Articles in Parsha Insights
B’har Bechukotai: Spiritual Significance of Volcanoes
Frailties of Nature
Have you ever wondered about the spiritual significance of volcanoes? Well wonder no more. This essay is your answer.
There are rocks and there are plants. The difference between them; one can grow, the other cannot. There are two kinds of people; those who grow, change and adjust …
Emor: Win Them With Love
The Problem
We live in an age of twenty-four hour news cycles. The need to fill the air with constant news serves to lower the journalistic bar. The media used to award at least a measure of privacy to public figures. That age is long gone; today outing a prominent politician …
Kedoshim: Legislating Moral Conduct
Human Rights Commissions
I attended a seminar on Canadian Human Rights Commissions. On the whole the event amounted to a wholesale “Let’s Quash Human Rights Commissions” extravaganza. But I must concede that the tone of the event was rather peaceful. The presenters articulated their call for abolition in reasoned, albeit impassioned, …
Tazria: Touched By Kindness
Am Ordinary Event
The other day something happened that meant little when it occurred, but upon reflection came to mean a great deal. I was entering the post office with a mountain of envelopes balanced precariously in my arms. Taking in the perilous state of my load a girl of perhaps …
Shemini: Bridging Passover and the Weekday
Distinctions
In contra distinction to the rest of the week, Shabbat is a holy day. Though the weekdays lead up to Shabbat and are influenced by Shabbat, they can never become holy; they are forever destined to be mundane. With one exception: The Festivals.
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Tzav: Birchat Hachamah – When the Sun Sings Again
A Unique Event
On Wednesday morning, April 8, 2009, Jews around the world recited a blessing over the sun that was last recited in twenty-eight years ago. This blessing is recited when the sun returns to its point of origin, where it was when it was first created. Though the sun …
Vayikra: Humble Gratitude
The AIG Scandal
After accepting a one-hundred-and-sixty-billion dollar bailout from the United States Government, American Insurance Group distributed more than a hundred-million dollars in bonuses and retention fees to its employees; a move that infuriated the congress and the American Public.
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Vayakhel Pekudei: Unity in giving
Greed and Generosity
In Fiddler On The Roof, a film filled with memorable moments, the scene of Perchick’s proclamation, “Money is the world’s curse” and Tevye’s defiant reply, “May the Lord smite me with it,” stands out as prominent. Indeed, money is the source of humanity’s greatest friction. Most marital disputes …
