We all have two dimensions: the inner wholesome, beautiful self that is a fount of integrity, honesty, determination, and love. Then we have the outer fractured self that is filled with cravings, greed, lust, flightiness, envy, unhealthy competitiveness, bias, anger, resentment, insecurity, etc. The goal is not only to transition …
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A Year on Credit?
Everyone knows that the last festival of the High Holidays season is Simchat Torah when we dance around the Bimah with the Torah in a ceremony called Hakafot. But did you know that hakafot is not only the mark Simchat Torah, the last holiday of the High …
Fact or Myth?
Judaism encourages us to think for ourselves and to question everything. We are not meant to blindly accept, but to explore, analyze, debate and conclude. True or false?
Two Names
Joseph had two sons. He named the first one, Menashe because “Nashani Elokim,” G-d allowed me to forget my …
The Name
The name of the Torah portion that describes the exodus from Egypt is Bo, which means enter. Names of Torah portions comprise messages and instructions. What is the message of this name?
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This week we are introduced to the diaspora Jew. Until this point, the Torah was concerned with holy people who lived in holy places (except for Abraham who lived for a while in Mesopotamia). We read about Joseph’s sale to Egypt several weeks ago, but that is not a true …
These past two days have been the most difficult for our people in the last fifty years. It was Simchat Torah, a time for rejoicing, yet it was a time of horror. Nearly a thousand members of our family were brutally murdered, more than a hundred were taken hostage, and …
