I was walking with a friend, one Shabbat, and as we reached the crosswalk, he bent to push the button to stop the traffic. I reminded him it was Shabbat, when we don’t use electronics. Instead, I suggested we relax patiently and chat until the light changes. It was Shabbat …
Read the full story »Nitzavim Vayelech: A Nation of One
The Torah portion that we read this Shabbat describes the Jewish people as a nation of one. “You all stand this day before G-d, your G-d the leaders, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, every man of Israel. your young children, your women, and your convert within your camp, …
Ki Tavo: Removed the Holy
In ancient Jerusalem, Jews would go the Temple every three years and proclaim, “I have removed the holy [portion] from my home.” What does it mean to remove the holy portion from the house?
Here is the background. Every year, the field owner would give a portion of his crop to …
Ki Tetze: A Winning Strategy
When you go to war, you need a winning strategy. It doesn’t matter how strong or weak your army is, success depends on the strategy. If the generals devise a winning strategy, you have a chance of winning the war. If they don’t have a winning strategy, you have lost …
Shoftim: Ending Racism
Racism is a social scourge that has taken many forms of expression throughout the ages. At its heart racism is rooted in the medieval caste society—the feudal lords and the surfs. If you were from noble extraction, you were considered inherently superior. If you were a serf, you were expected …
Re’e: Believe It
It is hard to believe something that can’t be proved. It is even harder to believe in something you can’t see. Some people say, “when I see it, I will believe it.” Others say, “When you believe it, you will see it.”
When Covid-19 first came to our shores, I was …
Ekev: Cancel Culture
Ekev: Cancel Culture
Cancel Culture is a phrase one hears a lot these days. Cancel culture is the idea that if you don’t agree or even appear to agree with my thoughts, I will cancel your very integrity, let alone your credibility.
The problem with cancel culture is that as one group …
Va’etchanan: Unwarranted Love
Unwarranted love means to love someone that you have every right to hate. Jewish law has an extensive code around offering forgiveness and outlines specific cases in which we are not required to forgive. The ethic of unwarranted love summons us not only to forgive such people but also to …
Devarim: The Rational You
The Torah is divided into two parts—the first four books and the last book. The last book is in a category of its own because it is largely written as if Moses were talking rather than as G-d talking. Rather than saying “Moses spoke” this book reads, “I spoke.”
However, before …
Parsha Insights »
Nezavim Vayelach: Relevance of Torah
Redundant
In our Parsha, the Torah provides its own coordinates. “It is not in the heaven to say, who might rise to the heaven to bring it to us nor is it across the ocean to say, who might traverse the oceans to bring it to us.”[1]
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Yearly Cycle »
Passover: A Wise Meditation
The Wise Son
On the first night of Passover we are introduced to the four sons of the Haggadah. (1) Drawing on various verses from the Torah, the Haggadah teaches us that there are four types of students: the wise, the wicked, the foolish and the one who knows not how …
Concepts »
Chukat: For Another
Only G-d
The best way to reach G-d is to sacrifice everything for another. We learn this from a fascinating detail about the Red Heifer.
When Moses was told that it is possible to be purified even after contact with a dead body, he was surprised. Death, the absence of life, represents …
Rabbi’s Desk »
What Can We Do?
These past two days have been the most difficult for our people in the last fifty years. It was Simchat Torah, a time for rejoicing, yet it was a time of horror. Nearly a thousand members of our family were brutally murdered, more than a hundred were taken hostage, and …
