Elijah And The Still, Small Voice
Maimonides insists that it is not so. “It is not right to alienate, scorn and hate people who desecrate the Sabbath,” he said. “It is our duty to befriend them and encourage them to fulfill the commandments.”
A New Relationship
Because the law came before the land, even when Jews lost the land they still had the law. This meant that even in exile, Jews were still a nation.
Fear Or Distress?
Jacob and Esau are about to meet again after a separation of 22 years. It is a fraught encounter. Once, Esau had sworn to kill Jacob as revenge for what he saw as the theft of his blessing. Will he do so now, or has time healed the wound? Jacob sends messengers to let his brother know he is coming. They return, saying that Esau is coming to meet Jacob with a force of 400 men. We then read: “Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed” (Genesis 32:8).
The Need For Chukkim
Of Chukkim “Satan and the nations of the world made fun.” They may appear irrational & superstitious
The Second Tithe And The Basis Of Strong Societies
Tocqueville believed that democracy encouraged individualism. As a result, people would leave the business of the common good entirely to the government, which would become ever more powerful, eventually threatening freedom itself.
The Arc Of The Moral Universe
This is a doctrine fundamental to Judaism and its understanding of evil and suffering in the world: G-d is just.
Education: The Key To Success
It is one of the most counterintuitive acts in the history of leadership. Moshe did not speak about today or tomorrow. He spoke about the distant future and the duty of parents to educate their children.
A Portable Home
The very concept of making a home in finite space for an infinite presence seems a contradiction in terms. The answer, still astonishing in its profundity, is contained at the beginning of this week’s parsha: “They shall make a Sanctuary for Me, and I will dwell in them [betokham]” (Exodus 25:8).
A Father’s Love
Isaac surely knew that his elder son was a man of mercurial temperament who lived in the emotions of the moment.
Children Going Further Than Their Parents
The Song at the Sea was one of the great epiphanies of history. The sages said that even the humblest of Jews saw at that moment what even the greatest of prophets didn’t. For the first time they broke into collective song – a song we recite every day.
More Than We Deserve
Chessed has no if-then quality. It is given out of the goodness of the giver, regardless of the worth of the recipient.
Inspiration & Perspiration
These were all innovators, pioneers, ground-breakers, trail-blazers, who formulated new ideas, originated new forms of expression, did things no one had done before in quite that way. They broke the mold. They changed the landscape. They ventured into the unknown. Yet their daily lives were the opposite: ritualized and routine.
Making Sense Of The Sin Offering
We think of a sin as something we did intentionally, yielding to temptation perhaps, or in a moment of rebellion. That is what Jewish law calls b’zadon in biblical Hebrew or b’mezid in rabbinic Hebrew. That is the kind of act we would have thought calls for a sin offering. But actually such an act cannot be atoned for by an offering at all. So how do we make sense of the sin offering?
The Spiritual Child
Moses prepares the Israelites for freedom by discussing-children, several times in the parsha
Babel’s Larger Theme
Between the Flood and the call to Abraham, between the universal covenant with Noah and the particular covenant with one people comes the strange, suggestive story of Babel:
Faith And Friendship
In this week’s parsha, Moshe reaches his lowest ebb. What is striking is the depth of Moses’ despair, the candor with which he expresses it, and the blazing honesty of the Torah in telling us this story.
The Politics of Envy (Naso 5781)
In the Torah, God summons His special people, Israel, to take the first steps towards what might eventually become a truly egalitarian society – or to put it more precisely, a society in which dignity, kavod, does not depend on power or wealth or an accident of birth.
The Jews’ Fate – And G-d
When Jews are defeated and sent into exile, it is not only a tragedy for them. It is a tragedy for G-d.
Spirits In A Material World
The well-being of the soul is something inward and spiritual, but the well-being of the body requires a strong society and economy, where there is the rule of law, division of labor, and the promotion of trade.
The Sabbath: First Or Last Day?
For G-d, the Sabbath was the last day of the week; for human beings, it was the first.
The Real Issue
There has long been a massive debate in Anglo Jewry as to whether we should take a unified stance in our support for the State of Israel or openly air our differences. It’s mostly been a noisy and shrill debate, but it’s the wrong debate – as it is deflecting us from the real issue.
The Struggle Of Faith
Why not paint Jacob in more attractive colors?
It seems to me that the Torah is delivering, here as elsewhere, an extraordinary message: that if we can truly relate to God as God, in His full transcendence and majesty, then we can relate to humans as humans in all their fallibility.
Mirrors Of Love
The Egyptians sought not merely to enslave, but also to put an end to, the people of Israel. One way of doing so was to kill all male children. Another was simply to interrupt normal family life.
Building Community
What united them was not the dynamic of the crowd in which we are caught up in a collective frenzy but rather a sense of common purpose, of helping to bring something into being that was greater than anyone could achieve alone. Communities build; they do not destroy. They bring out the best in us, not the worst.
The Politics Of Responsibility
Only one other nation in history has consistently seen its fate in similar terms, namely the United States. The influence of the Hebrew Bible on American history – carried by the Pilgrim Fathers and reiterated in presidential rhetoric ever since – was decisive.
Making Space
For two thousand years in the absence of a Temple its place was taken by the synagogue. Why, if the Torah is timeless, does it devote such space to what was essentially a time-bound structure? The answer is deep and life-transforming,
The Unexpected Leader
The stories of Judah and of his descendant David tell us that what marks a leader is not necessarily perfect righteousness. It is the ability to admit mistakes, to learn from them and grow from them. The Judah we see at the beginning of the story is not the man we see at the end.
A Moment Of Hesitation
There are times when each of us has to decide, not just “What shall I do?” but “What kind of person shall I be?”
The Tabernacle’s Lesson
The story of the Creation of the World is told with the utmost brevity: a mere 34 verses. Why take some 15 times as long to tell the story of the Sanctuary?
The Sin Offering
Why should unintentional sins require atonement? What guilt exists when requisite intent is lacking?