Relationships

God & Israel Heaven & Earth Husband & Wife Intimacy Man & God Man & Man Parents & Children Repentance

The basic principles upon which we use choice to build a relationship with God.

Sinai In The Alps

Suppose a Man was carried asleep out of a plain Country amongst the Alps and left there upon the Top of one of the highest Mountains, when he wak’d and look’d about him, he would think himself in an inchanted Country, or carried into another...

Tags: Alps, Canadian Rockies, Light, Moses, Moshe, Revelation, Robert Macfarlane, Sinai

Mountain Fishing

J. Accused me of always bagging his books as soon as he had begun to read them. I said, "it's like fishing. I see you've got a bite. I want your line. I want to pull it in." Katherine Mansfield January 30, 1921 ‘Moses came and summoned...

Tags: Commitment, Evidence of Things Not Seen, Katherine Mansfield, Mountain climbing, Revelation, Sinai, W.H. Murray, Yitro

The Plan: The Smile of Heaven

We wandered to the Pine Forest That skirts the Ocean’s foam, The lightest wind was in its nest, The tempest in its home. The whispering waves were half asleep, The clouds were gone to play, And on the bosom of the deep The smile of Heaven lay; It seemed as if the hour...

Tags: Beshalach, Elim, Marah, Song of the Sea

The Plan: Secret Spy Exposed

Please accept my apologies for rushing out of “The Archeologist’s Seder,” but immediately the tense situation of, “Uh oh! I have to put away my Secret Spy Journal; some guy just asked me why I write in Hieroglyphics rather than Hebrew...

Tags: Bo, Exodus, Moshe, Pesach Seder

Chanukah 4 – Asarah BiTevet 10 – Angel of Fire II

Rabbi Yitzchak said, It is written, "The angel of Hashem encamps round about those who fear Him, and he delivers them" (Tehilim 34:8). This verse has already been explained. But in another place, it is written, "For He shall give His angels charge over you,"...

Tags: Angels, Asarah BiTevet, Burning Bush, Elisha, Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar, Shechinah, Siege, zohar

Counting Toward Asarah BiTevet – It Matters To God!

Even Isaiah the Prophet (58:3) asks, “Why, when we fasted, did You not see? When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?” Does our Fasting on Asarah BiTevet matter? Does it accomplish anything for Israel, for me, for Hashem? The Ramchal (Messilat Yesharim, Chapter 19)...

Tags: Asarah BiTevet, Messilat Yesharim, Ramchal, zohar

Countdown To Chanukah 20 – Fueled By Tears

“Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel ascended; and they saw the God of Israel: under His feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity (Exodus 24:8-9 - sefaria.org)”. Rashi comments on, “...

Tags: Revelation, Sinai

Countdown To Chanukah 22 – Reflections

“He found him in a desert region, In an empty howling waste. He engirded him, watched over him, Guarded him as the pupil - Ishon - of His eye (Devarim 32:10 - sefaria.org).” Rabbeinu Bachya points out that the Hebrew word for the pupil of...

Hallel Lights – The Ever Increasing Joy of Becoming

(The night of the Plague of The Firstborn,) Pharaoh went out into the street and cried out, “In the past you were my slaves. Now you are free people; you exist only as servants of the Holy One Blessed is He. You must sing Hallel...

Gaps In The Clouds

[caption id="attachment_29927" align="alignleft" width="300"] John Ruskin's "Fragments of the Alps"[/caption] There are many spots among the inferior ridges of the Alps…, which, though commanding prospects of great nobleness, are themselves very nearly types of all that is most painful to the human mind. Vast wastes of...

Tags: Golden Calf, Shemot

Haftarah: Vayigash: Wholeness

Ezekiel 37:15-28: Exiles, outsiders in a strange land, cling to each other and remember their past. “It seems so clear now”, the exiled people said to Ezekiel. “We can trace the beginning

Tags: Ezekiel, Haftarah, Redemption, Vayigash

Seven Haftarot of Nechama-Comforting God

God Himself feels the pain experienced by every one of His children. The comfort of God depends upon the comfort granted His children. During the Days of Awe we pray, “Remember us for life, O King, Who delights

Tags: Elul, Haftarah, Nechama, Rosh Hashana

Impurity in the Relationship

This week’s Haftarah begins, “Again the word of God came to me: ‘Son of man, the house of Israel are living in their own land, they defile it by their conduct and their actions. Their conduct was as the impurity of a menstruous woman in...

Tags: Exile, Ezekiel, Haftarah, Husband & Wife, Parah

Midrash Esther Chapter II: Introduction

“A fool spends all his spirit (Proverbs 29:11).” This applies to Achashveirosh. “But a wise man stills it with in him,” this applies to God, Who calmed Achashveirosh In the same way as it says, “who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of...

Tags: Achashveirosh, Amalek, Bible, Daniel, Esther, Midrash, Mishlei, Proverbs, Psalms, Purim, Tehillim

Midrash Esther VII: Finding Merit

Rabbi Levi said in the name of Rabbi Samuel the son Nachman: it is written, “And the hair of his head like pure wool (Daniel 7:9),” indicating that no creature has the least claim upon Him (for lack of justice). Rabbi Yudan said in the name...

Tags: Achashveirosh, Amalek, Bible, Daniel, Esther, Ha'azinu, Isaiah, Judgement, Purim, Tehillim, Zechariah

Pesukei D’Zimrah-Terumah-God’s Rejoicing

It is written, “These are the histories of the heaven and the earth when they were created - be-HiBaRaM (Genesis 2:4).” Our sages comment, “Do not read ' when they were created - be-HiBaRaM - but, ' for Abraham - be-ABRaHaM -the

Tags: Genesis, Pesukei d'Zimrah, Prayer, Psalms, Terumah, Vaetchanan

Haftarah-Shekalim-Reading the Text VI-A Limited Vision

“The money brought into the temple was not spent for making silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets or any other articles of gold or silver for the Temple of God; it was paid to the workers, who used it to repair the temple. They...

Tags: Bible, Haftarah, Kings, man & God, Matot, Mishlei, Shekalim, Yoash

Taking It With You-Mishpatim-Aleinu

Our sages teach us, “On the Red Sea, God appeared to them like a young boy, while at Sinai, He appeared like an old man.” At first thought, this is extremely difficult to understand, since it is written, “You have not seen

Tags: Beshalach, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Mishpatim, Nasso, Prayer, Vaetchanan

Haftarah-Shekalim-Reading the Text VI

“Yoash said to the kohanim, ‘Collect all the money that is brought as sacred offerings to the temple of God—the money collected in the census, the money received from personal vows and the money brought voluntarily to the temple. Let every kohen receive the money...

Tags: Bible, Divrei HaYamim, Haftarah, Kings, Shekalim, Yoash

Haftarah-Shekalim-Reading the Text V-The Seeds of Destruction

“In the seventh year of Yehu, Yoashbecame king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba. Yoash did what was right in the eyes of God all the years Yehoiada the kohen instructed him. The high places,...

Tags: Bible, Divrei HaYamim, Haftarah, Kings, Shekalim, Tisha B'Av, Yoash

Amidah-Mishpatim-Tzedek uMishpat

“And these are the ordinances that you shall place before them (Exodus 21:1).” Immediately preceding, in the construction of the altar, the symbolic expression of the fundamental basic principle was given, that our whole relationship

Tags: Mishpatim, Prayer

Haftarah-Shekalim-Reading the Text III-The Form of the Covenant II

Yehoiada then made a covenant between God and the king and people that they would be God’s people. He also made a covenant between the king and the people. All the people of the land went to the temple of Baal and tore it down....

Tags: Bible, Haftarah, Kings, Shekalim, Yoash

Haftarah-Shekalim-Reading the Text II-The Form of the Covenant

Tags: Bible, Haftarah, Kings, man & man, Shekalim, Yoash

Haftarah-Shekalim-Reading the Text I-God’s Message to Renew the Covenant

Tags: Bible, General Providence, Haftarah, Kings, Shekalim, Yoash

What Kind of Leader

When I heard a rabbi describe himself as, “the Rav Moshe Feinstein of our generation,” I realized that it’s not just presidential candidates who claim to be the reincarnation of Lincoln or Reagan, but people in all areas of life who claim to lead as...

