When visitors first enter the sanctuary of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City, they often gasp in awe and amazement at the sheer beauty and dignity of this sacred space. It is grand without being overly ornate; it is graceful, understated and powerful.

Years ago, I led a tour of visitors to the synagogue. Upon entering the sanctuary, almost all of our guests reacted as almost everyone does: what a beautiful synagogue! As our forefather Jacob said in a different context: How awesome is this place, this is nothing else but the house of the Lord, and this is the gate of heaven!

“And the sister of Lotan was Timna” (Bereishith 36:22).

This seemingly irrelevant piece of genealogy has an important underlying message according to the Midrash. Timna had wanted to convert--to become part of the people of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. Yet, our forefathers did not accept her into the fold. The rejected Timna then became the concubine of Elifaz, son of Esau, and gave birth to a son: Amalek! The arch-enemy of the people of Israel was the child of a rejected convert! Had Timna been accepted into the Israelite nation, there would have been no Amalek.

This ancient lesson has continuing meaning in our days, when the conversion crisis in the Orthodox world is a burning issue. The following is drawn from an article I wrote, published in Hadassah Magazine, November 2008.

“Not with you alone do I make this covenant and this oath; but with those who stand here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with those who are not here with us this day” (Devarim 29:13-14).

As Moses approached the end of his life, he gathered all the people and affirmed the special covenant between God and Israel. He wanted everyone to understand that this covenant transcended time. It did not relate only to the generation then alive, but to all generations “who are not here with us this day.”

The theme of Shabbat Teshuvah is repentance. This does not refer only to those who are not religious who now need to repent. It refers to each of us, whatever our religious level is. Each one of us is called upon to examine our weaknesses and deficiencies and to make a determination to improve ourselves during the coming year.

When we contemplate our personal religious lives, we often find ourselves thinking of those people who have had a strong positive impact on us—our parents and grandparents, relatives, rabbis, teachers, pious and righteous individuals. In many ways, these role models have helped us fashion our individual philosophies, attitudes and behaviors. When we contemplate repentance, we draw on their strengths and insights; we strive to emulate them at their best.

As a child growing up among the Sephardim of Seattle, I experienced Judaism as a happy and loving way of life. We seemed to have an endless stream of parties, wonderful food, beautiful singing. One of our customs at the conclusion of Pessah was—and still is—the “money throw.”

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

Some years ago, I served as scholar-in-residence on a trip to Spain and Israel sponsored by the American Friends of the Technion. The closing event  was a dinner at the Technion in Haifa. It was a week or so before Passover.  One of the Israeli participants in the program--I believe she was a teacher or administrator of the school--noticed that I was wearing a kippah, and she came to speak with me.

(Much of this essay is excerpted from my book, Losing the Rat Race, Winning at Life.)

During the course of a lifetime, a person may wear many masks. In order to curry favor with others, one adopts their attitudes, opinions, styles and behavior patterns. Above all, one wants to belong, to play an acceptable role. At the same time, one also has a separate individual identity within, the hard kernel of one’s own being. When one loses sight of his separateness from the masks he wears, he becomes the masks; i.e., a superficial, artificial human being. A person may go through life without examining carefully who he really is. One simply becomes an assortment of ever-changing masks, living life on the surface.

In sorting out the genealogical information in the early chapters of Genesis, it turns out that Noah and Abraham were alive at the same time. Abraham was 58 years old at the time of Noah’s death.

(Interestingly, the numerical value of the name of Noah is 58!) Did Abraham and Noah know each other? The Torah does not so indicate, and Midrashic literature sheds little light on this question. Here are some of my speculations on this topic.

God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and gave them the following instruction: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Bereishith 2:16-17). It did not take long, though, for Adam and Eve to eat of this forbidden fruit, having been tempted by the serpent to do so.

But they did not die upon eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.