Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Sep 25-26, 2026 • 15 Tishrei 5787 • Sukkot (Deut 22:26-23:44)

Try Try this hypothetical at your table tonight:

Imagine you had a friend who has been super loyal for many years, helped you in many ways, someone you've been through thick and thin with, shared so many ups and downs, so many shared adventures, someone who you know has a good heart. What would it take for you to completely turn your back on this person?

As you may know, Israel has a long history of providing international development assistance, agricultural training, and post-disaster emergency medical relief through field hospitals and rescue teams to all kinds of countries.

Below is a selection of countries that have received Israeli agricultural, technological, or disaster-relief assistance, mapped against their delegation status (Stayed v. Boycotted) during Benjamin Netanyahu's UN address this week:

Country	Area of Israeli Assistance	Stayed (✓) or Boycotted (✗)
Turkey	Provided search-and-rescue teams and emergency medical aid following major earthquakes (including the 2023 earthquake).	✗
Mexico	Deployed IDF search-and-rescue and medical engineering teams following severe earthquakes (such as in 2017).	✗
India	Extensive bilateral cooperation in drip irrigation, water management, agricultural tech, and dairy modernization.	✓
Nepal	Delivered emergency search-and-rescue crews, field hospitals, and medical aid after the 2015 earthquake.	✓
Kenya	Long-term agricultural partnerships, water management projects, and arid-land farming training programs.	✗
Colombia	Shared agricultural innovation, water technology, and technical training for rural farming communities.	✓
Philippines	Sent medical teams, humanitarian supplies, and disaster relief following major typhoons (such as Typhoon Haiyan).	✓
Brazil	Historic technical and agricultural cooperation partnerships, alongside emergency search-and-rescue assistance (e.g., Brumadinho dam disaster).	✗
Ghana	Agricultural training programs and agritech development initiatives through MASHAV.	✓
Japan	Technology-sharing agreements and mutual disaster response frameworks.	✓
Ethiopia	Partnered extensively on modern agricultural techniques, food security initiatives, and rural healthcare training.	✗
Cameroon	Long-term cooperation involving vegetable production, irrigation training, and medical eye-care camps.	✗
Tanzania	Recipient of MASHAV agricultural training programs, water management workshops, and capacity-building.	✗
Uganda	Cooperative farming models, agritech capacity-building, and professional training sessions.	✗
Malawi	Agricultural training initiatives and rural development assistance through Israeli development programs.	✗
Rwanda	Horticultural development, dairy industry modernization, and agricultural capacity-building.	✗

But you know what? It seems to me we shouldn't pay too much attention to that chart.

That chart is merely reflecting what we're doing to ourselves. We're the pace-setters for the rest of the pack. When Jews turn their backs on fellow Jews, some non-Jews feel that they too have permission to turn their backs on Jews.

We're one people, with so much in common, with a shared destiny —

Think about it: If your best friend is making a mistake, do you respond by pushing away or pulling toward you?

Shabbat Shalom and

Happy Sukkot

 

Don't Put Your Soul On a Bagel!

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Sep 18-19, 2026 • 8 Tishrei 5787 • Haazinu/Yom Kippur (Deut 32)

Kippered Yom Kippur? 

My grandfather was a giver. He rarely ever asked anyone other than my grandmother to do anything for him.

The most vivid expression of his love of giving was how he offered his guests a cold drink. Most people simply offer their guest a drink or put out a few bottles on the kitchen counter or dining room table. Pop had a formal bar built in the corner of their "den". Even when it was just his grandchildren visiting, he would joyfully stand behind the bar to serve up whatever anyone fancied. 

Once, when I was about ten or eleven years old, he asked me to do something quite unusual—to go on an errand for him on my bike.

He had a hankering for kippered salmon and I guess my grandmother wasn't around that day, because he wanted me to buy him a bag of it. The place to get this Pacific Northwest specialty was a smelly fish store on the waterfront that I had rarely been to, but that had apparently been there since he was a kid.

Also, notably, until that day I had never seen my grandfather eat kippered salmon and I wasn't even sure what it was. But I dutifully went down there with the twenty dollar bill that he gave me in order to honor my grandfather.

Kippering is a process of first salting then hot-smoking the fish for seven to ten days. This gives the fish a copper color, which is the Germanic etymology of kipper. But while we use the European term, the Tlingit, Haida, Salish, and others Indian groups have been hot-smoking salmon over alder wood for thousands of years. It was their primary method of preserving the massive seasonal salmon run.

