Is a Rainbow a Good Thing? — By Ben
A few weeks ago, I was practicing Hebrew with my mom over Facetime (as is our Friday morning ritual). Usually we practice the prayer for healing, or the shema, or […]
Category Archives: Parsha
Rosh Hashanah – The Work You’ve Already Done — By Ben
Rosh Hashanah is a difficult holiday to wrap our heads around. At the forefront there is the notion of being inscribed in the Book of Life and God’s judgement. And […]
Ki Seitzei – A Dangerous Double Standard — By Ben
It’s two weeks before Rosh Hashanah (Can you believe it? Ach!). Clearly Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. Except in Judaism we have two New Years (actually four, but […]
Don’t Change the Torah. So What are Rabbinical Mitzvahs? — By Ben
In this week’s Torah portion Re’eh, we get the paramount instruction from God to, “Be careful to observe everything which I am commanding you, you shall not add to it […]
Eikev – Why Shema Is So Long — By Ben
Shema isn’t a prayer. Colloquially we tend to refer to any words meant for God as prayer. That can mean requests, praise, or gratitude. But None of those sentiments are […]
Why God Told Moses To Stop Praying — By Ben
Va’eschanan is a jam packed Torah Portion. There’s shema, which includes the mitzvahs of loving God, wrapping tefillin, and mezzuzah. There’s the retelling of 10 Commandments and the whole revelation […]
Masei – The Torah’s Fugitive — By Ben
Let’s say Guy A and Guy B are at work, maybe they’re on some construction job. Guy A is on some scaffolding several floors up and Guy B is down […]
Pinchas – Peace From Hatred — By Ben
On the drive back from Mother’s day brunch my brother has accused me of lying about my car’s gas mileage. A discussion about fuel reimbursement started just before getting into […]
Hitler Could Have Saved Six Million Jews — By Ben
As I have pointed out previously, I find it fascinating that almost all of the Torah portion of Balak follows the perspective of the wicked prophet Bilam. I get that […]
Snakes On a Cane – By Ben
If you’ve dealt with health care before, you’ve probably seen some form of this symbol. Maybe it looks like this… Or this… The former being the Staff of Asclepius the […]
