Purim: When G-d wakes Up
The Megillah tells the story of King Ahasuerus, who could not sleep in the middle of the night. He asked his servants to read the palace chronicles to him, and they read about Mordechai saving the king’s life. He immediately ordered Haman to reward Mordechai by …
Jewish Pride
The idea that anti-Semitism is precipitated by our outward Jewish appearance began to percolate in the Western European Jewish community during the eighteenth century. They surmised that if they would adopt a secular European appearance, they would be accepted by the nations as equals. Thus came the clarion call, …
The Apex
When I was in kindergarten, teachers usually sent misbehaving children to the corner. Modern pedagogy has since rejected the corner, but the business world still embraces it – everyone covets the corner office. The corner, a symbol of shame in grade-school, is a symbol of power at the office. …
Emotional Death
“Rabbi,” he wailed, “my wife of seventeen years has just passed on and I cannot live without her.” This cry pierced me to the core. I empathized and soothed in every way I could. In the end, the words that resonated with him were, “Don’t compound your wife’s physical …
Now Really!
After the passing of Rabbi Yehudah, the third century sage who edited the Mishnah, his colleagues proclaimed that the age of humility had come to an end. Several centuries later the Babylonian sage Rabbi Yosef offered a correction. Don’t say humility has died, he asserted, because there is I. …
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 …