Modern "kippered salmon" is moist and bare distinguishable from smoked salmon, but what my grandfather sent me for was the real deal, super dark, dry, and chewy like what most people call salmon jerky.

Now, what does this highly specialized food topic have to do with Yom Kippur?

1. Tradition—Pop told me that day that his father used to get him kippered salmon as a treat and every once in awhile he liked to relive that childhood memory. That's part of Yom Kippur—connecting us to our parents and grandparents. Tradition matters.

2. Purity—Like kippered salmon, the great joy of Yom Kippur comes from stripping something down to its essence and appreciating it for what it is. You don't put kippered salmon on a bagel, and you surely don't put Yom Kippur on a bagel. It has to be savored all by itself, without any accompaniment. And when we fast on Yom Kippur along with the right kind o liturgy or literature, we can strip our soul down to its essence as well. Your soul is like a fine wine—you don't want to pour it into the stew, it should be savored by and for itself. The rest of the year we can drink it with food, but once a year we have a wine tasting—a soul tasting—to re-educate ourselves on what it means to be human. 

​Shabbat Shalom and

Happy Yom Kippur

PS: Here is a link to my 11-minute class on this week's parshah.
Here is a link to my new 7-minute Yom Kippur class.

Your First Shabbat?

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Sep 11-12, 2026 • 1 Tishrei 5787 • Rosh Hashanah (Gen 21-22)

PLEASE NOTE THE 2 SPECIAL LINKS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS MESSAGE

Last week you asked at your table: What if you knew that tonight would be your very last Shabbat?

For your table tonight: What does it mean when the first Shabbat of the year coincides with Rosh Hashana?

Many Jewish people are unaware that 2,000 years ago, our Rabbis decreed that whenever Rosh Hashana falls on Shabbat we should not do the mitzvah of blowing shofar.

Why?

Two reasons:

1. To protect the sanctity of Shabbat.
2. Since RH lasts for two days, we're not missing out entirely.

But this fact of skipping shofar for the sake of Shabbat has a lesson for us, which I could formulate as a question (a revision of last week's question) for your table:

Given that this Shabbat is designed to launch your entire year, how will you do Shabbat?

Here's an additional suggestion for your table: What are the highlights of the past 12 months? What are you proud of? What do you hope to accomplish personally, socially, and creatively, in the next 12 months? 


​Shabbat Shalom and

L'Shanah tovah! May you and yours be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life, Happiness, Good Health, Wealth, and Wisdom.

PS: Here is a link to my "Restoring Rosh Hashanah" class in Marin this week.

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Your Last Shabbat?

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Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

Sep 4-5, 2026 • 23 Elul 5786 • Netzavim-Vayelech (Deut 29-31)
The countdown timers to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are ticking...
 
Question for your table: What if you knew that tonight would be your very last Shabbat? 

Would knowing that make any impact on what you do tonight and tomorrow?

Guess what: it is indeed the last Shabbat... of the year.

And just as the first Shabbat of the year (after Rosh Hashanah) will set a trajectory for your entire year, the last one of the year is your final opportunity for a Shabbat "course-correction."

This principle is true of each day of the final week—Sunday will be the last Sunday of the year and your final chance to rectify all previous Sundays, etc.

The origin of this teaching is actually regarding after Rosh Hashanah—between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur there are exactly seven days, and the Arizal (also watch this) teaches that each of those days can rectify the previous year's days (Mishnah Berurah 603:2).

Later Mussar and Hasidic traditions extend this Kabbalistic concept to the final week of Elul—the last seven days preceding Rosh Hashanah (Lev Eliyahu Vol 3). Since the year is ending, each day of this final week gives a person the immediate opportunity to repair all past Sundays, Mondays, and so on, before entering the Day of Judgment.

So we can revise our original question for your table: Now that you know that this Shabbat can rectify every past Shabbat, how will you do Shabbat?


Shabbat Shalom


PS - Yes, the above image is clickable. And if you haven't yet ordered for your family and friends the new Restoring the High Holidays, there is still just enough time, whether you/they are in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Sweden, Italy, France, Spain, Japan, etc., and in Russian.)

This message may also be read at Times of Israel.
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