Law and order are the hallmarks of a functioning democratic society. The concept that one can receive fair redress for damages and hurts through an equitable system of established justice is central to the concept of a free society that provides individual rights to its citizens. However, dictatorships also provide law and order for those who live under their rule - a little too much law and... READ MORE →
Moshe seemingly interrupts his long oration to the Jewish people about their history and destiny with a surprising review of the year’s calendar holidays. The calendar has always been central to Jewish life and survival. Under the dark regime of Stalin, Soviet Jewry was forbidden from owning or possessing a Jewish calendar. The depths of loyalty of Soviet Jewry, to their inner faith, is... READ MORE →
Ekev – the word itself and the parsha generally – stresses the cause-and-effect equation that governs all human and Jewish history. Blessings and sadder events are conditioned on previous human behavior, attitudes and actions. Life eventually teaches us that there is no free lunch. The rabbis stated it succinctly in Avot: “According to the effort and sacrifice, so too will be the reward.”... READ MORE →
This Shabat is Shabat Nachamu, the Shabat that begins for us a cycle of comfort and consolation after the weeks of sadness and mourning over the past tragedies of the Jewish people. These next seven weeks of healing comfort will lead us into the bright, new year that awaits us. In this week’s parsha there is to be found, so to speak, the short course and synopsis of all of Judaism – the Ten... READ MORE →
The nine days of mourning for Jerusalem’s fall and the destruction of the Temples are upon us. This Shabat, which always precedes Tisha B’Av itself, takes its name from the haftorah of the prophet Yeshayahu read in the synagogue. The words of the prophet condemn the social ills of his times and society – governmental corruption, economic unfairness and a lack of legal and social justice.... READ MORE →
The fourth book of the Torah – Bamidbar – concludes in this week’s public Torah reading. The new generation of Jews, no longer the slave generation that left Egypt hastily and constantly longed to return there when faced with problems and difficulties, stands poised to enter the Land of Israel and fulfill God’s covenant with Avraham. However here again, narrow personal interests becloud... READ MORE →
The Lord promises Pinchas that most valuable and yet the constantly elusive gift – the blessings of the covenant of peace. The world has known very little peace over the long millennia of human existence. Strife and conflict, war and violence, have been the staples of human existence from time immemorial. Many historians and social scientists maintain that war and violence are the natural and... READ MORE →
There is an eternal debate amongst philosophers and criminologists as to whether the mob boss or the actual hit man is most culpable in the murder of a rival gang leader. Though both are certainly morally guilty, the question as to which one bears the legal onus for the crime, absent statutory law on the matter, is an issue of discussion and differing opinions. In Judaism there is a concept... READ MORE →
The Torah interrupts, so to speak, its narrative of the events that befell the Jewish people in the desert with the description of a commandment that admittedly has no rational human understanding in logical terms. Even the great King Solomon, the wisest and most analytical of all humans, was forced to admit that understanding this parsha of the Torah was beyond his most gifted intellect and... READ MORE →
Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban) is of the general opinion that events, as recorded in the Torah, occurred in a linear timeline. This is in spite of the maxim that there is no late or early in the Torah. He limits that rule to certain halachic instances as they appear in the Talmud. Thus the story of Korach and his contest against Moshe that forms the central part of this week’s parsha... READ MORE →
