Articles in D’varim
Vaetchanan: Science and Faith
July 21, 1969
Monday July 21, 2009, marked forty years since Neil Armstrong, stepped off the Apollo 11 and set foot on the moon. Forty years is a long time; our sages taught that students do not fully assimilate lessons learned in their youth until forty years have passed. (1) Today, …
Ha’azinu – Food for Thought for Your Dinner Table
Sunday: Rain and Dew
“May my teachings flow like rain, my words like dew.” Rain is formed from vapor that rises from earth and after condensing precipitates back to earth. Dew forms spontaneously here on earth when warmer surfaces contact the cooler atmosphere. Rain thus symbolizes the flow of G-d’s blessing …
Vayelech: Food for Thought for your Dinner Table
Sunday: Where Did He Go?
The first words of our parshah, “And Moshe went and spoke to the sons of Israel.” Where did he go? Taking into account that this parshah is read between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur the commentaries suggest that he went to inspire Jews to repent. No …
Nitzavim: Food for Thought for your Dinner Table
Sunday: Unity of Parts
“You stand firmly today, All together [as one], the heads of your tribes, elders, guards… young children, women, converts…” This verse begins by emphasising the unity of the gathering, they stood together [as one], then it enumerates the distinctions between the classes gathered on that day.
Unity is …
Ki Tavo- Food for Thought at Your Dinner Table
Sunday: Humbling Fruit
“When you will come to the country that G-d . . . has given you and you will inherit it and settle in it.” Is Israel a gift from G-d or a land that we have inherited and settled in our own right? This question lies at the …
Ki Teze: Food for Thought for your DinnerTable
Sunday: Internal Conflict
“When you go out to war against your enemies and G-d will deliver him into your hands.” There are two anomalies in this verse. First, why does the Torah use the phrase, “go out to war” when it would be sufficient to say go to war? Second, why …
Shoftim: Food for Thought for your Dinner Table
Sunday: Local Judges
“Judges and guards you shall set for yourself at all your gates.” Judges were placed at the gates of every Jewish community both inside Israel and outside. Why were the Jews from abroad not brought to Israel for trial? Why were courts established outside of Israel?
A judge must …
Reeh: Food for Thought for Your Dinner Table
Sunday: Fortune
Not every country is a superpower nor is every country at the bottom of the totem pole. Mostany are somewhere in the middle; comfortable, but not powerful. Jews, however, are never in the middle; we are either at the very top or at the very bottom. This is because …
