Articles in Bereishit
Vayera: The Moral Sense
The moral sense is the innate human conviction that kindness and fairness are good, and cruelty is bad. We can’t explain why this is so, but if anyone would claim that cruelty is good and challenge us to explain why it is bad, we would throw up our hands in …
Lech L’cha: True Faith
True faith is not easy to come by. Abraham possessed true faith, but most people in his generation were incapable of true faith until a particular event occurred that made it possible to achieve true faith.
Let me tell you two stories about Abraham:[1]
The first story: At the age of three, …
Noach: Public Policy
Public policy must be established on principle, not empathy, says Paul Bloom, a psychology professor at Yale and author of Against Empathy: The Case For Rational Compassion. Empathy plays a role when deciding how or how much we should personally help another in need, but public policy should never be …
Bereshit: Human Centric
For millennia it was believed that the world is human centric, but science has slowly chipped away at this assumption.
From the day the first astronomer focused his gaze on the distant stars, humans postulated that our planet sits at the center of the universe and serves as the focal point …
Vayechi: A Cast of Brothers
Joseph and his brothers had a rocky relationship. Over the years there had been some pretty bad times. They resented him and thought he maligned them to their father. For his part, Joseph didn’t help matters when he shared his grandiose dreams that cast him in the role of king …
Vayigash: Know It All
What do you do when you know it all? Life is only interesting when there is mystery. When we have questions to answer, theses to research, frontiers to explore, peaks to climb, depths to plumb, curiosities to quench, and knowledge to acquire, life has thrill and excitement. But what do …
Vayeshev: My Brother’s Keeper
Cain famously asked, “am I my brother’s keeper?” History has not taken kindly to Cain and has responded with a resounding yes, you are your brother’s keeper. But Cain had done ill by Abel. What if it is the reverse, suppose your brother does ill by you, are you still …
Vayishlach: O Brother
It had been thirty-four years since Jacob escaped his brother Esau’s wrath. During this time Jacob had spent fourteen years studying Torah and twenty years building his family. He had descended to the immoral pit of his uncle Laban’s home, and emerged unaffected and even stronger for the ordeal. Esau, …
