Are We A Religion of No?

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, …

Bamidbar: Does Being Chosen Make You Uncomfortable?

Being Chosen
People always say, never let a compliment get to your head. But what does that mean? If the compliment is true, shouldn’t we own it, take pride in it and let it boost our self esteem? The obvious answer is that we don’t mind owning it. We mind growing …

Why Ten Plagues?

This week we are introduced to the ten plagues. Seven plagues appear in our Torah portion and the last three appear in next week’s Torah portion. Have you ever noticed that there are ten plagues, ten commandments, and G-d Created the world with ten utterances? What is the common link?

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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 …