Tags: Leadership, Moshe, Revelation, Shemot, Sinai, Torah, Vaeira

Shema-So What-Shemot-Ahavah Rabbah-Attach Us

“He said to his people, 'Behold! The people, the Children of Israel are more numerous and stronger than we' (Exodus 1:9).” In which way were

Tags: Prayer, Shema, Shemot

Nitzavim- Vayeilech: Haftarah of Consolation #7

Isaiah Chapter 61:10-63:1: The prophet begins this final vision of consolation and redemption with a vision of the joy that comes from a healthy relationship with God. Isaiah compares the joy to that of a marriage in

Tags: Consolation, Haftarah, Isaiah, Nechama, Redemption

Ki Tavo: Haftarah of Consolation #6

Isaiah Chapter 60: Isaiah is approaching the end of his life, the end of his prophetic visions. He has lived to see his grandson, Menashe, become one of the most destructive of all the kings of Yehuda, the Southern Kingdom. In fact,

Tags: Haftarah, Isaiah, Man

Ki Teitzei: Haftarah of Consolation #5

The people to whom the prophet Isaiah spoke, people who lived during the first Temple, lived with a deep awareness of the presence of God. They were troubled by far more than their military and political situation. They lived with a

Tags: Haftarah, Isaiah, Nechama

The True Genius of The Jewish People

The popular conception of genius is that it is an inborn gift, yet an increasingly large body of research suggests the opposite - that genius is always the product of sustained effort. A case in point - Mozart: "Standing above all other giftedness legends, of course,...

Tags: Effort & Reward, Kinot, Lamentations, Man's Responsibility, Tisha B'Av

Hallel Rosh Chodesh Av Paragraph Six: Our Story

[caption id="attachment_5854" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Story of the Jewish People"][/caption]Ours, is a story that already resonates throughout the world. Less than three years after the Holocaust, we were a nation reborn, fighting for our survival, winning, and building a dynamic country against all odds. We sing...

Tags: Hallel, Rosh Chodesh, Tisha B'Av

Hallel Rosh Chodesh Av Paragraph Two: We Will Leave Again

[caption id="attachment_5842" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Life as a Rowboat"][/caption]“It’s why we’re all so fascinated with history. We’re in a rowboat. We move forward, but we’re always looking back (Louise Penny; “Bury Your Dead”). The Jews sang Hallel on Rosh Chodesh Av even as the Babylonians, and...

Tags: Hallel, Lamentations, Rosh Chodesh, Suffering, Tisha B'Av

Sound Expansion

When we reach the end of Bereishit we have a clear sense of a complete story: We began with Creation, the Beginning, and concluded with the Children of Israel in Egypt. The second book of the Torah takes us through the process of a nation...

Tags: Bechukotai, Mishpatim, Shema, Vayikra

Haftarah Vayikra: God’s Call

Isaiah 43:21 – 44:23: Isaiah knows what will happen to his people. He can see that they are sliding deeper into their confused ways, closer to destruction and exile. The prophet wants to imbue them

Tags: Haftarah, Isaiah, Vayikra

Hidden Memories

We were enjoying a relaxed Sunday brunch sharing stories and reflections when she decided to tell her story. She attended the same high school in Buenos Aires as my wife so I already knew that many students had disappeared during the military junta, but no...

Tags: Amalek, Zachor

The Vulnerability of Mistakes

Who advised Amalek to attack Israel? Balaam. His strategy was that the children of Avraham should attack the nation that existed on the merit of Avraham. Imagine what it was like for the Children of Israel, who understood the power of their connection to Avraham Avinu,...

Tags: Amalek, Moshe, Zachor

Haftarah: Vayakhel: Notes

King Solomon’s Beit Hamikdash – Temple – was more physically remarkable than the Mishkan – Tabernacle – constructed by Moshe and the Children of Israel. Besides being far larger and elaborate, our Haftarah lists numerous

Tags: Genesis, Haftarah, Heaven & Earth, Kings, Mishkan, Pekudei, Shabbat, Vayakhel

A House & A Home

I recently read a story that made me think of the Mishkan: A soldier’s little girl, whose father was being moved to a distant post, was sitting at the airport among her family’s meager belongings. The girl was sleepy. She leaned against the packs and duffel bags. A...

Tags: Mishkan, Terumah

Tent or House?

My cousin invited me to a Sheva Berachot celebrating his daughter’s recent marriage. My uncle, Rabbi Avraham Pincus zt”l, a truly righteous scholar, my Tante Chava z”l, one of the three greatest human beings I ever met, were there, and I wouldn’t miss the opportunity...

Tags: Mishkan, Terumah

Echoes III

I will echo myself: I still hear echoes: “And these are the laws that you shall place before them.” “This is the Torah that Moses placed before the Children of Israel.” I believe that there is another difference between “Giving” a law, or “Placing the Law before”: In my...

Tags: Mishpatim, Shavuot, Torah

Just One

[caption id="attachment_1948" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Just One"][/caption] We honor Yitro, Moshe’s father-in-law, with an extra portion in the Torah named for him, for his decision to join the Children of Israel and convert. It isn’t just ‘a’ portion; it is the portion of Revelation. All of...

Tags: Becha'abtecha, Conversion, Jeremiah, Yitro

Running

[caption id="attachment_1887" align="alignleft" width="281" caption="Running Away"][/caption] I guess it all depends on whom you ask. Did Pharaoh send the Jews out of Egypt? Did he chase them out? Or, did God take them out? We find each of the three in the verses of the previous parsha, which ends...

Tags: Beshalach, Haggadah, Pesach

Unlimited Vision

[caption id="attachment_1866" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Watching You"][/caption] “Feels right to me.” “Sounds OK to me.” “Looks good to me.” Different people experience the world in different ways. The Torah has them all, but this week’s portion seems to be all about vision: “It will cover the eye of the earth...

Tags: Bo, Exodus, Haggadah, Pesach

Others

[caption id="attachment_1850" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Others"][/caption] In the beginning, and then, three times. Three times Moses described God as “God, the Lord of the Ivrim”, the “Others”. At their first meeting, Moshe refers to God as “The Lord of the Ivrim”, “The Lord of the Others”: This is how...

Tags: Bo, Haggadah, Pesach, Vaeira

Vaeira: Lessons to be Learned

Lessons To Be Learned: Ezekiel 28:25 – 29:21

What was the matter with the Children of Israel in this week’s portion? Had it been me, I would have been dancing in the streets celebrating the destruction of my Egyptian masters!

Tags: Ezekiel, General Providence, Haftarah, Kings, Vaeira

Finding

[caption id="attachment_1794" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Searching"][/caption] Antonio Stradivarius, wandering in Venice one day, came upon a pile of broken, waterlogged oars, out of which he made some of his most beautiful violins. “I do not seek, I find,” was Picasso’s famous dictum. A lucky find gave Picasso one...

Tags: Haggadah, Pesach, Vaeira

Timeless: A Two Way Street

“He recalled (Zachar) His kindness and His faithfulness to the House of Israel; all ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our Lord.” (Psalm 98:3) Should you ask, that if God’s power was so great, why did He instruct Israel to borrow silver and...

Tags: Abraham, Covenant, Elul, Rosh Hashana, Shemot, Tehillim, Zichronot

Inconsistencies Part Four: The Drunkard's Walk

"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...

Tags: Bible, Shelach

Words of Life II

A few years after the Holocaust, Primo Levi, a former Auschwitz inmate met with representatives of the German Bayer company to discuss a new product to be sold in his native Italy. The German scientists went out of their way to be sensitive to Mr....

Tags: Mishpatim, Revelation, Shavuot, Sinai

Genetic Backup

Startling Scientists, Plant Fixes Its Flawed Gene In a startling discovery, geneticists at Purdue University say they have found plants the possess a corrected version of a defective gene inherited from both their parents, as if some handy backup copy with the right version had been...

Tags: Haggadah, Maggid, Pesach

Haftarah Shekalim: The People’s Home

Kings II 11:17 – 12:17

Background

The once great and mighty house of King David had fallen. In a foolishly calculated political

Tags: Haftarah, Kings, man & God, Shekalim

Dark Memories

I had a strange experience today as I was hooked up to my IV. I closed my eyes to rest and listened to the pumping action of the IV, which usually helps me fall asleep. This time my mind played a powerful trick on me....

Tags: Amidah, Beshalach, Refuah, Repressed Memories

My Moving Mountain

“Now Moses, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, drove the flock after the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God (Shemot 3:1).” Why Is It ‘The Mountain of God’? Rashi comments, “in order to keep them away from private property,...

Tags: Burning Bush, Colin Thubron, David Zeller, Horeb, Kate Harris, King David, Malachy Tallack, Moses, Moshe, Neal Ascherson, Robert Macfarlane, Shemot, Sinai

GPS To Egypt

How did Jacob get from Canaan to Egypt without GPS? I consider Debbie one of the smartest people I have ever met in my life. Yet, a mysterious obnoxious woman hiding somewhere in our car’s radio treats her like an idiot. We often wonder if this woman...

