Articles in Education
Don’t Pass The Puck: Your Children Need You
The other day I went to the blood lab for a blood test. When I presented my paper work (remember I live in the happy world of Socialised Medicine) the technician gave me a long face accompanied by a sophisticated eye roll and a dismissive hand wave. I thought I …
Tazria: Fix Me Don’t Break Me
A Typical Exchange
With more than twenty years in the rabbinate I have seen my share of painful human interactions and have become an observer of human nature. I find that two thigs often happen when people berate each other. First, the berator comes on too strong to be heard. Second, …
Yitro: An Unpleasant Truth
Unpleasant
What is the difference between Torah truth and scientific truth? By science I mean every branch of human knowledge that isn’t Torah. One is pleasant the other is unpleasant.
The answer is best presented with a joke I’m sure you’ve heard. It’s about the Jew who was caught reading a Nazi …
Vayetze: Putting Children First
Children First
Do you put your children first? Are they an integral part of your life or do they intrude on your freedom? Did you marry only for love or to build a family with the person you love? When you come home, do you have eyes only for your spouse …
Chukat: Unchanging Torah
Tablets and Torah Scrolls
Why is the Torah so unchanging? Why are religious Jews so resistant to change? Doesn’t our tradition promote questions and provocative thought?
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K’doshim: Drafting Charedim
The Great Argument
Once again, the nation of Israel is embroiled in fierce debate over the rights of Charedi (strictly observant) students to defer their army service until after the conclusion of their studies. The Charedi community wants to maintain the arrangement negotiated in 1948. They argue that drafting their students …
Mishpatim: Learn to Absorb
Absorb It
hortly after giving the Ten Commandments at Sinai, G-d summoned Moses and said, “These are the laws that you should place before them.” He then taught him the Torah, commencing with the laws of slavery, “When you acquire a Hebrew slave…”[1]
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Yisro: Prophecy and Torah
The Prophetic Chain
Do you believe in prophecy? G-d is infinite, we are infinitesimal. Does He really deign to talk us?
This was the big question that Jews faced when they approached Mount Sinai. They knew Moses was a man of G-d and believed that G-d listened to him, but they were …
