Re’e: The Loan, the Escort and the Attachment

Remembering the Levite
In the course of this Parsha, the Torah exhorts us no fewer than six times to share our blessings with the tribe of Levi. We are reminded not only to share with the Levites but also to remember them and, furthermore, never to forget them. It is uncommon …

High Holiday Greetings

Some places in the world are blessed with eternal sunshine. Other places are marked by perpetual darkness. Some places are always warm, other places are always cold. Our country has seasons.
There is a season for frigid cold and a season for desultory heat. There is a season for torrential downpours …

Masei: Same Sex Marriage Part Three

This essay is not related to the Parsha of the week but is posted here
because the subject has recently become a household topic of discussion
[Part Three of Three]
Same Sex Marriage

Part Three
A Question of Definition
The debate on same sex
marriage has focused in part on the distinction between same sex
marriage and same …

What Can We Do?

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 …