Tags: Jacob, Ladder, Vayeitzei, Vayigash

The Architecture of Proximity

My father’s lap, while he sat in his big white Lazy-Boy and taught, was a world all to its own. An exquisite sense of safety in every sense of the word, emotionally, physically, all while exploring different worlds of Torah, science, literature, and all sorts...

Journeys; The First Step

This is Simcha Weinberg for the BNN (Biblical New Network) Festival book review. (Dedicated in honor of MJ, AC) We have been on a journey since Rosh Hashana: We have discovered the “Meeting Place Between Knowledge and Imagination,” We have studied “Gaps In The Clouds,” Found “A Kedem Compass,” Uncovered,...

Haftarah: Balak: Variations on a Theme

Micah 5:6 – 6:8: The composer William Walton, who, having been commissioned to write a Theme and Variations, remarked to a friend that he had written all the variations but hadn’t yet found the theme.

Tags: Balak, God & Israel, Haftarah, Micah

Haftarah: Chukat: The Choice

Judges 11:1-33: The Children of Israel were offered a choice at Sinai: Do you want to live as “A Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation” or, do you want to live as do all others? (Exodus 19:4-6) Perhaps they did not fully

Tags: Chukat, Haftarah, Judges, Samuel, Tehillim, Yitro

Arguing with God-Haftarah Shabbat HaGadol

“Your words have been harsh against Me, says God. Yet you say, what have we spoken against You? You have said, it is useless to serve God; what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance and that we have walked as mourners before...

Tags: Haftarah, Isaiah, Malachi, Pesach, Psalms, Shabbat HaGadol, Tehillim

Pesukei d’Zimrah-Shabbat HaGadol-Holy Speech

The 4th of Nisan is the Yahrtzeit of Rav Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Mezhibuzh-Tanipol (1943). In the Haftarah of Shabbat HaGadol- we read, “Then they who feared God spoke one with another (Malach 3:16).” When

Tags: Haftarah, Malachi, Prayer, Shema

Amidah-Mishpatim-God’s Presence in Court

The 19th of Shevat is the Yahrtzeit of Rav Shimon Greenfeld (Grunfeld) of Somihali (Szemihaly), the Maharshag (1860-1930). Born in Chust, he became a student of the Maharam Shick. Married at 16, he became Dayan

Tags: Amidah, Beshalach, Mishpatim, Prayer, Psalms

Vaeira-Hail-The Earth is God’s

The function of the Mishkan is the settling of the Divine Presence in Israel. Thus it is written, “And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them (Exodus 25:8),” and also, “The Temple of God are

Tags: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Terumah

What is the Reason? Lying to Look Good

In a recent Music of Halacha, you described the issue of a husband lying to his wife. I recall hearing of a midrash in which King Solomon lost an argument with a bird about this very issue. Is there such a midrash? Can we

Tags: Humility, Isaiah, Music of Halacha

Psalm 27: Going Places

I took the same steps as every day, but this morning when I stepped into what is Van Cortland Park every other morning, I found myself in the Twilight Zone, I somehow had ended up in Central America. OK, I was exhausted and may have...

Tags: Elul, Jerusalem, Jewish Holydays, Rosh Hashana, Rosh Hashanah, Tehillim

Re'eih: Broken Rules II

I mentioned in Broken Rules I that certain Argentines, who shall remain nameless, also have difficulty with stop signs. This specific Argentine, joining me for my sunrise hike, sped through the streets as if there were no stop signs. (I admit that there were no...

Tags: Lishon Harah

The Struggle

The Mitzvah of Parah Adumah can be quite confusing and demanding. The more we learn the more demanding it becomes. Children had to be raised from birth in a secluded environment specially designed to protect them from any possible impurity in order to have people with...

Tags: Chukat, Parah, Red heifer

A Bow For One's Students

“Moses heard and fell on his face.” (16:4) I wonder how I would have reacted upon seeing Moshe bow and fall on his face. I suspect that I would have immediately fallen on my face and waited for Moshe to signal that it was all right to...

Tags: Anger, Barriers to Growth, Bible, Bowing, Korach, Leadership, Portion of the Week, Proverbs, Torah, Vayechi

Hand Strategy

Isn’t it interesting that no one ever tried to replicate Moshe’s Hand strategy? There is no story in the bible in which a king or prophet stands atop a mountain or hill, and raises his hands upward to God to remind the soldiers to devote...

Tags: Amalek, Beshalach, Moshe, Purim, Zachor

Haftarah: Vayakhel: The Two Pillars

“He fashioned the two pillars of copper; 18 cubits the height of each pillar, and its circumference could be measured by a 16 cubit string–and so was the second pillar. He made two crowns to place atop the two pillars, cast

Tags: Haftarah, Kings, Mishkan, Spiritual Realm, Vayakhel

Stirrings

Most of us are familiar with two directions of service: "Itra'uta D'litata," and "Itra'uta D'l'eila," or, Stirrings from below, connections stirred by us, below here on earth towards God, and "Stirrings from Above," initiated by God, Above, to reach out to us, here, below. The...

Tags: Elul, Rosh Hashana

Parallel Worlds

“Moses commanded that they proclaim throughout the camp, saying, ‘Man and woman shall not do more work toward the gift for the Sanctuary!’ And the eople were refrained from bringing.” (36:6) The Hebrew word for refrained is “Vayikalei” which sounds just like and looks just like,...

Tags: Mishkan, Pekudei, Shabbat, Vayakhel

Consecration

“With it you shall anoint the Tent of Meeting and the Ark of Testimonial-Tablets.” Rashi, based on the Gemara in Keritut 5, explains that all the anointing with Moshe’s oil were made like a Greek “X” except that of kings which were like a crown. Even the...

Tags: Ki Tisa, Mishkan

Haftarah Terumah: The Missing Ingredient

Kings I 5:26 – 6:13 King Solomon did all he could to avoid the mistake of Cain, but the response he gets seems echo God’s reply to Cain’s sacrifice. Whatever we believe Cain’s mistake to have been,

Tags: Genesis, God & Israel, Haftarah, Kings, Terumah

Heaven and Earth

They associated their construction project with their sense of identity. They were united in their effort. They gathered materials even before they knew the exact nature of their project. They intended to create a place where heaven and earth would meet. I am speaking, of...

Tags: Mishkan, Noach, Tabernacle, Terumah

The Music of Halacha: MySpace Rabbinic Style

Tractate Shabbat opens with a discussion of the forbidden labor of transferring an article from one domain to another: “Transfers prohibited on Shabbat are of two types that are actually four

Tags: Music of Halacha, Shabbat

The Music of Halacha: Shabbat Memories

When I was growing up in Toronto, my father zt”l did not allow me to wear gloves on Shabbat. He was worried that I would take them off on the street in order to shake someone’s

Tags: Music of Halacha, Shabbat

Haftarah Discussions: Vayigash

“Now you, son of man, take yourself one wooden tablet and write upon it, ‘For Judah and the Children of Israel, his comrades.’ Take another wooden tablet and write upon it, ‘For Joseph,

Tags: Ezekiel, Free will, Haftarah, Man's Soul, Redemption, Shelach, Vayigash

The Character in the Storm Part Two

We left off in “The Character in the Storm” with Rachel, having incorporated Jacob’s lessons (“Strength from Brokenness“) in her relationship with Leah, but wondering whether Leah understood Rachel’s message. I wonder whether Jacob was prepared for the storm that awaited him upon his return...

Tags: Bible, Eve, Garden of Eden, Genesis, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Vayechi, Vayeitzei

Table Talk: Chayei Sarah

1. Intimacy With God: Sarah was the single person in the world with whom Abraham could share the experience of the Binding of Isaac. She had shared all his achievements and struggles. Yet, when Abraham returned from Mt. Moriah, his greatest

Tags: Chayei Sarah, Self-perfection

Beautiful To Me

Abraham and Sarah were old. They were childless. The Talmud and Midrash actually describe them as clearly limited in the reproductive arena. God promised children to Abraham. He first met God in the furnace of fire. He knew God. Sarah had not. She knew that she...

Tags: Abraham, Genesis, Lech Lecha, Sarah

Music of Halacha: Weddings

Weddings

I am not a grouch, just confused. I have often wondered about the way we celebrate weddings. I cannot begin to comprehend why we are willing to spend

Tags: Music of Halacha, Repentance, Weddings

Looking For Babel Part Two – With Colin Thubron Along The Silk Road

Continued from “Looking For Babel Part One - The Language Of Silence”: Why was I visiting China with Thubron, besides the fact that traveling anywhere with him, even in his imagination, his fiction, is an education? (Personal Note: I’ve been everywhere, from Tibet to Damascus and back...

