Our parashah contains the tragic story of the twelve spies whom Moses sent out from the desert, in order to check out and survey the Promised Land. Ten of the twelve spies came back to the people with a defeatist attitude. They stated that because the cities of the land are so well fortified, and […]

If you’ve lived long enough, then you know that some people can be great friends when you’re down and in need of help, but paradoxically, not necessarily such great friends when you’re doing great and thriving. It is even sadder and more painful, when this betrayal comes from members of your own family. This is […]

The Talmud teaches us: “He who saves the life of one soul – it is as if he saved the world entire.” This is exactly how Israel is dealing with the global health crisis humanity is facing. The Israeli Government is not making any political or economic calculations. Israel’s assertive and proactive measures are being […]

Our Torah portion this week (Tetzave), does not mention Moses by name even once. This is certainly a striking oddity, since Moses is mentioned by name throughout the entire Torah, from the story of his birth in the portion of Shemot, until the final portion of “vezot Habracha”. Why is Moses’s name omitted in this […]

We read this Shabbat about the various materials from which the ancient Israelites built a tabernacle, a portable sanctuary, in the desert. The table in the sanctuary was made of acacia wood. Thousands of years later, Rabbi Judah the pious and his disciples had their own dining tables made out of wood in their homes. […]

Our parsha seeks to limit, curtail and ultimately move humanity a step closer to the absolute and complete abolition of the sin of slavery. Slavery was tragically pervasive in the ancient world, and as we know – even in our own country, slavery only came to an end after years of bloodshed and civil war, […]

The philosophy of wealth of the hegemonic culture surrounding us, is one of material excess, coupled with a luxurious attachment to the superfluous and the decadent. As such, it also constitutes a sure recipe for a life of constant dissatisfaction, a chronic sense of illusory paucity, and overall existential discontent. And this is why the […]

The Talmud stipulates that if you hear of a devastating earthquake which killed multitudes of people, in some remote and distant corner of the world, then you should spiritually interpret this catastrophe and tragedy as an urgent call to self, to strive to grow in soul, and to undertake self-repairment, and self-transformation. In other words […]

Last Monday, three quarters of a century ago, Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army. French scholar David Rousset, deemed the Nazi murder camps as belonging to a distinct ontological category, which he called “L’Universe Concentrationnaire” (The “Concentrationary Universe.”) Israeli novelist Yehiel De-Nur, a survivor, also regarded the reality of Auschwitz as akin to that […]

Our week started with MLK Day, during which we paid homage to a great religious humanist of prophetic stature, and to all those who fought for human dignity in our country throughout the 1960’s, and beyond. In this context, it is instructive that the Torah starts with a universal story about humanity at large, about […]