ANCIENT BATTLES, NEW WARS A major event in the life of our father Avraham was the war of the four kings and the five kings. In the Torah, this episode occupies an entire chapter (Bereishit 14) of twenty-four verses. When one reads this section, one can...

WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE Noach is a very wet parsha. The words geshem, rain; mayim, water; mabul, flood; maayanot, springs; tehom, depths; and anan, cloud, appear multiple times. Mayim, water, appears no less than twenty-one times! For an entire solar year, the world was covered by the...

THE FAMILIAR AND THE FOREIGN Even though on Simchat Torah we complete the annual reading of the Torah and immediately start the new cycle with only a short pause in between, the two readings could not be more different. The Torah concludes with parshat V’zot Haberacha,...

THE SONG History is a fascinating subject, although I did not feel this way at first. At school I found history profoundly boring and I made sure to drop it as a matric subject as soon as I could. Later, I began to take an interest...

THE FESTIVAL OF OUR REJOICING Sukkot, also known as Chag Ha’asif, the Festival of Ingathering and Zman Simchateinu, the Season of our Rejoicing, recalls the miraculous way God provided for and protected our ancestors for forty years in the wilderness. This supernatural protection was mainly in...

COLLABORATION OR COMMAND “Moshe summoned Yehoshua and said to him before the eyes of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall come with this people to the Land that Hashem swore to their forefathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit...

I LIVE AS I SEE FIT “Perhaps there is among you a man or woman, or a family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from being with Hashem, our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations; perhaps there is among you a...

HEAD AND TAILS We have come to associate the evening meal of Rosh Hashanah with apples and honey. This sugary combination is eaten as a good omen for a sweet new year. Despite its universal appeal among Jews of all stripes, this customary dish is not...

PROTECTING LIFE, ONE FENCE AT A TIME “If you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, and you shall not place blood in your house, if someone falls from it.” (Devarim 22:8) This verse describes one of the most fascinating mitzvoth in...

BLIND TO ONE’S OWN FAULTS “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 17:18) The opening comment of the Midrash (Devarim Rabba...