Yaakov blesses all of his sons before he dies. But before this, Yosef takes his sons Ephraim and Menashe to see their grandfather, who gives them a special blessing -- first and foremost, by elevating them to have the same status as his own children. Throughout the...

If there is one lesson to be learned from this week's reading and those of the past few weeks, said Rav Asher Rubenstein zt"l, it is that G-d runs the world, and He has a Plan. We can either follow the plan, or we can fight the plan, but it's going to happen anyways....

Lighting the Menorah each night after dark, seeing the children's excitement for this beautiful Mitzvah, and singing Hallel, the festival prayer of gratitude, praise, and hope each morning for 8 days, is a reservoir of inspiration that it would be a shame to waste....

I was once driving with my wife, way back in the pre-GPS days when you actually had to remember directions. She was driving, and approached a T in the road with her left-turn signal on. "Wait!" I said. "Not left, definitely not left!" We arrived at the intersection,...

The Medrash tells us many things not found in the written text of the Torah. It is, in fact, crucial to our understanding, because otherwise many passages could be misunderstood and misconstrued. Sometimes, however, statements in the Medrash appear to conflict with...

In Jewish sources, our forefather Yaakov is always identified with the character trait of honesty, of dedicating himself to truth. Sometimes this seems difficult to understand -- after all, he deceived his father in order to claim the blessings of the firstborn son....