Ups and Downs

Ups and Downs

We learn this week that after all of the instructions, and all of the work done to build the Tabernacle and its holy vessels, the Tabernacle was finally erected and put into service on the first day of Nissan in the year following the Exodus from Egypt. The Medrash...
Ultimate Priorities

Ultimate Priorities

Today is a special Purim for residents of the Holy City of Jerusalem. Our set calendar was designed such that Purim can never be on Shabbos—except in Jerusalem (and other cities surrounded by walls back in the time of Joshua). The Purim story tells us that Shushan,...
Giving to Ourselves

Giving to Ourselves

Our reading this week begins with Hashem’s instruction to Moshe to “take for Me an offering” (Ex. 25:2). The Yalkut asks, as King David wrote in Tehillim (Psalms), “to Hashem is the land and all its fullness” (24:1). Hashem doesn’t...
What you Invest is What you Make

What you Invest is What you Make

Rabbi Yaakov Galinsky zt”l (in his book VeHigadta) describes going to visit Rabbi Eliezer Shach, zt”l, Israel’s foremost Rosh Yeshiva [Dean of a Rabbinic seminary] at that time, while President Carter was in Israel for a state visit in 1979. He came in, and the...
Jumping into the Sea

Jumping into the Sea

In this week’s reading, the Torah tells us that Moshe spread out his hand over the sea, a wind blew all through the night, the waters divided, and the Children of Israel walked through on dry ground [Ex. 14:21-22].  The Medrash, however, fills in an important...