Vaera: Just Stop Asking

My Shoes Hurt My Head
Herbert Weiner, author of Nine and a Half Mystics, enjoyed warm relations with many Chassidic Jews.  Herbert reportedly asked a Chassid, why it is that despite their mutual Jewish base he feels that the Chassid walks through doors that he simply cannot. As I understood it, …

Shavuot: How To Celebrate An Anniversary?

Ani-Very-Sorry
Shavuot is the anniversary of the day we received the Torah. Almost every year before my anniversary my friends ask, so what are you going to do for your anniversary? I submit that a much better question would be what is your anniversary going to do for you? And if …

Nitzavim Vayelech: The Key is Education

Returning The Keys
When the marauding Babylonian army broke into the Temple they found priests going about their sacred duties in ecclesiastic devotion. Some prepared meal offerings, others stoked the altar’s flames, yet others inspected logs to ensure their perfection. Outside the battle raged, but inside, the worship continued without distraction.

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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 …