Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf

Redeeming Relevance: Parsht Tetzaveh: The Risks God Wants Us to Take

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

So who had it better, Moshe or Aharon?

Redeeming Relevance: Trail Flies and the Human Condition

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Ya’akov is the patriarch that reached the pinnacle of the early Biblical period by combining the strengths of both his father and grandfather and raising all thirteen of his children to follow in his footsteps.

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Bechukotai: What is Your Net Worth?

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Hoe the Torah establishes the value of the individual--and how that ensures humility.

Redeeming Relevance on the Weekly Parsha: Kedoshim

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Putting parents before oneself is a step toward putting the more abstract concept of God before self

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Ve’etchanan: Why These Ten?

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Understanding why these Ten Statements were chosen-as opposed to others omitted-could well lead us to a greater grasp of the essence of this venerable text.

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Shoftim

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Judges, essentially apolitical, fulfilled a temporary purpose and then returned to private life

Redeeming Relevance: A Bad Sin and a Good Drash

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

For an interpretation to qualify as a good drash, it must present an insightful idea that is somehow enhanced by the original text.

Does the Year Begin in Nissan or Tishrei?

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Wishing all a Happy New Year-but when?

Redeeming Relevance: Egypt’s Great Snake

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

According to the Baal haTurim the snakes created by the magicians represented Phaorah himself

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Behaalotecha: Just Trying to Improve Things

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

In this week's parsha, there is an unusually insightful process of how a little complaint can undermine a gigantic and noble enterprise:

Redeeming Relevance: Achrei Mot: The Kippur More than the Yom

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Wishing you a Happy Passover and a Good Shabbos...

Guns Kill People AND People Kill People; American and Gilead

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

One of the more fruitless political debates in the United States is whether strict restriction of gun permits would add to public safety. One of the reasons it is fruitless is that both sides muster flawed analogies to other societies.

Follow the Leader: The Legacy of Nachshon Ben-Aminadav

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Leading by example must be calculatedly visible, not only from a point of view of where it is done, but even when and how it is done. Doing something privately is not an act of leadership.

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Vayetzeh: Catch the Bull by the Horns… or get Gored

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Like Rivkah before them, neither Rachel nor Leah created the situation that was about to have extraordinary influence on the rest of their lives and, ultimately, on the lives of countless others

Redeeming Relevance: Did Moshe Decide to Break the Tablets?

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

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

Redeeming Relevance in the Weekly Parsha: Yitro

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Shemot relates the transition from the story of one family-Yaakov’s-to the story of a nation-Israel

Redeeming Relevance: The Need for Godly Space… Away from God

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Paradoxically, putting on the veil would help Moshe connect with spirituality but when he was actually speaking with God, Moshe would nevertheless remove it.

Redeeming Relevance: Women, Beauty and Religion

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

The easiest way out of my problem would be to say that the Mishkan was designed based on people’s need to be impressed

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Vayechi: Like Reuven and Shimon?!?

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Ya’akov’s mistake instructs us to understand that even if something appears to be good, that does not mean there isn’t a different way that might be even better

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Ki Tissa: Prayer and the Jewish Mission

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Paradoxically, the sin of the calf ended up strengthening Moshe and the Jewish people with a new consciousness.

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Pekudei: Fragmentation and the Divine Presence

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Perhaps God’s own 'completeness' prevented Him from dwelling in a Mishkan waiting to be finished?

Redeeming Relevance: Moshe’s International Grave

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

It seems important for the Torah’s central prophet to have been someone with whom gentiles could identify. And being buried outside of Israel may well have been part of that

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Toldot: Switching the Land On and Off

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Being bound on Mount Moriah gave Yitzchak a connection with God that would be disturbed by living outside the Land of Israel.

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Bereshit II

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

‘God doing exactly as He planned’ does not mean that all occurred without any ambivalence & tension.

Redeeming Relevance in the Weekly Parsha: Vayetzeh

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Yitzhak called you Esav and you answered him, then he called you Yaakov and you also answered him!”

Redeeming Relevance: Parshat Metzorah: Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Man in his ideal form is described as a speaker. Fitting that the sin most closely associated with tzaraat is misuse of speech.

Redeeming Relevance: When Moshe Threw a Book Across the Classroom

Redeeming Relevance / Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf

Most of Devarim is Moshe’s series of parting lectures to the Jewish people. Two things about them are clearly felt – the first is that they are long, often abstract and sometimes even appear repetitive; and the second is that Moshe accordingly uses diverse tactics to keep the Jews listening.