Like an Angel
This year, Yom Kippur falls on Shabbos, the Sabbath. Yom Kippur itself is called "Sabbath of Sabbaths" in the Torah [Lev. 16:31] -- but what is the connection? They seem to lie at opposite ends of the spectrum. On the Sabbath, we sit together with family and guests,...
Return to Him With Love
It is amazing how our Sages set up the Torah readings, arranging them such that we often see an obvious connection to the time of year in which each portion is read. For example, Nitzavim is read before Rosh HaShanah every year, and talks about returning to G-d and...
Smelly Justice
In this week's Torah reading, Parshas Shoftim in Deuteronomy, Israel is commanded to have judges and officers, those who maintain both justice and order. A judge in particular is required to be entirely unbiased, and not to accept 'Shochad', usually translated as...
“I’m Your Father. I’m Still Here.”
"You are children of G-d, your Master. You should not cut yourselves nor make a baldness between your eyes for the dead" (Deut. 14:1, Portion of Re'eh). No doubt that knowing we are children of G-d, that we can relate to Him as a child relates to a father, is...
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This week is Shabbos Nachamu, the "Sabbath of Consolation." Following three weeks in which the weekly Haftarah spoke about the loss of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple, leading up to Tisha B'Av, the Ninth of Av, we now have seven weeks during which we focus upon our...
Torah: Pure and Untouched
"The teachings of the A-lmighty are pure," "Toras Hashem Temima" (Tehillim/Psalms 19:8). The holy Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Hassidic movement and many schools of Kabbalah, takes the following novel approach to this popular verse: even after one has derived all...
