"Stump the Rabbi" -- in honor of Yom Ha-Atzma'ut, Israel's Independence Day
Periodically, here at the United Synagogue of Hoboken, we like to play a game we could call “Stump the Rabbi.” The rules are simple: people in the community pose questions to me, and I do my best to answer them. And not infrequently, I admit that I am stumped (and then I try to look up the answer). As we approach Yom Ha-Atzma'ut, Israel's Independence Day, I would like to tell you about one of the earliest games of "Stump the Rabbi" ever recorded. Travel back in time with me, to more than 1000 years ago. You are a Jew in Spain, and you hear a fascinating story about how there's a powerful kingdom in central Asia where the entire kingdom converted to Judaism! At first you think it's just a set-up for a bad joke, but then you hear the whole story: that the king of this nation, called the Khazars, in the Caucuses (in the region of contemporary Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan), had had a dream in which God appeared to him an...