THE NON-PEOPLE “They have infuriated Me with a non-god, they have angered me with their futilities. And I will infuriate them with a non-people, with a crude nation I will anger them.” (Devarim 32:21) The message in the verse above, which appears in the Song of Moshe,...

THE POWER OF UNITY “You are standing today, all of you, before Hashem, your God: the heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers – all the men of Israel; your small children, your women, and your proselyte who is in the midst of your...

BLESS YOU! “When you shall conclude to tithe all the tithes of your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you gave it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan, and to the widow and they ate within your gates and...

THE RIGHTEOUS SOLDIER “When a camp goes out against your enemies, you shall guard against anything evil. If there will be among you a man who will not be clean because of a nocturnal occurrence [i.e. an emission of semen], he shall go outside the camp;...

JUSTICE AND COMPASSION “Judges and officers you shall place for you within all your gates that the Lord your God is giving you for your tribes and they shall judge the people a fair judgment.” (Devarim 16:18) In the Midrash (Devarim Rabba 5:1) Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel...

WHEN ANIMALS HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN JEWS “If the place that the Lord your God will choose to place His name there will be far from you, you shall slaughter from your herd and from your flock that the Lord gave you, as I commanded you,...

THE SECRET OF THE SCROLL “At Horev [Mt Sinai] you provoked the Lord, and the Lord was incensed with you to destroy you when I had ascended to the mountaintop to take the tablets of stone, the Tablets of the Covenant that the Lord made with...

WE ARE ALIVE “Now, Israel, heed the statutes and the ordinances that I am teaching you to perform, so that you will live, and you will come and take possession of the land that the Lord, God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not...

I LAMENT “Over these do I weep; my eye continuously runs with water because a comforter to restore my soul is far from me. My children have become forlorn, because the enemy has prevailed.” (Lamentations 1:16) The service of the Fast of the Ninth of Av is...

NO PLACE LIKE HOME I recently returned from a short visit to Johannesburg (my third time this year!) to attend the wedding of a good friend’s daughter. The ‘golden city’ is a very different place to Cape Town. It’s dusty, crowded, and fast-paced, and almost every...