Articles in Bereishit
Vayetze: Find Our Calling
To find our calling is the hallmark of life. Life isn’t a generic formula that can be applied to everyone equally. Each life is unique; each life story is highly individual. As children, we live with our parents and family, but as we grow and mature, we venture forth and …
Chayei Sarah: The White Beard
The white beard and old age seem to go together. It is not surprising that they share the same cognate in Hebrew; a beard is zakan and old age is zaken. The Torah tells us that Abraham became zaken. Our sages combined the two meanings by saying that until that …
Vayera: Too Perfect?
Is “too perfect” a thing? Have you ever worried about being too perfect? Most of us worry that we aren’t perfect enough. But I know of at least one person who worried about being too perfect. Our collective grandfather, Abraham.
The Torah tells us that Abraham recovered from his circumcision in …
Lech Lecha: Anything You Want To Be
“Anything you want to be,” is a phrase parents often say to their children. You don’t need to accept any limitations; they are all artificial. If you put your mind to it, you can be anything you want to be.
Sometimes children misunderstand and think that they can snap their fingers …
Noach: Ignoring Others
Ignoring others is something we do when we become overly engrossed in ourselves. It often happens when we experience distress and difficulty. We revert inwardly, shrink into ourselves, become self absorbed. We aren’t intentionally ignoring others; we are just too focused on ourselves to let others in.
The truth is that …
Bereshit: No More No Less
No more no less, is an aphorism that implies that you are doing just fine. There is no need to adjust. You are on the right path, headed in the right direction, and at the right speed. You don’t need to do more than you are already doing, and you …
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 …