Tags: Abraham, China, Colin Thubron, Lao-tzu, Nimrod

Countdown or Countup (Can’t Decide) To Asarah b’Tevet 2 – God Prefers Joy

Why begin a 30 Day Countdown to a Fast Day, Asarah b’Tevet? Do we not live with expectation the, over the next thirty days, it (and the Eighth and the Ninth) will be transformed into a Festival: As Rav Ḥana bar Bizna said that Rabbi Shimon Ḥasida...

Tags: Asarah BiTevet, Kuzari

Gaps In The Clouds

Tags: Golden Calf, Shemot

A Formula For Happiness

I discovered a perfect formula to describe the segue from the intensity of Yom Kippur in David Hartley’s vest-pocket edition of his moral and religious philosophy in the formula W = F2 / L Where W is the love of the world, F is the fear of God And...

A Kedem Compass

It’s a challenge when even Amazon doesn’t carry one. I need a special compass each year to find a magical place called “Kedem” when positioning my Succah. A common Yom Kippur refrain, “Bring us back, O God, toward You, And let us come back; Renew our...

Tags: Bereishit, cain, Jonah, Thirteen Attributes of Mercy

Rosh Hashana: What Is My Name?

Much happened on this the first day of Adam’s life, the day we celebrate today. God brought all the animals to Adam for this new human to name. The Midrash teaches that when God saw how Adam used the Light of the new

Tags: Rosh Hashanah

Listing Who Matters

It wasn't boring; it was moving. I intended to listen to the reading of the names of the victims of the 9-11 attacks for just a few moments to honor those who died on that tragic day. I ended up listening for quite a while....

Tags: Remembering, Rosh Hashana, Yizkor

Countdown to Pesach 7- Ladier Rebbe

While absorbed in his devotions, the Ladier Rebbe was heard to say, “My Lord and Master. I do not desire Your Paradise; I do not desire the bliss of the Future World; I desire only You, Yourself. (Sefer haChassidut, page 203)

Tags: Haggadah, Pesach

Arguing with God-Haftarah Shabbat HaGadol

Tags: Haftarah, Isaiah, Malachi, Pesach, Psalms, Shabbat HaGadol, Tehillim

The Silversmith-Haftarah Shabbat HaGadol

The verse in Malachi immediately preceding the beginning of this week's Haftarah reads, “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like launderer's soap. He will sit as a...

Tags: Haftarah, Isaiah, Judgement, Malachi, Pesach, Shabbat HaGadol

Morning Blessings-Vaeira-Bad Neighbors

“Keep far away from a bad neighbor (Avot 1:7).” Nowadays, in the time of exile, attaining the Holy Spirit is easier than it was when the Temple still existed. This may be compared to a king who is much more difficult

Tags: Morning Blessings, Pirkei Avot, Prayer, Vaeira

Moment to Decide

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever, 'twixt that darkness and that light. –...

Tags: Free Choice, Moses, Shemot

Haftarah Discussions: Vayeishev: Holiness Demanded By God’s Love

Only Amos, Hoshea, and Isaiah speak of "Kodesh," holiness in the sense of that which belongs to God alone as God. “My holy Name (Amos 2:7),” and, “has sworn by His Holiness (4:2).”

Tags: Amos, Dreams, Vayeishev

Haftarah Discussions: Vayeishev: The Original OWS?

The disaster that befell Israel and Achav at Ramot Gilead was at the beginning of a long period of depression. In the days of Yehu, Damascus seems to have had its own way with Israel. “In those days God began

Tags: Amos, Haftarah, Kings, Prophecy, Vayeishev

Ki Tavo: Grouchy & The Infectious Smile

We were playing handball against the western wall of Yeshivat Eitz Chaim in Toronto. I clearly remember that it was the western wall because there was a drawing of the Kotel – at that time called the Wailing Wall – posted on the wall. It...

Tags: Bible, Holocaust, Ki Teitzei, Love & Fear of God, Portion of the Week

King & Subject: Introduction

We approach God on Rosh Hashanah on many levels. One approach is that of a subject participating in the coronation of his King, and relating as a subject to a King. This series, “King and Subject,” will focus on verses that describe the relationship between...

Tags: Rosh Hashanah, Tehillim

Father & Child: Introduction

One of the ways we approach God on the Day of Judgment is as a child approaching a parent. This series, Father and Child, will focus on versus that describe the relationship between a parent and a child. “I will tell of the decree: God said...

Tags: Rosh Hashanah, Tehillim

Re’ei: Rashi: Drastic Turn

“See, I present before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing: that you hearken to the Commandments of God, your Lord, that I command you today. And the curse: if you do not hearken to the Commandments

Tags: Shema

Chipping Away The Pieces

The great Renaissance artist Michelangelo was once asked how he created sculptures such as the Pietas or David. He explained that he simply imagined the statue already inside the block of rough marble, then chipped away the excess to reveal what had always been there. The...

Tags: Eikev, General Providence

Acquisitions: Part One

“Acquire a friend for yourself (Avot 1:6).” How? Since I first learned this Mishna as a little boy I’ve heard it explained as, ‘even if you have to buy the friendship with gifts.’ It hasn’t worked for me, and I believe that I’ve never seen...

Tags: Beshalach, man & man, Mishlei, Pirkei Avot

Eikev: The Power of Words

In the Analects, Confucius’ definition of goodness starts with the "golden rule," but he takes his concept further, famously stating that to be good, one must be "resolute and firm, simple and slow in speech." The Master said, 'To be resolute and firm, simple and slow...

Tags: Amidah, Eikev, Portion of the Week, Prayer, Speech

Wall Smashing

“Sadness is a wall between two gardens.” Kahlil Gibran One of my sisters left a copy of Gibran’s “The Prophet” on the living room couch. Gibran was popular in the sixties, but, protected as I was within the walls of my home and Yeshiva, I had...

Tags: Consolation, Nechama, Tisha B'Av

Miscommunications

A man calls the doctor: “Doctor, what should I do? My friend just keeled over and died!” “The first thing is to make sure he’s definitely dead.” “Okay, hold on.” A gunshot sounds. “Now what?” The sense of helplessness in an emergency, the tragic miscommunication between doctor and...

Tags: Communication, Consolation, Nechama, Prayer, Shema, Shofar

The City Not By The Water

“I have left to last the dynamic component of the city, without which it could not have continued to increase in size and scope and productivity: this is the first efficient means of mass transport, the waterway. That the first growth of cities should have...

Tags: Bamidbar, Community

Names

[caption id="attachment_1854" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Names"][/caption] Did Pharaoh ever wonder why Moses had so many names for his God? God. Lord. God, the Lord. God, the Lord of the Jews. etc. We can sit and study the text and theorize why Moses used certain appellations at certain...

Tags: Bo, Haggadah, Pesach, Vaeira

The Invisible Man

Abram took his nephew Lot with him as he left Haran on his journey to unknown places and situations. That is all we know about Lot. He quickly becomes the invisible man. Where was he when Abram and company went down into Egypt? He does...

Tags: Genesis, Lech Lecha

Chasdei Hashem: The First of the 13 Attributes of Mercy

“Whoever is wise let him note these things, and they will comprehend the kindnesses of God.” (Psalms 107:43) “And Yours, O My Master, is kindness, for you repay each man according to his

Tags: Forgiveness, Prayer, Yom Kippur

Stirrings of Elul: Love Songs

“I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me.” (Song of Songs 6:4) I took the wrong iPod with me this morning on my hike. I turned it on expecting to hear my father zt”l delivering an advanced Talmud lecture, instead, the Beach Boys...

Tags: Elul, God, Love, Rosh Hashanah, Song of Songs

Comfortable Speaking With God: Na’aman IV

So Naaman brought to the king of Israel, the letter which said, ‘and now when this letter comes to you, behold I have sent my servant Naaman to you that you shall heal him from his tzoraas.’ Isn’t there something missing from that letter? The prophet. What...

Tags: Bible, Elul, Kings, Prayer, Repentance, Rosh Hashana

Ki Tavo: Longings

“This very day, God, your Lord, commands you to perform these decrees and these statutes, and you shall observe and perform them with all your heart and all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 26:16) This is the meaning of the verse, “Let us come and prostrate ourselves and...

Tags: Tehillim

Psalm 27: I Want More!

“God is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear.” (Psalm 27:1) David asked the Holy One, Blessed is He: “Master of the Universe, when will the light come?” God replied: “When the time of redemption comes and Jerusalem is rebuilt, I shall make the...

