Thank G-d!
Upon the birth of her fourth child, Jacob’s wife Leah proclaimed, “This time I thank G-d - Odeh es Hashem.†She gave her son a name derived from "Odeh," thanks: Yehudah, or Judah. The Sages of the Talmud comment that this is the first time in Biblical history...
A Healthy Transmission
The Torah spends a great deal of time discussing the life of our forefather Avraham, and that of Yaakov. By comparison, Yitzchak receives relatively short shrift. The offering of Yitzchak as a Korban, a sacrifice, is primarily told as a test of his father. It is...
The Search for Unity
Readers know that I have written about anti-Semitism for a long time. Our hearts reel at its manifestation in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Shabbos morning. The Medrash says that Sarah passed away when she believed that her son Yitzchak had indeed died at HaShem's...
Against the Grain
The Sages of the Talmud say that there were 10 times that Abraham's faith in G-d was tested, and he succeeded each time. The final test was to follow the command to slaughter his son Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice. Although Isaac was the child for whom he and his...
The Stubborn Independent
Are the values and opinions we hold dear really our own? We all take pride in thinking for ourselves, but are not many (all?) of our personal positions an echo of the culture we were raised in, or drawn from the last social media posting we read? From the shop of...
Be Creative
In the beginning G-d created the Heavens and the Earth... The High Holiday prayer books have been shelved, the Sukkah is stored away (or at least that's the plan), and we start reading the Torah again from the beginning. The custom of restarting the Torah readings at...
Sukkos in the Rain
We've all become amateur meteorologists. In the northeastern United States the weather during the past week has ranged from cloudy to fog to rain, with rain having more than a fair share. Under normal circumstances, we would stay inside under shingled roofs, and take...
Erasable Permanent Markers
Yom Kippur is tomorrow night. What happens on this, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar? "Kippur" is often translated as atonement -- to make reparation for bad deeds, and restore a relationship damaged by those offenses. That is a good description -- but why is...
Royal Treasures
One restless night, Benny, who was having trouble making a living, had a vivid dream. His dream showed him, in precise detail, the whereabouts of a stuffed backpack with two million dollars cash, at the bottom of a dumpster on the Virginia shore. He woke from his...
The Stick Factor
"How could you forget? You knew we arranged to meet for coffee at 1:30 today!" "Really -- it just slipped my mind. I'm sorry. I just forgot." "What do you mean you just forgot?" "I don't know. My memory isn't perfect. These things happen." "Well, if it was really...
Life Between the Cracks
I was about 15 years old when I lost a Siddur (prayer book) on a backpacking trip near the summit of New Hampshire's Mt. Washington, the highest peak in the Northeastern United States. It must have fallen out of my pocket at a pit-stop along the hike. After my return...
Was It Me?
We're told in this week's Torah portion that when a murder victim is discovered, the elders of the city closest to the site where the body was found gather and say "Our hands did not spill this blood, and we were not witness to it (Deut 21:7)." They then pray for...
