Rabbi Arthur Weiner

For my Shabbat message this week, I am sharing the remarks that I delivered at the public Chanukiyah lighting at Van Saun Park last Saturday night, on the seventh night of Chanukah .   Good evening, friends, neighbors, and honored guests. Thank you for being here tonight: to our local elected officials, community leaders, and to everyone who has come to share in this moment. Your presence matters, and it sends a powerful message that this community values faith, freedom, and one another. Chanukah is often described as a holiday about light. But it is really about what light does. More than two thousand years ago, the Jewish people faced a moment when our identity, our values, our safety, and our right to live according to our conscience were under threat. The miracle of Chanukah was not only that a small amount of oil burned longer than expected. The deeper miracle was that a small, determined community refused to disappear and chose hope over despair. This year, that m...

Three years ago, I sent a Shabbat message to the community titled Watch This Two Minute Chanukah Video . While admittedly, not among my deepest or most theologically significant messages, it was among my favorites. In that message, I compiled several amusing Chanukah videos flying across the Jewish side of the internet, while at the same time suggesting a new, far more significant one for your review. That Shabbat message was the most read message since I began the current blog five years ago, receiving at least four times as many readers as usual. This year, I want you to take several minutes and view a new, and much different video . Believe me, you will remember it far more than any other you might see this year.  With the permission of the families of six Israeli hostages murdered by Hamas in August 2024, the Israeli government recently released a video of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Ori Danino, and Alex Lobanov lighting Chanukah ...

As many of you know, I began my Rabbinical career in Knoxville Tennessee.   Those were important years for me, and even though I have lived in Paramus for the past 30 years, I do try to keep up with the news there. An article about a legal matter in Tennessee that is being appealed to the US Supreme Court appeared in my newsfeed earlier this week. It concerns a battle over a vanity license plate that raised significant First Amendment issues concerning the regulation of personal and government speech. The license plate consists of seven characters.   Yet those seven characters have become the basis of a major case because different people read the same message in radically different ways. One person intended a playful reference; others interpreted it as crude or offensive. The story reminded me of something profoundly true about the moment in which we live. It also illuminated something in this week’s Torah reading, Parshat Vayeshev , that I had not seen before. And it en...

I read an article recently in a magazine that caters to the evangelical Christian community. It seems that a new digital awakening is unfolding among the faithful. I’m not talking about using AI (artificial intelligence) to research Biblical topics or discover new truths and ideas about God, faith, or the meaning of life. I’m talking about something far more significant — and far more morally complex. There are now AI-powered apps that allow you to “text with Jesus,” or talk with a variety of Biblical personalities. And they respond. And it seems to be catching on. What could possibly go wrong? I must remind you, though, that these apps are not real. Artificial intelligence is a powerful system of computational techniques that imitates human intelligence. It produces language, ideas, and images by analyzing enormous amounts of data. That is part of why we love it. But it does not feel, understand, believe, or take responsibility. It can mimic a person or personality, but it can n...