Articles tagged with: Love
Vayakhel Pekudei: The Heart of a Relationship
The Ark
It was a building party. Hammers banging on anvils, saws cutting through wood, artisans weaving designs, all crafting, fashioning, designing and building a magnificent home for G-d. They set up the structure and spread out her covers. They readied the altars, show table and candelabra, but before those could …
Beshalach: Prayer – The Interface Of Love
An Age Old Question
Prayer is the oddest phenomenon. Human beings plead with G-d, who already knows what they want, who already considered and rejected their request before they ever made it and who made this decision for the very best reasons. And yet we ask an unchanging G-d to reconsider …
Vayeshev: Selling A Brother
The Five Rung Pole
There is a hierarchy to the things we love. At the bottom of the totem pole are the vane pursuits of life, such as power, money, success and prestige as well as the toys of life such as cars, houses, furniture and wardrobes. These things make a …
Re’eh: Charity From The Heart
Unhappy Giving
I have a confession. I can’t stand being thanked for giving charity. I just hate it when the person to whom I gave a dollar smiles and heaps lifelong blessings upon me. I usually make a dismissive gesture, wait till they walk away, heave a small sigh of relief …
Devarim: Do You Love G-d or Youeself?
What have We Learned?
It is nearly two-thousand years since the Holy Temple stood as a glorious testament to G-d on the Temple Mount. It was ransacked and razed by a marauding mob that cared little for the nuanced relationship between the human and G-d. As the Temple smoldered in the …
Chukat: Love Your Children
What Actually Happened?
Something happened on that fateful day that resulted in the severe decree barring Moses and Aaron from entering the promised land. Here is the story in short: The people were parched from their long journey and demanded that Moses provide water. G-d instructed Moses to produce water from …
Shlach: What I Learned From A Tree
The Holy Tree
Oh, the tales trees could tell if only trees could tell tales.There is a large tree in my backyard under whose branches many little dramas have played out. Many a toddler has crawled under its branches, many a back has leaned against its trunk, over the years the …
Bechukotai: Is G-d Vengeful?
Why So Exacting?
The first tenet of all religions is that good deeds are rewarded and bad deeds are punished. Each religion explains it in its own way; each trying to present G-d as merciful, not vengeful. Judaism takes a different track. Suffering, says Judaism, is not a punishment, but a …
