Ha’azinu – And Zaidy Makes Three
The Gemara (Shabbos 88a) quotes “a certain Galilean” as having said “Blessed is the Merciful One, Who gave a three-fold Torah [in the broad sense, Torah, Neviim and Ksuvim] to a three-fold nation [Cohanim,...
Who By Tongue
There’s an often overlooked irony in the story of Rabbi Amnon of Mainz, whose poignant tefillah “U’nesaneh Tokef, describing the Ultimate Judge’s opening the book of our deeds and deciding our fates, is solemnly...
NY Times smears Hasidim again… now, in Yiddish
The average Yiddish-speaking Hasid has working fluency in two more languages than the average American, but the NY Times inverts reality.
Nitzavim – Turning Pain to Gain
The Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni) at the start of parshas Nitzavim sees in the parsha’s opening words, “You are standing today” the message that, despite the sins and travails of Klal Yisrael up to that...
Ki Savo – Schrödinger’s Moon
Seizing on the fact that the Hebrew word for a granary – osem – shares two letters with the word for “obscured” – samui – Chazal make an intriguing assertion: Blessing [i.e. increase in...
Parshas Ki Seitzei – A Puzzling Parallel
It is striking and strange that a phrase that is to be proclaimed by the yevama, the childless widow whose brother-in-law does not wish to marry her, is the precise phrase in Megillas Esther,...
Shoftim – Commanded
Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker once asked students if they would rather face the vicissitudes of their lives or be transformed into totally happy pigs. A young woman raised her hand and said, “I’d...
Re’ei – Survivors
Kol yimei chayecha – “All the days of your life” – is a phrase we first meet in the Torah when Hashem pronounces the fate of Adam after the sin of eating from the...
Eikev – Strangers in a Strange Land
Both remarkable and timely is a digression by the Sefer HaChinuch on a mitzvah in the parshah. The mitzvah, #431, is ahavas hager, the commandment to love a convert (Devarim 10:19). In addition to...
The Embrace of Generations
by Reuven Ungar I The Remnant of the Sages- Pleitat Sofreihem In his monumental eulogy for Rav Chaim Heller, Rav Soloveitchik relates to the phrase “Pleitat Sofreihem” in the Shemoneh Esreh. Why doesn’t “Sofreihem” suffice;...