Tags: Elul, Isaiah, Jewish Holydays, Midrash, Rosh Hashana, Tehillim

Soul Works: Psalm 27: The Gift of Light

“God is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear.” (Psalm 27:1) Scripture says elsewhere: “And the Lord said: ‘Let there be light!’ And there was light. And the Lord saw the light that it was good, and the Lord divided the light from...

Tags: Daniel, David, Elul, Genesis, Light, Psalms, Rosh Hashanah, Tehillim, use of the world

Pie In The Sky

I can sense the young boy’s desire for that pie. He is probably dreaming of a way to climb up there, with his friend’s help, of course, and taste the pie that was so cruelly placed beyond his reach. I can smell the pie and imagine...

Tags: Elul, Isaiah

The Four Mountains

Two of the Four Mountains appear in this week’s portion: “It shall be that when God, your Lord, brings you to the land to which you come, to possess it, then you shall deliver the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal....

Tags: Heaven & Earth, Shemot, Vayeira

The Final Moments

I envy her final few seconds: She was not an especially religious woman. She did not believe in God or His Torah. She was warned by her husband to stay away from a certain man. She knew that she was being watched, but she did...

Tags: Aleinu, Joshua, Nasso, Sotah

Running Conversations

Traffic was terrible. We were on our way to Washington, DC for Shabbat and we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. We would pick up speed for a few minutes, and then everything would stop again. We were all becoming agitated and grouchy. We noticed...

Tags: Nasso, Shema, Vaetchanan

I Am A Thanker!

I woke up this morning thinking of Willa Cather and then remembered what my father zt"l would have said: “The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down...

Tags: Man's Responsibility, Morning Blessings, Prayer

Me First!

There were signs all around the medical lab asking: “Have you seen all the changes we made for your comfort? At _____________ the patient always comes first!” It certainly didn’t feel like I came first. I entered a complex bureaucracy. I first had to register...

Tags: Emor, Individual Providence, Third Temple, Tzav

Elul: Days of Good Will

Although the first tablets were also given in an ambience of Divine Grace (cf. Rashi Devarim 9:18 who describes this period as days of goodwill), Hashem’s goodwill at that time came not so much in response to Israel’s petition to draw close to him but...

Tags: Eikev, Elul

Elul: Dress Up

I was hired to be a mashgiach – Kashrut supervisor – on five dairy farms in Eureka, Ca. Hershey’s wanted to make a run of Chalav Yisrael Hershey Bars, and they paid well. I needed to buy a refrigerator, washer, dryer and freezer, so off...

Tags: Dignity, Elul, Judgement, Rosh Hashana

How to Pray?

I need help understanding Moshe’s prayer at the end of Beha’alotecha: “Moshe cried out to God, saying, “Please, God, heal her now!” Rashi offers two explanations for this concise prayer: 1) Moshe did not want Israel to criticize him for spending too long in...

Tags: Beha Lotecha, Prayer

Does God Love You?

I love asking people if they feel that God loves them. Most respond, "Yes!" I then ask the more challenging question: "How do you know?" That's when it becomes interesting. I invite you to join me in raising a toast to God, Who made it very...

Tags: Chesed, God

Sinai WhatsApp Group….or…

...or, more honestly, my justification for sending so many emails and texts: “AND THERE ISRAEL ENCAMPED as one man and with one mind (Rashi, 19:2).” I never really understood what it means when it says it they spoke as one person with one heart. Is it conceivable?...

Tags: Connections, Sinai, Yitro

The Plan: Free Speech?

While everyone was so busy preparing their Offering for our final night in Egypt, I looked up and noticed Bertrand Russell rushing toward Moshe’s house. I certainly never expected the great author of, “In Praise of Idleness,” to rush anywhere, certainly not to the home...

Tags: Bertrand Russel, Bo, Censorship, Elizabeth von Arnim, Moshe

A Dangerous Silence

"I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still." Arthur Rimbaud I’ve been receiving unhappy comments about “A Painful Silence,” all day, even from the person who gave the idea to me: “This is not the silence to...

Tags: Francis Bacon, Jacob, Joseph and his Brothers, Questions, Rimbaud, Silence, Vayigash

Looking For Babel Part One – The Language of Silence

Colin Thubron, in his beautiful “Shadow of the Silk Road,” visits the Chinese city of Xian after an absence of eighteen years. “Xian had suffered a hallucinatory change (page 7).” The new generation, born after the Cultural Revolution, complain, “Our parents’ world was safer: state pensions,...

Tags: Abraham, Babylon, China, Colin Thubron, Flood, Jacob, Josef, Nebuchadnezzar, Nimrod, Noach, Silk Road, Vayeishev

The Architecture of Proximity

Beyond The Wall

The context fails me, however, I recall a conversation about Tisha b’Av with NK, that triggered a favorite line from Auden’s Oratorio, “Stuck on the stutter of a decimal point.” One thing led to another, and on Tisha b’Av, Auden’s “Tribute to Melville,” came to mind,...

Gaps In The Clouds

Tags: Golden Calf, Shemot

A Kedem Compass

Tags: Bereishit, cain, Jonah, Thirteen Attributes of Mercy

A Most Compassionate Confession

Morning Prayers; Mishna Zevachim, Chapter 5 is recited as our daily study of Mishnah for a number of reasons, including the fact it is the only chapter in Mishnah in which there is no halachic dispute. It is the perfect chapter of Mishnah to study...

Tags: Confessions, Offerings, Vidui

A Most Generous Confession

The discomfort with my confession, Yom Kippur 1967, was not triggered by my (in my sister’s mind) many sins but when I realized I was using the words as a weapon. “For the sin that we have sinned before You through hardness of heart (Artscroll Yom...

Tags: Confession, Forgiveness, Vidui

Amicable Numbers

Pythagoras, when asked what a friend was, replied: “One who is the other I, such are 220 and 284.” Expressed in modern terminology this meant: the divisors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, and 142, and these add up to 220; while the divisors of...

Which Attribute?

I was fluctuating between sadness and inspiration when I finished reading Rohinton Mistry’s.”A Fine Balance.” I have yet to shed the horrible cruelties powerfully described. The caste system, misuse of power, the desperate search for work, forced castration, and the hopeless lives of the masses...

Tags: Exodus, Kindness, Moses, Shemot, Suffering, Vaeira

Countdown to Pesach 12-Zbaratzer

At the Seder meal, the Zbaratzer ate only a special Matzah which is baked from special flour on the afternoon of the same day. A Chassid brought with him some ordinary matzah and began to eat it. The others rebuked

Tags: Haggadah, Pesach

A Hidden Responsum

The 20th of Adar is the Yahrtzeit of Rav Yoel (ben Shmuel) Sirkes of Cracow, (the Bach) (1561-1641), author of Bayis Chadash on the Tur, in which he traced each law to its source in the gemarah. In his youth, he studied under Rav Shlomo...

Tags: Halacha, Man's Responsibility, Responsa, Yahrtzeit

Soft Healing

“And he shall provide for healing (Exodus 21:19).” Whenever the Bible mentions the word Refuah, healing, when applied to a human being, the letter Peh always appears with a Dagesh, a dot in the center, making the consonant P, rather than F. For instance, “We...

Tags: Amidah, Comforting Mourners, Individual Providence, Jeremiah, Mishlei, Mishpatim, Prayer, Psalms, Refuah, Tehillim

Pesukei D’Zimrah-Shekalim-Psalm 148

The reason for the mitzvah to give half a Shekel is offered by Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz (Manot Levi), cited by the Alshich, as follows: It was intended to teach the Children of Israel the importance of unity, that no one should

Tags: Esther, Malachi, Pesukei d'Zimrah, Prayer, Psalms, Purim, Shekalim

Amidah-So What-Shemot-Peace

“A new king arose over Egypt, who did not know of Joseph (Exodus 1:8).” If the enslavement of the Jewish people had been decreed from Above,

Tags: Amidah, Prayer, Shema, Shemot

All in The Family

“A man went from the house of Levi and he took a daughter of Levi (Exodus 2:1).” [We have discussed the absence of proper names in “Table Talk–Shemot I."] Perhaps this verse informs us of one of the reasons that the Children of Israel fell into...

Tags: Family, Shemot

The Character in the Storm

“Talents are better nurtured in solitude, but character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).” We have been accompanying Jacob as he traces backwards the steps of his life in this life-defining portion, “Jacob Lived,” as his mission to...

