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”...
My Moroccan Succoth
My father, of blessed memory, was born and raised in the Mellah of Marrakesh. All of the Moroccan traditions I practice on Sukkot are customs I learned and inherited from him. Those special Moroccan traditions – which I grew up with and practice to this day – adorn...
This Week at Beit Midrash Shaarei Uziel…
What is the larger purpose of a rabbi in society? Are rabbis only concerned with the kashrut of pots and pans, or does the kashrut of business practices also matter? Must a rabbi tend to a broken heart and soul as much as he tends to a broken Eruv before Shabbat? Is...
Lest We Sit By Silently…
“Every day not far from here, as we sit here, men, women and children are murdered in Syria, and particularly in Aleppo,” said Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef. “Millions of refugees are homeless, hundreds of thousands of others are starved, under siege....
Immigration, Thanksgiving, and Fiddler on the Roof
Last February I saw the recent revival of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway. For those in the audience who have seen this show a million times (probably most!), we all noticed two additions to the show, at the very beginning and then again at the end. At the beginning,...