A Lifetime of Choices
Our reading begins this week with a passage demanding explanation: See that I place before you this day [both] blessing and curse. The Blessing, if you will listen to the Commandments of Hashem your God which I command to you this day. And the Curse, if you do not...
Remembering our Forebears
In this week's reading, the first verse says that because we listen to the Torah and follow it, “Hashem your G-d will guard the Covenant and the kindness which He swore to your fathers" [7:12]. And in the next verse, it speaks of the blessings which Hashem will give...
Learning from Our Mistakes
The entirety of Sefer Devarim, the Book of Deuteronomy, was taught during the last weeks of Moshe’s life. This parsha, Devarim, is always read on the Shabbos prior to the 9th of Av. The 9th of Av is the day that both Holy Temples were destroyed. It is also the day...
Valuing the Land
In Parshas Mattos, read this week, the tribes of Reuven and Gad ask, due to their large flocks and the fertile ground east of the Jordan river, if they could settle there rather than within the Land of Israel itself. They said that they would build "enclosures for our...
The Holiness of Miriam
We learn this week that Miriam passes away after the Israelites come to Kadesh, and that they then have no water to drink [Num. 20:1-2]. Rashi explains that for the entire 40 years that they were in the desert, they had access to a well in the merit of Miriam. Once...
A Failed Analogy
Analogies are a frequently used educational tool, because they are easily understood and internalized. Just say "toe is to foot as finger is to hand," and a young child now knows that the appendages attached to the foot are called toes. Mathematically, the expression...