Tags: Bible, God & Israel, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Vayechi, Vayishlach

The Music of Halacha: Learning How to Hate Part Two

We left off “The Music of Halacha: Learning How to Hate Part One,” with the following questions:

Are the

Tags: Music of Halacha

The Music of Halacha: Learning How to Hate Part One

“There are three whom the Holy One, Blessed is He, hates: One who says one thing with his mouth while meaning another thing in his heart, one who knows testimony affecting his friend, but does not testify on his behalf,

Tags: Mishlei, Music of Halacha

The Art of Observation: The Sorcerer's Chameleon

There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, anyone who practices divination, an omen reader, a soothsayer, (or) and a sorcerer. (Deuteronomy 18:10) A single witness may not testify against another person for any trespass or sin...

Tags: Bible, Lishon Harah, Portion of the Week, Re'ei, Shofetim

The Red Heifer: Loving Others

The Holy Rebbe was stingy with his words. He would speak in cryptic sentences and his Chassidim would sit for hours after he spoke to figure out what he meant. The secret of the Parah Adumah – the Red Cow – is Loving Others. The Chassidim pondered...

Tags: Chukat, Parah, Parah Adumah, The Red Heifer

Korach and Bullies: A Question

Having been the poster child of the 99lb weakling for all those Charles Atlas ads in the back of my childhood comic books, I feel that I must inform my friends, and for that matter, my enemies as well, of my brute strength. My pinky...

Tags: Korach

Table Talk: Korach

The Power of Passion: Each of the 250 followers of Korach was willing to take the Incense Test: Only one person would survive. Only Aaron or one of the 250 would live and be chosen as Cohen Gadol. Each knew and

Tags: Husband & Wife, Korach, Prophecy, Table Talk

Strangers in The World

As long as they were slaves, the Children of Israel could complain, “I, a stranger and afraid in a world I never made,” to quote Housman, a common complaint of children, and a frequent lament of many who feel displaced in the community. Perhaps as...

Tags: Bamidbar

Haftarah: Kedoshim: The Violence of No Sanctity

Ezekiel 22:1-16: “Will you judge (Verse 2)?” can also be read, “Are you prepared to involve yourself in this issue?” (Rav Breuer on Yechezkel) “The city of bloodshed,” a city from which the soul has been banished

Tags: Ezekiel, Haftarah, Kedoshim

Table Talk: Acharei Mot – Kedoshim

If Only It Was That Simple: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall reprove your fellow and do not bear a sin because of him.” (19:17) The prohibition against hating is, as the verse says, “in your heart”. The assumption is that there must be a reason that you hate someone else. He must have done

Tags: Acharei Mot, Kedoshim, Lishon Harah, Rebuke

Biblical Personalities: Yehoram’s Famine

“Elisha had spoken to the woman whose son he had revised, saying, 'Arise and go forth, you and your household, and sojourn where you would sojourn, for God has called for a famine, and it is coming to the

Tags: Kings, Yoel

The Metamir

In Primo Levi’s The Mirror Maker, he tells the story of Timoteo, one of a long line of mirror makers. Timoteo was not happy just making mirrors in different shapes and sizes. He spent all his free time designing mirrors that would change your shape...

Tags: Holocaust, man & God, Metzorah, Tazriah, Yom Hashoah

Foundations

How interesting! The commandment is not to “separate Terumah”, but a communal obligation to collect Terumah. “And they shall collect Terumah.” Moshe descended from his 40-day time capsule in the Highest Heavens. He brought a gift with him; the Mishkan. The people were empowered by God...

Tags: Mishkan, Terumah

Grabbing My Attention!

When I was a kid we had a simple but profound way to deal with mistakes; “Do Over!” If only life were so easy. I want a “Do Over!” I wrote a blog, Careful With My Words, complaining about all the spammers who regularly attack the...

Tags: Forgiveness, Vayechi

Directing the Conversation

"Do you see what the slave that my husband brought into the house wanted to do?" Potiphar's wife wasn't complaining about Joseph, but her husband. She was blaming him! Joseph had taken over the management of all of Potiphar's properties. He was the man in charge. Potiphar's...

Tags: Vayeishev

Table Talk – Toledot

Twin Talk: We know that Jacob and Esau were twins. Were they identical? Esau is described as possessing unique coloration and hair. However, Rashi implies that they were part of a split egg, or, identical twins. The

Tags: Toledot

On My Terms

I prefer walking in the park to using the treadmill in the gym. The walk is more pleasant. I think better and I can measure my progress for myself rather than watch the computerized report of how far I walked torturously increase at a spiteful...

Tags: Chayei Sarah

Thing or Person

I was called to perform an emergency Taharah – the ritual cleansing and preparation of a body for burial. I was the rabbi of a large congregation, and although I had participated in Taharot in this funeral home, I had never been summoned for an...

Tags: Chayei Sarah, Tahara

Teaching Children About Bikkur Cholim

In the memory of Eliezer Halevi ben Raizel. May the Omnipresent comfort his family among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. How can young children, who are far away from a sick grandparent, fulfill the Mitzvah of visiting the ill? Children are often frightened when illness strikes...

Tags: Chesed

Haftarah: Vayeira: At What Cost?

II Kings 4:1-37: How much must a person be willing to sacrifice in order to help his community?

Tags: Haftarah, Kings, Lech Lecha

The Visit Part Two

How do the Sages know that God came to visit the ill? Because God did not come to heal Abraham. He sent the angel Raphael for that mission. Is it possible that God would appear to Abraham and he would not be immediately healed? It seems...

Tags: Abraham, Chesed, Genesis, Vayeira

The Visit Part One

He is 99 years old. It is three days after painful surgery. Abraham circumcised himself for God. He is expectant of a life changed. Does his soul soar as never before? Does he feel a different connection with God? But he is not waiting. Abraham...

Tags: Abraham, Genesis, Vayeira

Permanently Invisible

They had not parted on the best of terms (Battles of Weapons and Faith), and Abram had to run a wage a great war against the superpower of his time and risk everything in order to save Lot. (The Invisible Man) Lot had rejected his uncle...

Tags: Genesis, Lech Lecha

Nimrod and Ashur

I always wondered what happened to the leaders of the Tower of Babel project. Did their followers rise up and kill them for coming up with their disastrous idea? Were the people too busy dealing with their new realities to spend time dealing with Nimrod,...

Tags: Genesis, Noah

Living in Forgiveness

During the late 1940s, India was engulfed in religious wars as the nation prepared for independence from Great Britain. A Hindu whose son was murdered by Muslims during the internal strife went to see Mahatma Gandhi and asked, “How can I possibly forgive the Muslims?...

Tags: Forgiveness, Yom Kippur

The Last Jew of Vinnitza

This picture was taken on September 16, 1941 at Vinnitza, Ukraine and was found in the personal file of a German Einsatzgruppen soldier. On the back of the picture he had noted, “This is the last Jew of Vinnitza”.  28,000 Jews from the city and surrounding...

Tags: Rosh Hashanah

Unfair Labor Practices

I hesitate to share my personal problems, but I really need your help: My first experiences helping someone bake were with my grandmother a”h, who, never missed an opportunity to share something she had learned while growing up in Slabodka. “Can I taste some of...

Tags: Ki Teitzei

Ki Teitzei: Sharing The Burden

I was a Shabbat lunch guest of Rabbi Sol Berman. A group of us were climbing the stairs to his apartment, and Rabbi Berman stopped at each floor to talk and share a thought on the Parsha. I was wondering why he stopped so often,...

Tags: Elul, Ki Teitzei, Repentance, Rosh Hashanah, Shofetim

Ki Teitzei: What I Have Lost

Sherwin Nuland, one of my favorite authors, was born Shepsel Nudelman. Everything about his father, Meyer, was a source of searing embarrassment to the son. Indeed, Nuland is unsparing in relating his youthful cruelties to his father. In 1947, while in medical school, he discovered...

Tags: Elul, Ki Teitzei, Repentance, Rosh Hashanah, Shofetim

Shofetim: Egla Arufa & Rasputin's Death

If a homicide victim should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, and no one knows who killed him, your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in...

Tags: Bible, Portion of the Week, Shofetim

Mosquitoes and Teshuva

Something was different about this morning’s walk on Mount Royal in Montreal. The scenery is, of course, different. I walked 1.5 miles up the mountain trail before turning around; I forgot that climbing up a mountain is far more tiring than my usual laps around...

Tags: Elul, Repentance, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur

Shofetim: Monuments & Bubblegum

A constant refrain of my childhood was: “A bubblegum tree will grow in your stomach if you swallow your gum.” It was intended to frighten me out of swallowing my gum, one of the greatest pleasures of my life. I could not imagine that my...

