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,...

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 need anything from us, He already...

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 Rosh...

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...

“And I have also heard the outcry of the Children of Israel, that the Egyptians are burdening them with work” [Ex. 6:5] Rabbi Yehoshua M’Ostrov explained that Hashem was saying the following: In reality, all of the troubles and subjugation that I the Egyptians placed...

Then a new king came to power in Egypt, who did not know Joseph. “Look,” he said to his people, “the nation of the Children of Israel has become too numerous and powerful for us. Come, we must outsmart him or he will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out,...