A Moment Of Hesitation
There are times when each of us has to decide, not just “What shall I do?” but “What kind of person shall I be?”
Education: The Key To Success
Jews became the only people in history to predicate their very survival on education. The most sacred duty of parents was to teach their children. Pesach itself became an ongoing seminar in the handing on of memory.
The Faith Of The Remarkable Nation
In its account of the festivals of the Jewish year, this week’s parshah, Parshat Emor, contains the following statement: “You shall dwell in thatched huts for seven days. Everyone included in Israel must live in such thatched huts. This is so that future generations will know that I caused the Israelites to live in sukkot when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your G-d.”
Justice And Compassion
Shakespeare is expressing the medieval stereotype of Christian mercy (Portia) as against Jewish justice (Shylock).
Parshat Vayishlach: Physical Fear, Moral Distress
Moral dilemmas are situations in which doing the right thing is not the end of the matter. The conflict may be inherently tragic. Jacob, in this parsha, finds himself trapped in such a conflict: on the one hand, he ought not allow himself to be killed; on the other, he ought not kill someone else; but he must do one or the other.
Babel’s Larger Theme
Between the Flood and the call to Abraham, between the universal covenant with Noah and the particular covenant with one people comes the strange, suggestive story of Babel:
Moses: Leading And Teaching
When someone exercises power over us, they diminish us; when someone teaches us, they help us grow.
Rabbi Lord Sacks: The Art Of True Leadership
There is a deeper message in Parshat Tetzaveh - the principle of the separation of powers, which opposes the concentration of leadership into one person or institution. All human authority needs checks and balances if it is not to become corrupt. In particular, political and religious leadership (keter malchut and keter kehunah) should never be combined. Moses wore the crowns of political and prophetic leadership, Aaron that of priesthood. The division allowed each to be a check on the other.
Arbitration Vs. Litigation
We must never forget that when Aaron was left to lead, the people made a golden calf. But never forget that Moses needed an Aaron to hold the people together. In short, leadership is the capacity to hold together different temperaments, conflicting voices and clashing values.
Esau’s Other Face
Rav Kook believed that just as in the Torah, Jacob and Esau and Isaac and Ishmael were eventually reconciled, so will Judaism, Christianity, and Islam be in future. They would not cease to be different, but they would learn to respect one another.
Power Or Influence
Power works by division, influence by multiplication. Power, in other words, is a zero-sum game: the more you share, the less you have.
Abraham: A Life Of Faith
The Jewish people mourned and wept, and then rose up and built the future. This is their unique strength and it came from Abraham, as we see in this week’s parsha.
Moses And The Trajectory From Pain To Humility
True humility means silencing the “I.” For genuinely humble people, it is G-d and other people and principle that matter, not me.
Family Feeling
Where families are strong, a sense of altruism exists that can be extended outward, from family to friends to neighbors to community and from there to the nation as a whole.
The Parameters Of Justice
Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers -- how is that compatible with the idea that children may suffer for the sins of their parents?
Self-Destructive
The contemporary world continues to be scarred by violence and terror. Sadly, the ban against blood sacrifice is still relevant. The instinct against which it is a protest – sacrificing life to exorcise fear – still lives on.
Jacob’s Destiny, Israel’s Name
A Jew is an iconoclast, born to challenge the idols of the age,whatever the idols, whatever the age.
The Virtues Of Judaism
Who am I? What are the most important things in my life? What do I want to be remembered for? If, as a purely...
The Social Animal
Regular attendance at a house of worship is the most accurate predictor of altruism, more so than any other factor, including gender, education, income, race, region, marital status, ideology, and age.
Listening to the Prophetic Voice: Tisha b’Av 5778
Wishing you a Tzom kal (an easy fast)
The Unforgettable Wonders
The genius of the biblical narrative of the crossing of the Reed Sea is that it does not resolve the issue of whether it was a miracle or merely natural, one way or another. It gives us both perspectives-you decide
Tackling Tomorrow’s Problems
In her book The Watchman’s Rattle, subtitled Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction, Rebecca Costa delivers a fascinating account of how civilizations die. Their problems become too complex. Societies reach what she calls a cognitive threshold. They simply can’t chart a path from the present to the future.
Prayer: The Priestly Or The Prophetic?
The sedrah of Tetzaveh, in which the name of Moses is missing and the focus is on Aaron, reminds us that our heritage derives from both. Moses is a man of history, of epoch-making events.
The Evils Of Evil Speech
It was the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, that translated tzara’at, the condition whose identification and cleansing occupies much of Parshiyot Tazria and Metzora as lepra, giving rise to a long tradition identifying it with leprosy.
Defining Reality
Culture is not nature. There are causes in nature, but only in culture are there meanings.
The Hope And Promise Of Prophecy
Moshe wasn't the last of the prophets. How would Israel discern his true successors from the false?
Tzara’at And The Power Of Shame
According to the Sages’ interpretation, the law of tzara’at constitutes one of the rare instances in the Torah of punishment by shame rather than guilt.
The Religious Significance of Israel
Only in Israel can the Jewish people construct a political system, an economy, and an environment on the template of Jewish values.
Pacing Change
A leader who fails to work for change is not a leader. But a leader who attempts too much change in too short a time will fail.
Leadership Means Making Space
All human authority needs checks and balances if it is to remain uncorrupted. In particular, political and religious leadership, keter malchut and keter kehunah, should never be combined.
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