Articles in Concepts
Purim: The Response to Antisemitism
Purim represents a victory over antisemitism. Haman was the preeminent antisemite. He didn’t need a reason to hate Jews. He hated them because they were Jewish. Any of his reasons were excuses on which to hang his hat, but they weren’t his primary reasons.
Let’s look at the story of Purim …
Mishpatim: The Robinhood Culture
Unless You’ve been living under a rock, you know about the Robinhood fiasco. In brief, several large hedge funds shorted stocks in several companies including one called GameStop. A group of smaller investors colluded to prop up these stocks with a frenzied buying program, costing the hedge funds billions of …
Beshalach: The Trust Test
Trust is a fickle thing. It is hard to build and it can shatter in a moment. Once shattered, it is painstaking to rebuild. If this is true of trust between people, how much more so trust in G-d?
The Torah tells us about a trust event that occurred in the …
Vaera: G-d is in Control
G-d is in control, is a mantra I have long lived with, but it came into sharp relief in the recent past. Last week, my family and I emerged from quarantine. Everyone in our household tested positive for COVID and thank G-d, we all recovered. We are most grateful for …
Shemot: Diaspora Judaism
Diaspora Judaism has been a problem for the community of nations from time immemorial. It is a unique phenomenon that only the Jew has experienced. Exiled from our country for nearly two thousand years, we stubbornly refused to assimilate and to dissipate. We clung tenaciously to our Jewish identity and …
Vayechi: To Be Alive
Are you among the living or are you alive? To be among the living means that we are breathing, and functioning—we are not dead, but neither are we fully alive. To be alive means to pulsate with the energy of life. To be fully attuned to life.
After Jacob, our patriarch, …
Vayigash: Stuck in Lockdown?
Lockdown is a word with which we have sadly become all too familiar. Many countries around the world have experienced a second wave of COVID and implemented various forms of lockdown. Ontario in Canada just announced its own lockdown and as I write I am looking at 28 long days …
The Passing of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
It has been around a year since the world has lost a great leader with the passing of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Who will be his successor?
There will be millions beginning with me and you.
Rabbi Sacks was a unique and leading voice among rabbis in our generation. His keen intellect and …
