Parsha

Paradoxically, with Moshe’s desperate act, something positive happened. When the people realized what Moshe was responding to, it shook them to their foundations.

Purim Sameiach!

Some think that what a person wears classifies what type of person he or she is.

Is the way we celebrate Purim the ideal way to spiritually experience it?

The Maharsha explains that each mitzvah in the Torah has two angels appointed over it, one good and one bad.

There was once a scalding hot bath that no one could enter. Along came one foolish individual who jumped in. Although he was immediately burned, he cooled off the bath for others.

The questions about appropriate clothing should not begin with the externals, thecostumes, but with our inner lives, our growth, aspirations, beliefs; what do we see when we look at our souls?

One can claim with regard to specific halakhic issues that a tradition is binding even though it is not intellectually or spiritually compelling.

So long as we are alive, we have the ability to strive for higher and greater levels.

Clearly, creating the menorah was beyond human capacity. Why did Moshe need to have a clear image of what it was to look like?

We can achieve if we only reconnect to that belief that we can succeed only when we reach beyond ourselves rather than hide behind walls of fear-- and hesitation.

Seven is possibly the most significant number in Jewish Thought.

The Torah (22:27) prohibits people from cursing a leader. Rav Levine argues that people don't just point out the obvious and evident flaws of leaders; they tend to exaggerate them.

Hashem is more concerned for my good than I am. Hashem looks out for my interests more than I do myself.

Each prayer, each Shabbat, each festival, each mitzvah, is an opportunity to reconnect to that very different wedding at Sinai

The path from moral principle to moral policy is rarely straightforward. But the path from lack of moral principle to immoral policy often is straightforward.  

May we each brighten the world in our own way and may we merit having and seeing children whose light will both burn brightly as well as kindle the light of others. Shabbat Shalom

Hashem created those sacs so that there would be another dimension to our enjoyment. The sensation of eating an orange would be different without this feature.

The art--and history--of Jewish communication.

So why sing it? If the second shirah does not add any new ideas or even words, what was its purpose?

The difficulty with this Rashi is that he lists all three reasons in same breath as if they are equal, and clearly they aren’t.

After Israel sings a song of thanksgiving, curiously, Miriam then leads the women of the nation in a second song. Why?

The religious state of nature does not enable the building of a religious society. Since human beings are social creatures, it follows that the state of nature does not enable human fulfillment.   We therefore need a religious social contract.  Cue Sinai; enter, the Torah.

They knew that if they performed acts of kindness with each other G-d would perform kindness with them.

We must struggle to understand, says the Rambam, the greatness and wisdom in the words of Chazal.

Even if the Egyptians prided themselves on ingenuity and advancements, they had to know they were most likely wrong when it came to accurately knowing when midnight was.

What growth can we achieve through the mitzvah of lighting special candles for Shabbos? What lesson does Hashem want us to learn from this mitzvah?

Pharaoh's stubbornness dooms Egypt. Had he let the Jews go at the first request, Egypt would have been spared from all the pain, death and destruction--the blame is his, neither Israel's nor G-d's

Understanding time, tefillin, and Torah and how they inexorably lead to: Empowerment

How did the Jews find grace in the eyes of the Egyptians, receiving gifts from their Egyptian neighbors as they left, when they were perceived as the source of all the plagues and destruction?