Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

The world can be a very scary place. Every time we pick up the morning’s paper, or turn on the television, the media provides us with more evidence of just how terrifying life can be. Fires raging out of control, brutal warfare abroad, incessant terrorist attacks, and gangs and criminals terrorizing our streets, illness, death, unemployment, and a host of more private sorrows are   the constant companions of the living. There isn’t a person alive who hasn’t tasted the bitterness of disappointment and of tragedy. We are all wounded by the simple act of staying alive. Read more...

Every four years, with each new presidential election, Americans come face-to-face with the unpleasant reality that we don't trust each other.  Read more...

The calendar of the Jewish holidays is an introductory course in Jewish theology and history, complete in itself.  Through the cycles of holy days, festivals, memorials and fast days – all rich with traditions, readings, meditations and rituals – a Jew can become familiar with the basic values, beliefs and history which have sustained us as a people. One celebration which used to be quite prominent in Biblical times has been relegated to a place of lesser prominence in post-Biblical practice, and it deserves another look:  Rosh Hodesh, the New Moon. Read more...

Of all the interesting and stimulating accounts in this week’s double portion of Hukkat-Balak, none is more well-known and challenging as the description of Moses’ and Aaron’s punishment that would prevent them from entering the land of Israel.  Says the Torah: Read more...

Recent studies of the Jewish population have confirmed what common sense already intuited: We are less and less different from the people around us. Our children attend the same preschools, the same public and private schools, the same dance classes or Scout troops and the same high schools. On the weekends, they participate in the same athletic teams and they hang out at the same malls. When they select a college, their standards are pretty much the same standards as everyone else’s, and their choice of professions doesn’t differ much from that of our neighbors either. Read more...