Articles by Lazer Gurkow
Ki Tisa: Use Your Head
Use your head is an idiom that means think things through carefully. Don’t just jump on the bandwagon. Use your head. Think about it, figure out the ramifications and avoid making a mistake.
The Torah says, “When you list the heads of the children of Israel according to their numbers.”[1] What …
Tetzaveh: The Afterlife
Absent
This week we marked the Yahrtzeit of Moses, who passed away on the 7th of Adar, 3488 or 1273 BCE. This was just 33 days before Joshua led the Jews into Israel. We know this because the Jews crossed into Israel on the 13th of Nissan. We also know that …
Terumah: Vertical Logs
Vertical logs are rare in construction. Most log cabins are built with horizontal logs. It is possible to build with vertical logs and there are several advantages to it, for example, vertical logs don’t settle as much as horizontal logs, but there are many disadvantages to building with vertical logs. …
Mishpatim: Finding G-d
Finding G-d in the synagogue is no big deal, that is where you expect Him to be. Finding G-d in your home can be a little trickier, but still not so surprising. Finding G-d at your place of work or at play, in a social setting, at a party, or …
Yitro: Time for Torah
We all must make time for Torah, but how much time is a matter of perspective. When G-d gave us the Torah at Sinai, He gave the same Torah to all Jews. We are all bound by the same laws and we all share the same level of access to …
Beshalach: Shabbat
When our ancestors traveled through the desert, they were nourished by Manna that fell miraculously from heaven every morning of the week with the exception of Shabbat. There was no Manna on Shabbat; instead two portions fell on Friday, one for Friday, the other for Shabbat.
Nevertheless, the Zohar, the seminal …
Bo: Ordinary Prayer
Does G-d listen to the prayer or ordinary people?
Would you pray for me, is a rather common request that people make of rabbis.
People assume that Rabbis are pious. They also assume that G-d listens to the pious more than He listens to ordinary people. I won’t quibble with the first …
Vaera: The Great Escape
The entire Jewish ordeal in Egypt was an effort to escape. What were they escaping from?
The minutia of mundane pleasures. The Jewish people were singled out to receive the Torah at Sinai. They were poised to climb to the precipice, to scale the greatest spiritual heights, but they were trapped …
