope and in the telling of the story of God's love for us we know hope is still alive. Listen to this story about the 18th century Hasidic master, Baal Shem Tov, told below, and understand that hope remains as does the promise that God will be with us. “It is told that in every generation there are times when hope threatens to leave this worl...

Paul's letter about love is the foundation of our faith. Jesus taught that love of God and love of neighbor as ourselves are the two greatest commandments. With love we embrace God's gift of the commandments so that we might live good and happy lives. In this letter, Paul teaches us about the love that comes from God, the love that transcends our human inclination to hold onto pain and anger so th...

The Paper Chicken: A Story of Renewal (As retold by Rabbi Or Rose) A young Hasid once visited his beloved master, Rabbi Elimelkh of Lizensk, during the Ten Days of Repentance (Aseret Yemei Teshuval). The Hasid came to his rebbe with a specific request: "Great Master, as a devoted member of the holy community of Lizensk, I have been blessed to witness you pray the three daily services, recite the b...

Taanit 20a:16 The Sages further taught in praise of the reed: A person should always be soft like a reed, and he should not be stiff like a cedar. An incident occurred in which Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, came from Migdal Gedor, from his rabbi’s house, and he was riding on a donkey and strolling on the bank of the river. And he was very happy, and his head was swollen with pride because he...

Today we do something different. In this podcast we talk about a story from the Talmud. It is about Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish, two learned men of Torah. Rabbi Yochanan was a man of great learning whose beauty could heal. As a young man Reish Lakish was a bandit and one day when he tried to attack the Rabbi, Yochanan told him that his strength would be good to study Torah. Lakish threw himsel...

This curious passage sits between the scene where Moses tries to convince God that he is not the man for job and his joining together with Aaron to begin their journey to Egypt. The verses say that the Lord sought to kill him, so Moses's Midianite wife, Zipporah, circumcised their firstborn son and in this sign of the covenant he was spared. In our conversation we wonder about the language, the su...