From the Desk of Rabbi Jacobs

Tradition holds that all creation was foreseen even before it began—that is, as part of a Divine plan. One example that is set forth comes in commentary of Rashi—Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac (France, d. ca. 1040).  One outstanding paragraph suggests a direct link between ma’asei v’reisheet—the act of creation—and revelation of Torah to Israel.

יום הששי. הוֹסִיף...Read more...

Recent reports of the indictment proposed by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court [ICC] of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a codefendant with the leaders of Hamas directly responsible for the attack of October 7, 2023, that ended over 1200 Israeli civilian lives. The proposed charges are ‘genocide’. The facts of this action—which I can only see as antisemitic in content—point to the long-term resistance to...Read more...

Seventy-six years ago, on this day in both secular and Jewish calendars, the State of Israel emerged from the chrysalis of the Zionist Movement. Many threads converged in that moment as David ben Gurion voiced the aspiration for a Jewish Homeland in Palestine through the Declaration of Independence in the Tel Aviv Museum Hall on May 14, 1948. With the following text excerpted from Israel’s founding Declaration of...Read more...

Concluding Pesach has a special quality. We lay aside the special rules and unleavened foods that have dominated discussion for several weeks—basically since the last hamantaschen were savored at Purim. The narrative that we launched on the Seder nights, of Divine protection and salvation in the process of redemption, however, remains unfinished.

One root of that is the ancient agricultural calendar that threads...Read more...

First came the warnings of an imminent attack by Iran on Israel. Then the reports of an
armada of missiles, drones and rockets crossing the desert to the west. Then there were
sirens from Dan to Beersheba, followed by the flashes of light as a reported 99% of the
300+ flying weapons were neutralized, destroyed, shot down and rendered harmless; and of
the 1% that reached Israeli soil intact, the largely incidental damage was...Read more...

Waiting for further news on the hernia surgery set for late Sunday for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu—while wishing him a r’fu-ah sh’leimah—that personal necessity was moved to the sidelines by mass demonstrations calling for his ouster from leadership of government that included families of hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. Masses of Israelis protesting between the symbolic national Menorah and the classically...Read more...

Sunday was a night for Colleyville—and “Colleyville”—the impressive, cogent documentary Dani Menkin has developed since the shocking events that shook Congregation Beth Israel on January 15, 2022. A local pre-screening was oversold: one full auditorium and an overflow screening held rapt attention, as did the Q & A featuring the Director, and so meaningfully, the four who lived the experience—Larry, Jeff, Shane...Read more...

Judaism is revealed religion: the Torah is understood as having come directly from God, heard by the assembled at Mount Sinai, Moses through the wilderness years, and prophets until Malachi ca 300 bce. Modern scholarship aside for the moment, the tradition of written law and oral law, each contained in what Moses heard in those 40-day stays on the mountaintop, served to sustain Jewish life, unity and faith into...Read more...

As international tensions mount, and pressure on Israel increases to stop the quest to end the rule of terror that is Hamas in Gaza, Friday’s news of the untimely death of leading Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny came as a personal gut punch. Isolated in a remote Russian prison with many restrictions, a survivor through the past years of attempts to suppress his message and movement, of harsh conditions and baseless...Read more...

Streets in many cities have been filled with protestors throughout the past year. Early in 2023, Israelis started their mass action against the now sidelined proposals to move certain powers of the Israeli Supreme Court to the ruling coalition cabinet. Following the tragic events of October 7, streets in Tel Aviv were quieter, but in recent weeks, Rosh haMemshalah—Prime Minister—Bibi Netanyahu has faced renewed outpourings in...Read more...

Since 2005, UN Resolution 60/7 has established January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In 2024. This year, it coincides with the coming Shabbat, leading the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum [https://ushmm.org/] to hold ceremonial events next Monday, January 22, 2024. Although Jewish calendars do not always include the date, and in the first years after Israeli-proposed resolution it was little known, two...Read more...

On the first day of 2024, just short of three months into the war Hamas launched on October 7, 2023, by invading Israel and slaughtering more than 1200, the Supreme Court of Israel overturned the Knesset Law that sought to limit its authority, independence and the stability of the country. 

“The Knesset amended the Basic Law: The Judiciary on July 24 when 64 MKs voted in favor of the amendment. Following the...Read more...

Last Friday, the eighth day of Hanukkah, was dark and dismal as no day had been since October 7. That was the eighth day of the Sukkot Festival. In my sadness at the three hostages who fell to friendly fire, the irony was inescapable. They were asking for help, doing so as the Israel Defense Forces suggested. Now they are gone, and the soldiers involved bear the weight of the world. 

How many more will yet become casualties of...Read more...

Living in Texas these few months has offered me a world of Jewish experiences, a universe of experiences as a Jew. On Monday evening, December 4, I listened intently to the words of CEO and National Director of the ADL, addressing “Modern Antisemitism: An ADL Perspective”, the 26th Annual Gates of Chai Lecture of the Jewish Studies Program at Brite Divinity School, a division of TCU, was one of those experiences. About 20...Read more...