One kind act can shift the course of history. In this week’s parsha, Yaakov hears that Esav is approaching with 400 men. Was Esav planning an aggressive attack? The Torah doesn’t tell us but Yaakov certainly thinks so. The possible destruction of the future Jewish people is headed off by what? By Yaakov’s overflowing generous […]
SHORT ESSAY: One Kind Act (Parashat Vayishlach) Read More »
“If you are breathing, that is nature’s way of saying that you belong here. You are enough.” I saw this on a teacher website, something that a teacher said to his students every day as part of a breathing meditation. I would adjust that to: If you are breathing, that is God’s way of saying
SHORT ESSAY: Not Because We Deserve It (Parashat Eikev) Read More »
Often in life, one feels some slight dissonance or discomfort, as if you are a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. There is your true self and then there is what you have to do to get through the day and they don’t always match up exactly. The world has expectations, institutions
SHORT ESSAY: On Oneness and Wholeness (Parashat Va’etchanan) Read More »
Our lives, our choices are not completely determined by our parents’ paths and by our past. We each shape our own destinies. At every moment we have complete freedom to act in a fresh new way. In this week’s parsha we find a few examples of this freedom. Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milchah and Tirzah are
SHORT ESSAY: The Unstuck Children of Sinners (Parashat Pinchas) Read More »
My father spoke beautiful English with a heavy Polish/Yiddish/Russian/Israeli accent. He loved this country. He liked to say that this was the only country in the world where a poor immigrant-refugee like him could come and have his children educated in the highest institutions in the country. In 2007, almost exactly 10 years ago, he
SHORT ESSAY: My Father’s Torah on the Ger, the Immigrant (Parashat Mishpatim) Read More »
God takes different forms on this earth. When Avraham interacts with God’s messengers in the world, they are visitors, wandering strangers who are in need of hospitality. The face of God in the world for Avraham is the face of hospitality, of hesed, of people in need of help. For Yaakov, on the other hand, God’s
SHORT ESSAY: Our Enemies Are Our Angels (Parashat Vayishlach) Read More »
Among many other remarkable parts of this week’s parsha (including the Shma and the second recounting of the Ten Commandments), the Torah reports that Moshe took the time to designate three Cities of Refuge on the eastern side of the Jordan. Moshe has just told the people that he begged to go into the land
SHORT ESSAY: On Places of Refuge (Parashat Va’etchanan) Read More »
In this week’s parsha, we read about the mishkan, the building of a dwelling place for God on this earth. And we feel a twinge of envy – they had access to God; God dwelled in their midst; we are left alone to wander the world, searching for His Presence. But certain features of the mishkan give me
SHORT ESSAY: Hevruta: Where We can Still Hear God’s Voice (Parashat Terumah) Read More »
God is all around us. To our right, to our left, behind, before and above. In this week’s parsha, God stations Himself, in the form of a pillar of cloud/fire, before us to lead us, and then behind us, to protect us. Then, as we walk through the split waters of the Red Sea, the
SHORT ESSAY: God is All Around Us (Parashat Beshalach) Read More »
In what ways are we like Pharaoh? There is some truth out there that keeps knocking at our door – plague after plague, sign after sign– and we stubbornly refuse to hear it. And this stubbornness, this refusal to change, to shift our views and actions based on experience, this refusal to “let them go,” to
SHORT ESSAY: Are We Like Pharaoh? (Parashat Va’era) Read More »