Tags: Bible, Portion of the Week, Shofetim

Re'ei: A Summons To A Town Hall Meeting

People at town hall meetings about Obama-Care are challenging their congressional representatives. Tempers are flaring. People are tossing all sorts of accusations at each other. The town hall meetings do not seem to work too well unless perfectly choreographed by the White House. We had town...

Tags: Bible, Lishon Harah, Portion of the Week, Rosh Hashanah

Kumbay…aaaaah!

Thomas Friedman favors sharing a Kumbaya moment with people who would never sit in such a circle of friendship: “There are several reasons why I don’t object to a mosque being built near the World Trade Center site, but the key reason is my affection for...

Just The One – Shechem II

“It shall be that when God, your Lord, brings you to the land to which you come, to possess it, then you shall deliver the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. Are they not on the other side of the Jordan,...

Tags: Arvut, God & Israel, Lech Lecha

Healing Old Wounds – Shechem I

Tags: Arvut, Conflict, Kings, Lech Lecha, Vayeishev, Vayishlach

The Music of Halacha: Rebuke: Case Study III

My friends and I work at a company with many people, including many non-Jews. We consciously work to act in a way that reflects the beauty of Judaism. Some of our coworkers have had unpleasant experiences

Tags: Kedoshim, Music of Halacha, Samuel

The Music of Halacha: A Case Study Part Two

I received the following comment in response to The Music of Halacha: A Case Study: Was the friend present when the rebuker rebuked? If he was, wasn't he obligated to say something to the rebuker? If he wasn't

Tags: Lishon Harah, Music of Halacha, Rebuke

The Music of Halacha: A Case Study

In an earlier Music of Halacha, Forgiveness II, I invited people to send in descriptions of difficult situations dealing with Bein Adal L’Chaveiro, Interpersonal Relationships, for us to examine from the perspective

Tags: Music of Halacha

The Music of Halacha: Forgiveness I

“Master of the Universe, I hereby forgive anyone who angered or antagonized me or who sinned against me – whether against my body, my property, my honor or against anything

Tags: Forgiveness, Music of Halacha

The Music of Halacha: Telling It Like It Is: Rebuke – Introduction

“How could you do such a thing?” No, that doesn’t work. “I admire so much about you, but…” That also won’t work: The second the other person hears the “but” they will be defensive.

Tags: Kedoshim, Music of Halacha

The Music of Halacha: Forgiveness II

In the previous Music of Halacha we raised some of the Halachic issues that pertain to forgiving someone who has hurt us. We touched on a number of the Biblical Mitzvot that apply to such situations:

Tags: Forgiveness, Music of Halacha

Friends & Teachers

I am sitting on a plane on my way to visit a very good friend, one of those rare people who qualify as a good friend. We call each other and we email, but I actually need to spend time with him. I met him...

The Freedom of Compassion

Albert Einstein spoke about how our egocentrism alienates us from other forms of life. “A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from...

Tags: Haggadah, Karpas, Marror, Pesach, Samuel

A Student's Honor

And Moshe said to Yehoshua, “Choose men for us.” Rashi comments on the power of the word “us”. Moshe said to Yehoshua, “Go out and choose men for you and me.” We derive a great principle from here that a master must treat his student’s...

Tags: Amalek, Beshalach, Torah, Yitro, Zachor

The Music of Halacha: Charity and Contribution

I received the following question this week. The answer is straightforward and obvious. However, because both the question and the answer touch on important concepts of the laws

Tags: Music of Halacha, Tzeddaka

Layers

The story is told of a young man who came to the Chatam Sofer requesting approbation from the great rabbi for his scholarly book. Rabbi Sofer read the book and responded, “I don’t mind when you quote my words as your own, but please, don’t...

Tags: Vayechi

Music of Halacha:Rabbi Simcha Weinberg- The Foundation Stone

The Music of Halacha: Rebuke Part Two: Tidying Up The Mess

The previous essay focused on Halacha’s demand that we recognize the inner stimulus to rebuke another. “Rebuke is all too often a way to express our own frustration.” Perhaps La Rouchefoucauld was

Tags: Kedoshim, Music of Halacha

The Music of Halacha: Rebuke-Part One – The Messy Essence of Friendships

Wow! Many people were upset by the introduction to the Laws of Rebuke. In other words, I received a great deal of rebuke. Thank God. The list of laws was to prove how important

Tags: Kedoshim, Music of Halacha

Modim: Goodness and Empathy

“Ha’tov ki lo kalu rachamecha, v’ha’merachem ki lo tamu chasadecha” “The Good One because Your compassion never finishes, and The Compassionate One because Your goodness never stops” God is called Good, because of His Compassion, and Compassionate because of His Goodness- shouldn’t it be the opposite? You...

Tags: Amidah, Modim, Prayer

The Missions of Joseph and David

The Missions of Joseph and David

One of the most fascinating ways to study bible is to compare and contrast similar stories and texts. Both Joseph and David were sent by their respective fathers to visit brothers

Tags: Samuel, Vayeishev

A Painful Silence

“Joseph ordered his chariot and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel; he presented himself to him and, embracing him around the neck, he wept on his neck a good while (46:29).” ‘Here, also, he wept greatly and continuously — more than is usual. Jacob,...

Tags: Jacob, Joseph, Missing People Choir, Shema, Vayigash

Was Cain a Hobbit?

Someone challenged “Each Step,” by demanding the Halachot that guide Rocinante, my Time Machine, on its travels. Yes, Discover Magazine has posted the Rules of Time Travel, but those are rules, not Halacha, or, they are Chukim similar to the laws of gravity, but certainly not...

Tags: Ada, cain, Eve, Halacha, Kayin, Sang-Hee Lee, Snake, Time Travel

As The Mourning Ends

The most poignant part of sitting Shiva for my mother a”h was observing my nieces and nephews and their children caring for us, the older generation. I envied these people for being able to honor their parents by bringing food and drinks, and doing all...

Tags: Honoring Parents, Mourning, Shiva

The Artist

The child arrives like a mystery box...

Tags: Eikev, Shema, Torah, Vaetchanan

Fathers and Sons

Freud would have had a field day! “Whoever meets me will kill me!”(Genesis 4:14) The Sages teach that Cain was worried about Abel’s blood relatives – Go’eil Hadam – avenging his death. Abel’s avenger would have been Adam! That statement alone would have kept Cain...

Tags: Bible, Genesis, Noah, Portion of the Week, Yom Kippur

Father's Day Memories

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...

The Plan: Opening to The Life To Come

Clov (Hamm’s servant): Do you believe in the life to come? Hamm (Blind and lame): Mine was always that. Samuel Beckett, “Endgame” ‘On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone forth from the land of Egypt, on that very day, they entered the wilderness of Sinai. Having...

Tags: Moshe, Yitro

Countdown To Chanukah 21 – Repairing Our Vision

“That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all the commandments of God and observe them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge (Bamidbar 15:39 - sefaria.org).” The Gra, in his commentary to Tikkunei Zohar (89b), writes...

Tags: Gra, Machazeh Einayim, Peleh Yoetz, Tzitzit

Journeys; The First Step

Gaps In The Clouds

Tags: Golden Calf, Shemot

A Kedem Compass

Tags: Bereishit, cain, Jonah, Thirteen Attributes of Mercy

A Most Compassionate Confession

Tags: Confessions, Offerings, Vidui

A Most Generous Confession

Tags: Confession, Forgiveness, Vidui

Spotlight

Long accustomed to the dogs’ help, a new expression of their commitment to help me with my humility was still an adjustment. Many of those with whom I learn ignore my wishes and speak to me in third person. All treat me with far more respect...

The Art of Return

In Xander Miller’s lyrical novel of Haiti, love and determination, “Zo,” the destitute orphaned protagonist travels the island finding work wherever he can. Ravaged by malaria, burning with fever, he is rescued by a pair of fishermen and sets sail with them to Grande Anse,...

Countdown to Pesach-23-Nofet Tzufim

The Holy Koretzer said: Why does the verse say, “No Pesach has ever been performed as in the days of King Yoshiyahu (II Kings 23:22)?” Because Yoshiyahu first burned all the altars and the pagan temples. In other word, he

Tags: Amidah, Haggadah, Kings, Pesach

Mistakes: Ti’Ta’anu

Having no theory at all and having too many theories both suggest that you are in the middle of a crisis of knowledge. A year and a half after the Millerites “Great Disappointment,” one former believer, Enoch Jacobs,

Tags: Divrei HaYamim, Kings, Vidui, Yom Kippur

Mistakes: H’evinu

“Noah removed the covering of the Ark, and looked, and behold! The surface of the ground had tried (to see Genesis 8:13).” It is also possible to read the final phrase of the verse as, “the surface of the ground had been destroyed.” What did Noah...

