BERESHIT
The rabbis of the Talmud have taught us that all new beginnings are fraught with difficulties. This week
PRICE GOUGING
When demand far outstrips supply, or when someone obtains a monopoly over goods that the public needs or wants, or when tragedies strike and people are forced to obtain certain goods and services to survive - in all of these circumstances greed takes over and the prices for these items are suddenly overly inflated. The Talmud calls this phenomenon hafkaat shearim - the "removal" of ordinary fair...
HAAZINU
There are songs and there are songs. The song of Moshe and the people of Israel at Yam Suf is a song of victory and exultation. It is read in the synagogue with a special haunting melody that accompanies it. It is recited every morning in our daily prayer service and it is referred to every evening in the Maariv service. It is a song of hope and triumph. The song of Haazinu, which is read in this...
FASTING
The Jewish people in this new year of 5766 are about to observe two fast days on consecutive Thursdays. The first Thursday, the day after Rosh Hashana, is the day of Tzom Gedalya. It commemorates the tragic assassination about twenty five hundred years ago of Gedalya ben Achikam, the provisional governor of Judah by fellow Jews. But the fast day really is also intended to set the tone for the...
VAYELECH
Moshe
TWO RALLIES
Last Saturday night two different gatherings took place in my Jerusalem neighborhood. One was a rally for "peace" sponsored by the Geneva initiative and led by Yossi Beilin. This group met outside of the house of Prime Minister, barely two blocks from my residence. The Prime Minister was not home since he was busy meeting with his Security Cabinet, planning a response to the barrage of Kassam...
NITZAVIM
There is a cynical but unfortunately accurate statement rife in the ranks of diplomats that treaties are made to be broken. We here in Israel have plenty of experience with that viewpoint and assessment of international life. However, in this week
SELICHOT POETRY
The Ashkenazic Jewish world begins its recitation of selichot - the penitential prayers of the season of the High Holy Days this coming Saturday night. Our Sephardic brethren have already been reciting their version of selichot for some weeks already, since the onset of the month of Elul. All of these prayers center about the continued recitation of the thirteen attributes of the Almighty as...
KI TAVO
This week's parsha deals with the frighteningly accurate prediction of the awful fate of the Jewish people over its long exile. The tochacha chillingly forecasts the horrors of the Holocaust and of all of the previous destructions, persecutions, pogroms and disasters that have befallen the Jews over the long centuries of dispersion. The Torah itself in a forthcoming parsha asks the obvious...
ABANDONED EMPTY SYNAGOGUES
The current discussion and division of judicial and governmental opinion regarding the abandoned synagogues of Gush Katif is a painful reminder of the fate of other synagogue buildings the world over. It should be obvious to all, that for synagogue buildings to serve their intended purpose, there must be living Jews present in them to use the facility. Otherwise the synagogue building remains...
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