Parshas Ki Savo – Happiness Doesn’t Happen
What is arguably the most shocking pasuk in the entire Torah is in this week’s parshah. No, it’s not any of the descriptions of horrors in the portion of the parshah we call the...
Category: Religion
Parshas Ki Seitzei – We’re All the “Beautiful Woman”
It’s edifying to compare the larger world’s celebrations of its various New Years and the Jewish celebration of Rosh Hashanah. The former is characterized by revelry, drunkenness and, hat tip to Auld Lang Syne,...
Parshas Shoftim – We’re All In This Together
Why, of course the elders of the nearest city didn’t kill the man! So what is the meaning — in the case of a person found murdered on the road, where the ritual of...
Parshas Re’ei — What’s With the Wealth?
Affluence isn’t something extolled by the Torah. In Judaism wealth is neither a praiseworthy aspiration nor a meaningful achievement. Which makes Rabbi Yochanan’s homiletic interpretation of the Torah’s words “A tithe shall you tithe...
Parshas Devarim: Timeless
Sefer Devarim begins with Moshe Rabbeinu’s recounting of the Jewish People’s history since the exodus from Egypt, through the years of desert-wandering. And our communal reading of the beginning of the sefer coincides yearly...
Parshas Matos: Being There
At first read, the tribes of Gad, Reuvein and half of Menashe seem to be making an entirely unreasonable request of Moshe: Let us remain on the east side of the Jordan River, where...
An Antisemite’s Perceptive, Worthy Words
Most people, if they are familiar with the name at all, associate “Chateaubriand” with a meat dish. But François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a famous French author who died in 1848. He was not...
Sliwa’s Slurs… and some other stuff
You might find of interest Agudath Israel of America’s response to a deeply offensive and misleading speech delivered in 2018 by then-talk show host and current Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa. Video of the...
Parshas Balak – Invitation to Murder
Were a donkey to suddenly develop the power of speech and address me, I would, I’m quite sure, be flabbergasted. Faced with just such an asinine address, though, Bil’am isn’t struck silent and doesn’t...
Cowardice or Wisdom?
That any sane person could castigate Israel for her response last month to Hamas missiles is astounding. Hamas, after all, has sent booby-trapped party balloons across the border into Israeli towns in an effort...
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