In a small village in Lithuania, a young boy named Berel received a bicycle as a gift. Berel loved his bike and drove it every day, including Shabbat. The Rabbi heard about this and announced that Berel should henceforth be referred to as Berel the goy—the non-Jew. Berel heard about …
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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 …
A Question of Motive
In this week’s Parsha we are told to walk in G-d’s path, to serve him and to cleave to him.
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What do the seventeenth of Tamuz, the ninth of Av, and the first day of Passover have in common? They always fall on the same day of the week.
How does that make any sense? The first day of Passover represents the redemption of our ancestors from Egypt that sparked their …
Automatic Liberty?
Our Parsha teaches that a Jew may be sold into servitude for six years but on the first day of the seventh year the slave is automatically granted full liberty. (1) This law evokes images of a spontaneous transformation from princess to pumpkin at the stroke of midnight. …
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 …
