Articles in Sh’lach L’chah
G-d Is Knocking, Answer the Call
Moses appointed twelve emissaries to scout out the Holy Land and return with a report. The representative for the tribe of Ephraim was Moses’ primary disciple, Joshua. Until this time, the lad’s name was Oshua. But Moses added a letter to his name and called him Joshua.
Rashi, the famed eleventh …
Heroic Struggles of Ordinary People
Heroic struggles are for ordinary people. Extraordinary people have no struggles. They are brilliant and gifted. Their hearts aflame with love; they are humble, kind, generous, and pious. They melt with ecstasy at the mention of G-d, and they tremble with fear at the specter of sin. They follow all …
My Business With G-d
Every morning before I don my talit, I contemplate my business for the day. By tradition, I separate out each of the thirty-two strings that constitute the tzitzit—fringes on my talit. The purpose is to ensure that they are not entangled or knotted and that they are all intact. However, …
Shelach: The Behavior Mirror
The mirror can be brutally honest. It reveals our beauty and our ugliness. It is not a good idea to stare in the mirror all day, but every so often it is good to take an honest look in the mirror.
When the Jewish people were in the desert, they found …
Shelach: To Smile or To Cry?
The Torah relates a fascinating human-interest story about people who couldn’t help themselves and had to satisfy their curiosity. As is often the case, when we chase down our curiosities, they turn against us.
It had been more than a year since the Jews had left Egypt, and they were anxious …
Shelach: A Talit Meditation
The Talit is a shawl that we wrap around ourselves during prayer. It has four corners, from each of which, hangs eight fringes. Everyday, before we wrap ourselves in the Talit, we separate each fringe from the others and tighten the knots that bind them to the Talit.
As we run …
Sh’lach: Bad News
Why is bad news so ubiquitous? Wherever we turn we seem to hear another piece of bad news. This one has cancer, that one broke an arm, another lost his job, and another’s home was flooded. Why is there so much bad news?
The truth is that there is much more …
Sh’lach: The Tetris Effect
My Tetris Effect Moment
On a recent trip, I was waiting for an airport shuttle to take me to my hotel. When a white bus pulled up with the words “Homestead Hilton” painted on the side, I entered the van. To my chagrin I discovered that there are two Hiltons in …
