NItzavim – The Holy Land Has a Name
“Hashem… will return and gather you in from all the peoples to which [He] has scattered you… and He will bring you to the land that your forefathers possessed and you shall possess it…”...
Category: Jewish World
Imagining My Unmet Grandfather’s Last Thoughts: A Grandparents Day Musing
Dark-eyed, long-bearded and posing in rabbinic cap and garb, my maternal grandfather looks down at me from within his cherry-wood frame over the desk where I write. We never met; he died 16 years...
Vo’eschanan – No Mere Miracle
The centerpiece, if such a word can be used in the context of a parshah, of Vo’eschanan is generally assumed to be the Aseres Hadibros, the Decalogue. But I think that the even more...
No Tolerance for Hooliganism
My thoughts on the obnoxious actions of a group of young Orthodox Jews at the Robinson’s Arch area of the Western Wall, and some of the reactions to them, can be read here.
Balak – Life in Three Dimensions
I’m not entirely sure why eyepatches are often associated with dangerous characters like pirates. But the only character in the Torah who is described as having a single eye is Bilaam (Bamidbar 24:3, although,...
Beha’aloscha – Woe Isn’t Us
The reflexive form of the word k’mis’onenim (“The people were mis’onenim [complaining] bitterly before Hashem” – Bamidbar 11:1) indicates that our ancestors were self-focused in their grumbling. They were mourning themselves, sorrowful (as per...
Lessons from a Failed Rally
The failure of the rally shows that the adoption of the cause du jour as a new “Jewish value” no longer holds traction. This is not really a new lesson.
Incident at Frankfurt
Lufthansa, Germany’s largest airline, ended up with sauerkraut on its corporate face recently, after more than 120 visibly Jewish men and women in Frankfurt’s airport on May 4 were banned from boarding their connecting...
Parshas Behar – Don’t Serve Servants
“They are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt” (Vayikra 25:55). Although the Talmud’s comment on the phrase “They are My servants” – “but not the servants of servants” (Bava Kamma...
Take Two – Pesach Sheini’s special significance to my family
“Second Passover,” or Pesach Sheini, a minor Jewish holiday, is anything but minor in my family. It was on that Jewish date, which, in 1945, fell on April 27 (and this year, falls on...
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