Our family’s move from Baltimore to Toronto in 1964 was traumatic for many reasons, one of which was Father’s Day. (I was in a Cheder for Mother’s Day and it wasn’t mentioned. After coming home not being able to sit down because of a disciplinary...
[caption id="attachment_2523" align="alignleft" width="242" caption="With Mixed Emotions"][/caption] When he loses he seeks, when he finds he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves he begins to forget. Yehuda Amichai - A Man in His Life I never cease to be amazed by our ability and need to...
Ever since Babel we have been wondering about ladders and towers that reach the heavens. The first ladder to heaven didn’t turn out very well. The next one, in Jacob’s dream was awesome, but it was only a dream. The actual ladder does not appear...
He was leaning into his piano as if it were a Gemara (volume of Talmud). He was playing with his entire body, not just his fingers. We would never confuse a jazz pianist with Rubinstein. The saxophonist had one foot forward and was moving his body...
"If we were logical, we would resign ourselves to the evidence that our fate is beyond human knowledge, that every conjecture is arbitrary and demonstrably devoid of foundation. But men are rarely logical when their own fate is at stake; on every occasion, they prefer...
I can’t catch this tiny thing! The computer screen’s light attracts it and it keeps on flying in front of me, and when I wave it away, it flies near my ear to make a tortuous sound. A tiny bug is proving a greater adversary...
In honor of my brother-in-law, Miguel Banet, who works so hard to keep me consistent: In his “Memoirs,” Andrei Sakaharov cites the great Polish philosopher, Leszek Kolakowski, who wrote, “Inconsistency is simply a secret awareness of the contradictions of the world, a permanent feeling of...
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The third paragraph speaks of the commandment of Tzitzit (“fringes”). Tzitzit are “lights” that illuminate and reveal our fully expressed personality
The Gemara tells a famous story of how Tzitzit function. A yeshiva student once overheard a description of a gentile prostitute who lived far away, and who was considered the world’s best prostitute—and the most
“They awoke early in the morning and ascended toward the mountaintop saying, ‘We are ready, and we shall ascend to the place of which God has spoken, for we have sinned.” (Numbers 14:40) These people realized that they had sinned against God. They understood that they...
“There are evils…that men inflict upon one another, such as tyrannical domination of some of them over others.” (The Guide For The Perplexed 3:2) Maimonides rose to his position as leader of the Jewish community of Egypt by battling Yahya Abu Zikri, who called himself Sar...
We were close to Israel’s border with Lebanon when we heard a frightening sound. The soldier with us rushed us into a bomb shelter. The sound was a katushya rocket. “The noise is the worst part!” said the soldier. There is a long, scary, whistling...
Uh Oh! I’m in trouble! I grew up in a family that did not celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. My wife grew up in a family that has a major 48 hour celebration for each birthday and anniversary. Let’s just say that I had to make...
The Hubble space telescope has discovered a planet in our galaxy in the process of being devoured by the star that it orbits, according to a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The doomed planet, dubbed WASP-12b, has the highest known surface temperature of any...