Parsha

Wishing all a Happy New Year-but when?

Even more curious is the latter part of the Midrash – to prevent becoming afflicted with the nega’im, what should one do? Eat, drink and be happy! Have a continual party – that is the remedy!

On this Night of Heritage, when we have the opportunity to etch the fundamentals of our faith into our children and grandchildren’s memory banks, it behooves us to spend time in preparation for this monumental task.

His son, Rabbi Shlomo Kanievsky touched the crowd with stories of childhood games played with his father, the mastermind, and uncovered a little bit about the relationship with his deceased wife, Batsheva.

I count life just a stuff to try the soul's strength on. -Robert Browning

Israel is to participate in - and elevate - every sphere of national life in order to reveal the inner connection of all that exists to the Divine Ideal.

The rebbi felt terrible that there was a child sitting in his class who was not eating lunch…

HKB”H created most of the human body with redundancy. We have two eyes, ears, nostrils, arms, legs, hemispheres in the brain, chambers in the heart, lungs, kidneys, reproductive organs, etc., the logic being – “if one fails, we have a spare.”

Since Hashem despises the evil person as He is, so to speak, nauseated from the praise of the wicked, it is a good idea to preface our Seder with teshuvah.

Israel has dramatically returned to the world stage in what has so far been merely the introduction to a revolutionary process destined to free humankind from a global order that promotes injustice.

When our haftara was designated for a week such as this, thousands of years ago, the sages saw fit to add another couple of verses to the end, spoken by Yirmiyahu almost a thousand years before that.

The intent of the commandment to clean the ashes was to bring his thoughts down to the people on earth, for him to ‘see’ the hard-working people who were involved in everyday life.

I know very few who enjoy matzo year round. Most people can’t wait for Pesach to end, to get rid of all their leftover matzo.

How many times have any of us said to ourselves: “I felt so badly that I wanted to die.” And yet, G-d does not demand that of us. He wants us to live and do teshuvah.

On the stage of history, we have been taught that Hashem often uses the wicked to destroy the wicked. One evil nation will conquer another, only in due course to be conquered by the next to arise.

On Shabbat we finished reading the book of Exodus with its emotional description of the completion of the Mishkan, the spiritual center that accompanied us in the desert. This apparently was the first crowd-funding endeavor of our people.

Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win. -Bobby Knight (all-time great college basketball coach)

The offering of the korbanos in itself does not achieve atonement. It is when the person’s mind and heart are overcome with thoughts of teshuvah that there is atonement.

We are in the land of “What have you done for me lately?” where the standard is “What’s in it for me?”

If the sin originated with food, then its remedy and atonement must involve food. This is why Purim is so food oriented...

Alexander Kaganovsky, president of our cong. asked for silence and said: 'I want to thank all the emissaries who have stayed behind with us. For many years you have been saying that you are an inseparable part of us, but now you proved it in the moment of truth.'

When it came to the “Jewish question,” Achashverosh seemed to be completely neutral. So how could he be as bad as the man who destroyed the Temple?

It was Mordechai's pivotal decision not to bow or budge before Haman that catapulted the Jews into a situation of possible annihilation, and it was he who commanded Esther, his own wife, to risk her life to save her people.

It's important to recognize the internal development of the Hebrew tribes from the Exodus from Egypt to the Brit Sinai and consecration of the Mishkan.

One word of derision can offset a thousand words of mussar.

In our haftara, we find Shlomo HaMelech completing the construction and initiating the dedication of the First Beit HaMikdash. In Shlomo we find a unique synthesis of the attributes of Moshe and of Betzalel.

These last two years have demonstrated how vital it is to feel solidarity not only toward those who have passed away but toward those who have been sick but are not yet fully recovered, toward business owners, toward coping parents, and, in fact, toward everyone who has been affected,--which means every one of us.

Our Sages tell us that righteous men and women merit that their descendants continue in their ways.

The wickedness of men and women can live long after they are gone.

If Dan is the extreme expression of Yosef in the same way that Shimon is of Yehuda, what was the importance of appointing tribesmen of Yehuda and Dan to lead the construction of the Mishkan?