Tags: Noah, Vidui, Yom Kippur

Mistakes: Tafalnu Sheker

“Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before God! Why did you bring God’s community into this wilderness,...

Tags: Chukat, Devarim, Ha'azinu, Vidui, Yom Kippur

Mistakes: Latznu

In “Meditations on First Philosophy,” Descartes set out to determine how and if we can distinguish false beliefs from true knowledge. He began by noting that there is theoretically no limit to how wrong we could be, because, God could deliberately deceive us about even...

Tags: Genesis, Pekudei, Vidui, Yom Kippur

The Mystery & The Puzzle

David Morris writes in “The Culture of Pain” that to a doctor, pain is a puzzle, but to a patient it is a mystery, in the ancient sense of the word, a truth necessarily closed off from full understanding, which refuses to yield every quantum...

Tags: Vidui, Yom Kippur

Where Does it Hurt?

The philosopher Michel Foucault postulates that modern medicine began when doctors stopped asking patients, “What is the matter with you?” a question that invited a complex personal response, and began asking, “Where does it hurt?” instead, a question that focuses solely on biology. What happens when...

Tags: Vidui, Yom Kippur

Mistakes: An Introduction to the Vidui

“Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of...

Tags: Isaiah, Vidui, Yom Kippur

Re’ei: Belz: Focus on the Blessing

The 21st of Av is the Yahrtzeit of Rav Aharon Rokeach, fourth generation Belzer Rebbe (1880-1957). He escaped the Nazis and made aliyah in 1944, establishing his court in Tel Aviv. The current Belzer Rebbe is his nephew.

Tags: Blessings, Morning, Prayer

Haftarah: Eikev: Confrontation

Isaiah 49:14 – 51:3: This Haftarah affords us an opportunity to listen to a conversation between Israel and God: “And Zion said: God has forsaken me. My Master has forgotten me.” (49:14)

Tags: Haftarah, Isaiah, Nechama

Kvetching – The Blame Game 2

There is a complex in Switzerland known as CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where something called the Large Hadron Collider has been sputtering into operation. Its purpose is to discover whether a hypothetical particle called the Higgs boson (called by some, “The God...

Tags: Man's Responsibility

Haftarah: Second Day Pesach: A Pesach of Covenant

II Kings 23:1-9, 21-25: “Before him there had never been a king who returned to God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his resources, according to the entire Torah of Moshe, and after him, no one arose

Tags: God & Israel, Haftarah, Kings, Pesach

From "I Should've," to "I Could've"

[caption id="attachment_1928" align="alignleft" width="239" caption="A Heavy Burden"][/caption] One of the most constant refrains I hear from people is, “I should…” or, “I should have…” All those “shoulds” are heavy burdens. “I should be more patient.” “I should be more of a Tzaddik.” “I should daven...

Tags: Yitro

The Music of Halacha: Untying The Knot

“Then Rachel said, ‘naftulei Elokim niftalti,’ ‘The Lord has judged me, He also heard my voice.” (Genesis 30:5) Rashi compares “Naftulei” to, “Dor ikesh u’ftaltol,” “a perverse and twisted generation.” (Deuteronomy 32:5) He understands Tefillah as twisting as in,

Tags: Husband & Wife, Music of Halacha, Prayer, Shabbat, Vayeitzei

Seven Levels of Teshuva: Structural Information

We have explained and demonstrated that the Seven Levels of Teshuva correspond to the Sefirot and to the Seven Shepherds. The structure of the Sefirot is important to the structure and interaction of the Seven Levels of Teshuva. The Sefirot are structured two ways; one in...

Tags: Yom Kippur

Seven Levels of Teshuva: Addendum to Part One

The manner in which Chazal describes chessed seems strange: “ Who is a chassid? Whoever does chessed with his Creator” (Zohar II, 114b). Are we to believe that the kindest person is the one who helps HaShem? How can

Tags: Repentance, Yom Kippur

Seven Levels of Teshuva: Part One Conclusion: Avraham, Healing and Chesed

The Midrash and Talmud describe Avraham as a great doctor. “A precious stone hung from Avraham’s neck. Every sick person who saw it would immediately be cured.”1 The Maharal explains2 that Avraham represents

Tags: Repentance, Yom Kippur

Seven Levels of Teshuva: Avraham Part Two

There is a verse in Exodus1 that says, “Kol hamachala asher samti b”Mitzrayim lo asim alecha ki ani Hashem Rofiecha,” “All the illnesses and diseases which I brought onto the Egyptians, I will not place on you.

Tags: Repentance, Yom Kippur

The Seven Levels of Teshuva: Avraham Part One

“God, my Lord, I cried out to You and You healed me.”1 The healing described is actually atonement from sins after one has repented.2 This is healing of the soul.3 “I will heal you from your backsliding.”4 “He is the Healer of the broken-hearted, and the One...

Tags: Yom Kippur

Two Straight Lines

"For the ways of God are straight." (Hosea 14:10) the Shelah HaKodesh (Torah Ohr - Rosh Hashanah 3) asks why the word "straight" is in the plural form in Hebrew, "Yesharim," rather than "Yashar." The Shelah answers that Hosea is describing two different creations of "Straight:"...

Tags: Elul, Hosheia, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur

Elul: Love Songs: Stepping Toward

“I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me.” (Song of Songs 6:4) Rabbi Eliezer of Worms, the Rokeach, explains this verse as describing the Teshuva process: With each step we take back toward our Beloved, God, He takes a step back toward us. Author...

Tags: Elul, man & God, Rosh Hashana, Song of Songs

Elul: Compassion for My Inconsistencies

Calliope abandoned me on this morning’s walk, and I am grateful. Her music plays too many of her beautiful ideas in my head to recall when I am back in front of my computer. I am grateful for her peaceful absences as I am for...

Tags: Elul, Judgement, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur

It Works: Na’aman V

Continued from an unedited transcript: So we continue in verse 8, ‘and when Elisha the man of G-d heard that the King of Israel had torn his clothes,’ it doesn’t say when he heard that Naaman had come, ‘when he heard that the king had...

Tags: Elul, Kings, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur

Shofarot: Patterning Our Breath

Some birds, like grebes and eiders, have more hemoglobin in their blood, and the higher concentrations of oxygen allow them to remain underwater for extended periods. I watched an eider swimming deep under the surface, and I inhaled deeply and tried to hold my breath in concert,...

Tags: Elul, Rosh Hashanah, Shabbat, Shofar, Yom Kippur

He Stopped Quacking!

*An Excerpt from **The Simple Truths of Service** by Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz* Great Service is a Choice No one can make you serve customers well. That's because great service is a choice. Years ago, my friend, Harvey Mackay, told me a wonderful story about a cab driver that...

Tags: Complaining, Elul, Joy, Rosh Hashana, Shofar

Attention Grabbers: Na'aman Part One

'Naaman, general of the army of the king of Aram was an eminent person in his masters presence and highly honour for through him had Hashem given victory to Aram the man was great warrior, a metzora'. This is interesting, the translation is not that perfect,...

Tags: Elul, Kings, Rosh Hashana

The Challenge of Change

As Time Goes By By Herman Hupfeld This day & age we’re living in Gives cause for apprehension With speed and new invention And things like third dimension And no matter what the progress Or what yet may be proved The simple facts of life are such They cannot be removed Yes, we get a trifle...

Tags: Elul, Rosh Hashana

Ten Thousand Mistakes

It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil; I am he who knew what it was to be evil. Walt Whitman I was ten-years old and decided that I would review the Yom Kippur confession at the beginning of Elul...

Tags: Elul, Vidui, Yom Kippur

Shadows of The Night

All the things with which I was so familiar took on new and frightening identities when it was dark. The hooks that held my clothes became scary monsters. The ticking of the clock became a bomb. The creaks and groans of our home were ominous...

Tags: Elul, Rosh Hashana, Shofar

Fixing

“A twisted thing cannot be made straight; and what is not there cannot be numbered.” (Ecclesiastes 1:15) In this world, he who is crooked can be made straight and he who is wanting can be numbered; but in the World To Come, he who is...

Tags: Elul, Kohelet, Rosh Hashanah

Guilty!!!

It was Shabbat Shuva, the day after Rosh Hashana, and we didn’t have a minyan. To the best of my recollection, St. Louis and the NY Mets were tied for first place and had to play a game to decide who would be in the...

Tags: Bible, Guilt, Shelach

Did You Really Get It?

“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...

Tags: Shelach

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