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February 15, 2025 – 10:18 pm | Comments Off on Never Tell A Lie10 views

Our sages were fence builders—not in the conventional sense, but metaphorically. The Torah presents many prohibitions, and our sages built fences around them to ensure we do not step over the line. For example, the Torah tells us not to write on Shabbat, and our sages prohibited even holding a …

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Articles in D’varim

Shabbat Shuvah: The Loving Exam

September 28, 2022 – 10:37 pm | Comments Off on Shabbat Shuvah: The Loving Exam1,076 views
loving-exam-innerstream.ca

The days of reckoning are here, and it is time for the loving exam. Most exams are associated with tension and trepidation. Irrespective of how well we know the material, proctors do their best to make it stressful. Fear of failure, fear of getting caught cheating, and fear of falling …

Prove It Or Know It

September 17, 2022 – 10:18 pm | Comments Off on Prove It Or Know It954 views
know-it-innerstream.ca

To prove it or to know it, which is better? Most people would say that being able to prove something is better. Proof is the holy grail. If you have incontrovertible proof, you know it is true. If all you can say is, “I know it is true,” you may …

Unity With Differences

September 10, 2022 – 11:34 pm | Comments Off on Unity With Differences916 views
unity-with-differences-innerstream.ca

Which is better, unity with differences or unity without differences? Most people would say unity without differences is better, but Judaism underlines unity with differences.
An ancient Jewish ritual called bikurim, saw Jews bring an annual basket of fruit from their homesteads to Jerusalem. These baskets were placed before the altar …

With G-d’s Help

August 31, 2022 – 5:01 pm | Comments Off on With G-d’s Help1,311 views
With G-d's Help

The Torah tells us to appoint judges and guardians at the gates of our cities. The city’s gathering place was usually at the gates, making it the fitting place for the courthouse and police station. However, Jewish scholarship has long maintained that there is a parallel teaching here. We are …

A Life of Seasons

August 14, 2022 – 12:52 am | Comments Off on A Life of Seasons1,052 views
seasons-innerstream.ca

When I lived in California people complained that they missed the seasons. I always wondered about that. Having come from the East Coast, I often told them that if they were looking seasons, I could tell them exactly where to find it. They came to California for sunshine so why …

My Shabbat

August 7, 2022 – 11:08 pm | Comments Off on My Shabbat1,240 views
shabbos - innerstream

Today we have Myoffice, Mydrive, my-everything, so why not My-Shabbat?
At first blush, it ought to be our Shabbat, or most appropriately G-d’s Shabbat. How can we claim Shabbat for ourselves?
The answer is that we each have the capacity to enhance our Shabbat. Our sages wrote that only he who toils …

A Shabbat Fast

July 30, 2022 – 11:52 pm | Comments Off on A Shabbat Fast1,138 views
fast-innerstream.ca

It is forbidden to fast on Shabbat. In fact, if we fast on Shabbat (even with halachic sanction) we must fast on a different day to atone for fasting on Shabbat. This is why the fast of Tishah Be’av—the ninth of Av, is postponed when it falls on Shabbat —as …

Shabbat Shuvah: Jewish Guilt

September 4, 2021 – 11:02 pm | Comments Off on Shabbat Shuvah: Jewish Guilt1,783 views
guilt-innersteram.ca

Have you ever heard of Jewish guilt? Well, of course. If you have a Jewish mother, you know about Jewish guilt. But the truth is that Jews have little to do with guilt. In fact, the Catholics claim to have cornered the market on guilt. Considering the Catholic doctrine of …