A Good Man Goes To War — Lech Lecha — By Ben
I’ve always had a reverence for parshas Lech Lecha. We have Avram prominently featured and with him, the real the start to the Jewish people. We have the famous commandment […]
Category Archives: Genesis/Bereishis
#MeToo In the Time of Noach — By Barbara Heller
Me too. Me too. Me too. With the recent outpouring and revelation of personal trauma that has taken social media by storm, it is extraordinary to see how these instances of […]
A Tale of Two Messiahs
The messianic prophesy is one of the most fascinating and crucial aspects of Judaism. The belief that the world will one day be redeemed by a single individual to usher in a new […]
Reward for Failure – Vayeishev
This week’s Torah portion, parsha Vayeishev, begins Joseph’s story. And it’s quite a story at that. There’s betrayal, seduction, a prison set piece, some dreams sequences, and (of course) mistaken identity. But the event […]
Pulp Fiction and Vayishlach
I know what you’re thinking. I’m going to go into Jules’s use of Ezekiel 25:17 as a speech before he “takes care of” his clients. Maybe go into how he dissects it […]
Vayeitzei – 12 Rocks and 70 Faces — By Ben
“There are 70 faces to the Torah” -Midrash As the Midrash is pointing out, there’s no one way to read the Torah. There’s gematria, Aggadata, the four levels of understanding, Rashi’s […]
Toldos – Not the Way it was Suppoed to Be –By Ben
In this week’s parsha, we have the infamous deception of Yitzchak by Yaakov for the coveted brucha. It’s a particularly troubling passage as it paints (without proper interpretation) our forefather in […]
Chayei Sarah – When a Father Can No Longer Give — By Ben
In Chayei Sarah, Avraham makes his last appearance in the Torah. After all he has done; brining monotheism back into the world, fighting a war, being the father of two […]
Vayeira – The Doomed Nation of Sodom — By Ben
Noah’s flood and Sodom and Gamorrah are two of the most chilling examples of God’s judgement in all of Torah. I’ve often talked about how Noah reacts to the coming of […]
Lech Lecha – Being Right in a World of Wrong — By Ben
Mark Twain’s famous line, used to open the Oscar nominated film The Big Short, speaks far beyond the ramifications of the housing crisis. When a person is so sure of them […]
Six Degrees Of Kosher Bacon 