Rabbi’s Writings

Messages, Divrei Torah and Other Writings by Rabbi Jon–Jay Tilsen

God • Torah & Mitzvot • Israel & The Jewish People • Life in America & The World •  Dear Rabbi  •  Bedtime Stories for Very, Very Young Children

Meet Rabbi Tilsen

God

• God:  All in Your Head – Rosh HaShana 5777
• Is God Made Up?
• No God But … – Rosh HaShana 5768
• Seeing God’s Face: Jacob & Esau
• Only God Remembers: A Yizkor Message
• רק אלהים זוכר
• Faces – Yom Kippur Yizkor 5759 – 1998
• Life Eternal – Yom Kippur Yizkor 5763 – 2002
• Smile, You’re on Candid Camera or Big Brother is Watching You – 5758 – 1998
• Who Restores Life – Yom Kippur Yizkor 5769 – 2008
• Who Can You Trust?  – Rosh HaShana 5763 – 2002

Torah & Mitzvot

• For All the Good (Video) — Nisan 5780 – Passover 2020
• One Mitzva After Another (Video) – May 2020
• Wear a Mask You Must (Video) – May 2020
• Saturday Morning Live – October 2018
• Hold on Tight
• Animal Rights and Wrongs
• Hunting in Law & Tradition
• Joint Aliya
• Domestic Violence in Classical Halakhic Sources
• Fasting & Not Fasting on Yom Kippur
• A Dry Statement on How Dry I Am
• You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Be Jewish: On Conversion to Judaism
• CJLS Statements on Gay and Lesbian Rabbis and Same-Sex Couples: Life Goes On
• Sex Reassignment Surgery and Deuteronomy 23:2 (23:1)
• Cross Dressing and Deuteronomy 22:5
• Tefillin While You Wait
• Women & Tefillin
• Misplaced Matriarchs
• Misplaced Matriarchs Addendum:  Missed Beats & Displaced Genderqueers
• Chews by Choice – Tishrei 5759
• Toward a Moderate Communal Kashrut Regime
• The Chicken that had no Heart
• The Cycle of Violence
• Motifs of Nonviolence in Shivhei HaBesht (Tales of the Ba’al Shem Tov)
• Mitzva Indigestion
• Torah Manifesto
• The Problem of Purim
• Farshem nit dein mamen
• Wandering in the Wilderness:  A Summer Devar Torah
• The People’s Torah – Rosh HaShana 5764 – 2003
• Lo Alekha: Every Effort Counts – Rosh HaShana 5765 – 2004
• The Power of the Pushke
• How Many Jewish Leaders Does it Take to Screw-In a Light Bulb? – Parashat Beha`alotekha 5766 – 2006
• Conservation And Renewable Energy – Kol Nidre 5767
• Against the Flood  Parshat Noah 5767 — 2006
• Why Should I Be Good?
• Please Knock Loudly Do Not Ring Bell
• Maalin BeQodesh: Ascension to Holiness – Rosh HaShana 5766 – 2005

Israel & the Jewish People

• Nonviolent Resistance of the Jews to Roman Occupation in Israel 26–41 C.E.
• Ottoman Land Registration Law as a Contributing Factor in the Israeli–Arab Conflict
• Conscientious Objection to Military Service in Israel (1988)
• Planted in the House of the Lord – May 2006
• The Camel’s Neck – October 2009
• Right & Wrong of Return – June 2009
• Bad Bad Israel – September 2014
• There Goes the Neighborhood:  Building Jerusalem – November 2014
• Law of the Land – December 2015
• Attack on Liberty –  May 2016
• About that $38 Billion – March 2017
• All Eyes on Us –  Yom Kippur 5762 – 2001
• The Miracle of Hanuka
• Not By Might: A Hanuka Message
• Moving Forward on Pesah (Video) – Passover 2020
• How the Jews Got Chosen (Video) – May 2020
• Who Are the Real Jews?
• Israel in our Hearts
• Material and Spiritual Emancipation
• Please Don’t Leave
• Don’t Call Me Non-Orthodox
• My Great-grandfather Wasn’t Orthodox
• Will the “Real” Judaism Please Stand Up? – Rosh HaShana 5757 – 1996
• Challenge & Acceptance – Kol Nidre 5768 — 2007

Life in America & the World

• The Long Night – March 2020
• Something Beautiful Left Behind (Video) – April 2020
• All the Money in the World (Video) – May 2020
• Apocalypse:  Been There, Done That – August 2019
• You’re Going to Hear About This – April 2019
• Massacre at a Synagogue – December 2018
• Throw Them in the Potomac – February 2018
• Expendable Youth – March 2018
• The Great Satan & The Little Satan – August 2017
• A New King Arose – February 2017
• Treaty Rights – November 2016
• A Verbal Holocaust – October 2016
• Malik: Martyr or Menace? – December 1997
• Love Me to Death Panel – April 2011
• Passion Passé – Aprill 2004
• Wild Indians & Wicked Witches – July 1998
• The Dangers of Success – February 1999
• My First Cousin – 1995
• What Shul Do You Belong to?
• The Danger of Extremism – Rosh HaShana 5762 – 2001
• LeHitgaber: Perspective and Coping – Yom Kippur Yizkor 5764 – 2003
• A Place in the Sun – Yom Kippur Kol Nidre 5769 – 2008
• Listen: Slow Down – Rosh HaShana 5760 –  1999
• Predicting the Past
• Lasting Forever – Yom Kippur Yizkor 5762 – 2001
• The Voice of Jacob
• Where All People Can Be Safe – June 2012
• Everyone is a Winner
• Right vs. Right
• The Bully Pulpit – July 2004
• Our Hope Continues – Rosh HaShana 5762 – 2001
• Out with the Old, In with the New – Yom Kippur Yizkor 5765 – 2004
• Tribute to Our Civic Leaders Carl Goldfield, Ina Silverman, & Susan Voigt – May 2007
• Seat Belt Optional – January 2016
• Tilsen University – January 2017

 Dear Rabbi:  Answers, Advice and Helpful Household Hints

• Prayer & Synagogue Ritual
• Shabbat
• Hanuka
• Death & Dying
• Food, Kosher, Kashrut, Kosher for Passover
• More Topics

Bedtime Stories for Very, Very Young Children as Retold

• Jack & The Beanstack
• Piggies Three
• Goldie Locks