Articles by Lazer Gurkow
Toldot: Like father like son
Like father like son, an idiom rooted in the words of Ezekiel (44:16), “like mother like daughter,” describes a child that resembles his parent in either mannerism or behavior. This idiom could truly be applied to our forefather Isaac, who is introduced to us in the Torah as, “Isaac, the …
Chayei Sarah: Consistency in Education
Consistency is the most important part of education. Children need to hear the same message from their teachers, parents, coaches, and peers. When we expose our children to multiple streams of thoughts and conflicting values so they can make educated choices, we only succeed in confusing them. Children don’t need …
Vayera: The Moral Sense
The moral sense is the innate human conviction that kindness and fairness are good, and cruelty is bad. We can’t explain why this is so, but if anyone would claim that cruelty is good and challenge us to explain why it is bad, we would throw up our hands in …
Lech L’cha: True Faith
True faith is not easy to come by. Abraham possessed true faith, but most people in his generation were incapable of true faith until a particular event occurred that made it possible to achieve true faith.
Let me tell you two stories about Abraham:[1]
The first story: At the age of three, …
Noach: Public Policy
Public policy must be established on principle, not empathy, says Paul Bloom, a psychology professor at Yale and author of Against Empathy: The Case For Rational Compassion. Empathy plays a role when deciding how or how much we should personally help another in need, but public policy should never be …
Bereshit: Human Centric
For millennia it was believed that the world is human centric, but science has slowly chipped away at this assumption.
From the day the first astronomer focused his gaze on the distant stars, humans postulated that our planet sits at the center of the universe and serves as the focal point …
Simchat Torah: No Break
On Simchat Torah we read the last passage of the Torah, but we don’t stop for even a moment when we finish reading the Torah. Instead, we turn around and start over immediately from the first verse. There are many celebrations on Simchat Torah, but they come before we read …
Sukkot: From the Fast to the Party
The party begins on Sukkot. The first ten days of the year are somber. Rosh Hashanah is the day of judgement, then next week are the days of repentance, and Yom Kippur is the fast. After the fast, our festivals take a radical turn and we move from the fast …
