Prayer From the Heart

(Parashat Toledot – Genesis 25:19 – 28:9)   By Rabbi Daniel Bouskila     Prayer from the Heart (Parashat Toledot – Genesis 25:19 – 28:9) Parashat Toledot presents us the Torah’s second incident of a barren woman. Like Sarah in the previous generation, we are...

Praying in the Dark

(Parashat Vayetze – Genesis 28:10-32:3)   By Rabbi Daniel Bouskila     “Jacob left Beer-Sheba, and set out for Haran. He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set” (Genesis 28:10-11). On his journey towards Haran, Jacob...

Hanukkah 1948

Special address to IDF Soldiers by Sephardic Chief Rabbi Benzion Meir Hai Uziel   (translated from the Hebrew original by Rabbi Daniel Bouskila)   Imagine what it was like celebrating the first-ever Hanukkah in the modern-day State of Israel. December 1948. The...

The Sephardic Golden Path

(originally published in 2014 still relevant 8 years later)   By Rabbi Daniel Bouskila     I was raised in a home where terms like “Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Haredi, Secular Zionist” or the like were not a part of our vocabulary. Jews were Jews. In our...

Judaism’s Mission Statement – Parashat Vayera

Judaism’s Mission Statement Parashat Vayera By Rabbi Daniel Bouskila On November 26, 1936, Rav Ben Zion Meir Hai Uziel delivered a lecture to a large gathering of rabbis in Jerusalem. Titled “The Seat of the Rabbinate,” Rav Uziel’s words were delivered as an...

The Long and Winding Road: Parashat Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1–17:27)

The day God pronounced two simple words — lech lecha — Abraham and Sarah’s lives changed forever. God instructs Abraham to leave his homeland, his birthplace and his father’s home, “to the land that I will show you, and there I will make of you a great nation”...