This week’s Torah portion, VaYigash (Gen. 44:18-47-27) is one of the most dramatic in the entire Torah. After having been rejected and sold into slavery in Egypt by his own brothers, Joseph rose to be the viceroy. When famine struck Canaan and Egypt the brothers were forced to descend to Egypt to buy some food. […]
Chanukah was a military victory… where’s the victory parade?
Anyone I have every spoken to who was in Israel at the time of the 1967 Six Day War told me that when it ended, the whole country was buzzing with the huge Miracle that had occurred. Even secular newspapers didn’t shy away from using the “M” word (miracle). The American Military could not believe […]
Chanukah – Bringing Light to the World
The Festival of Chanukah falls in the Hebrew month of Kislev. Shorter days and longer nights symbolize spiritual darkness and it’s our job to bring spiritual light back into the world during this season. Two thousand two hundred years ago the Syrian Greeks controlled the Land of Israel and feared a national uprising by the […]
Kill us, or love us to death…
Detail from a mosaic from a public building in the mixed Jewish/Roman village of Tzipori (Sephorris). Roman and Greek culture was everywhere. There have been two basic strategies to destroy the Jewish People throughout history. 1. KILL US The most obvious one is to go to war with us and physically kill us.. like Haman […]
Esau: Give me some of the red stuff!
Esav (Esau) and Yaakov (Jacob) were twins. The first to be born was Esav, and he came out red (adom), and hairy all over, therefore they called his name Esav (Asui means fully formed). (Gen 26:25) Later, when he grows up he will be given another name, Edom, (which means red). So we might think […]
Machpela in Hebron – Whose cave is it?
This week’s Torah portion begins with our Matriarch Sarah’s death and Avraham’s purchase of the Machpelah Cave in Hebron as a family burial plot. (Chaiye Sarah Gen: 23) The Torah goes into great detail about the negotiations between Avraham and Ephron who was the owner of the field and the cave complex in it. The […]
Abraham, Isaac and Jerusalem…
One of our subscribers shared this lovely photo of Jerusalem on her FB page. (I think she did it by mistake). It is from a Palestinian Arab propaganda site called “Days of Palestine” and the captions says, “Good morning from Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Palestine. (sic)” It’s ironic that this appears in the week […]
The Age of the Universe
Does an observant Jew really have to believe that the world is just under 6000 years old? Here’s one approach to resolving the Biblical and Scientific Ages of the Universe.
A Phone Call from the President
Many years ago, at a talk given during Elul at Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem, the Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Noah Weinberg zt’l posed the following challenge: “Over and over again throughout the Rosh Hashanah prayer service we ask God that He rule over the entire world and that all humanity should recognize His Kingship. We know […]
Don’t Point Fingers During Elul
As I watched President Biden’s speech on September 1, I was astonished to see him point his finger and say, “MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” Not only was he declaring tens of millions of his own citizens enemies of the State, but he was basically pointing the […]