Join us for a d’var torah from Rabbi Steve Bob during Shabbat services on Saturday, October 24th. Steven M. Bob was Senior Rabbi of Congregation Etz Chaim in Lombard, IL for 35 years.
Rabbi Bob serves as a Guest faculty member at Wheaton College and as an Instructor at the Hebrew Seminary for the Hearing and the Deaf. He is a leader of the faculty of Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute. He is a recipient of the Rabbi Mordecai Simon Award from the Chicago Board of Rabbis and Rabbi Samuel Cook Award from the CCAR.
His newest book is When Judaism Began: Exploring the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (2026). He is also the author of Go to Nineveh (2013) and Jonah and the Meaning of Our Lives (2016)
The Moment Judaism Began
Introducing Ezra and Nehemiah
Rabbi Steven Bob
The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of the return to Jerusalem from the first exile in ancient Babylonia. These books contain the foundational ideas for our modern sense of Jewish identity and key elements of our Jewish lives. The public reading of the Torah begins with Ezra reading from the scroll before the community in Jerusalem. In these books we will meet the first people to think of themselves as Jews. Jewish holidays take shape during the beginning of this period, as does the Jewish calendar. Ezra and Nehemiah are the first biblical books to use the names of the months that we use today, like Elul and Kislev. During his presentation Rabbi Bob will explore the meaning of 21st century Jewish existence in light of these texts from the early Second Temple period.