Nothing drives me more crazy than when I hear an athlete thanking God for a 3-pointer, a twenty foot putt, or a touchdown. “Do you mean to tell me that God sits around guiding balls into particular places?” I wonder, “A God in the sky with two hundred channels of ESPN watching and working magic with each play?” Moments like these make me tempted to buy into the philosophy of men like Sherwin Wine. Sherwin Wine, the Michigan Rabbi and…
The Big Mess about Messianic Jews By Rabbi Daniel Brenner As a rabbi who works each day with Presbyterian ministers and lay people at a historic Presbyterian seminary, I have to admit that I was deeply concerned when I received word that a “Messianic Jewish Community” opened in a Philadelphia suburb with over $300,000 of Presbyterian Church USA money. The new church (which does not call itself a church) is named Avodat Yisrael, which literally means “sacrifice of Israel”, and…
The Jewish Week recently ran a piece I wrote about SING SING.
Davenning at Borough Park’s Yoruba Shtiebel By Rabbi Daniel S. Brenner This past Sunday morning I trekked through the foot of snow that recently visited the Big Apple to take an honorary seat on the bimah of the Christ Apostolic Church. This is one of Borough Park’s wonders – Housed in what once was a German Evangelical chapel is a church of Nigerian immigrants, whose service is mostly in the Yoruba dialect and whose band has no fewer than five…
in Spirituality & Health The Problem With One Nation Under God By Rabbi Daniel S. Brenner As a child sent to a religious day school I could not help but feel that God was watching me from above every time I sat on the toilet. I also sensed that God watched sporting events, occasionally guiding basketballs into hoops from half-court (Dick Vital yelling “Hail Mary!”). In fact, all people were living “under” God – a deity above us peering down…