A New Language of Am Yisrael
It is an important call for individuals and humanity as a whole to exercise self-control, restrain impulses, and manage a world that has boundaries and red lines.
Parshas Yisro: The Healing Work of Sinai
The Israelites have survived slavery, survived the plagues, survived the waters closing behind them. But survival is not the same as readiness. Freedom does not erase the patterns that oppression carves into the mind and heart. The Torah does not rush past this truth; it lingers in it.
Coercive and Voluntary
Yisro saw that the Jews were attacked by Amalek from behind, when they were weak and exhausted. The natural course of events should have resulted in their total defeat. But he witnessed G-d’s prescription for salvation.
Eliezer My Son – Yitro
I would like to explore the character that was R' Eliezer ben Horkenos, also known as R' Eliezer HaGadol, because of the important lessons we learn from him about Matan Torah.
Before the Fire
Would it not have been more striking to open the section of Yitro with the thunder and fire of revelation itself? More iconic, more symbolic, to move directly into the moment when Hashem speaks?
What Did Yitro Hear?
Until Israel had accepted our collective purpose and come to embody the Will of the Creator to have a nation among nations to perform His commandments and act on His behalf, there were only tribes and families.
The Ten Commandments
Why do the Ten Commandments not include the most important of all mitzvos, the study of Torah?
Nobility
Yerushalayim was destroyed because the people of that generation disparaged its Torah scholars.
Alexander’s Story
Alexander was a man of integrity and a proud Jew. He loved the Land of Israel and the Jewish people.
Shabbos Shira and the Quieter Music that Follows
There’s a reason the man arrives before the Aseres HaDibros. A people who have only known extraction cannot receive law until they first learn sufficiency.
Natural Miracles
They needed another forty years during which time G-d would show them more indisputable miracles like splitting the sea, extracting water from a rock and raining manna from heaven.
From Up or Down – Beshalach
There are different streams in the Torah world today regarding the Beit HaMikdash. The common denominator between them all is that they all want the third Beit HaMikdash to be rebuilt. The only question is how and when.
Why Does Amalek Want to Destroy Israel?
At the splitting of the sea, we learn that Hashem is willing and able to overturn the laws of nature as He sees fit to intervene on behalf of His chosen people.
Middah K’neged Middah (Part II)
This was measure for measure for the lachatzeinu, intense pressure, that the Egyptian taskmasters inflicted upon Bnei Yisrael nonstop.
A Short Prayer
One who finds it difficult to daven all the tefillos in the morning – from the berachos through Aleinu – if he can manage to recite the Shema that would be sufficient. If he cannot say all of the Shema, even the recitation of the first paragraph would be good, or at least the first two lines of the Shema could still be powerful.
Worshipping Wealth
Unlike Moshe’s previous meetings with Pharaoh in which he was instructed by G-d to ask Pharaoh to release the Jews and threaten him with plagues in the hope that he would comply, in the opening scene of Parshas Bo, G-d gave Moshe no such instructions.
Between Darkness and Dawn: Steadiness in Parshas Bo
What has always struck me is that the Torah does not erase the plagues. It does not soften them. It does not pretend that the suffering did not occur. Instead, it asks us to hold the full truth...
Q & A: Halacha & the Oral Law (Part I)
Question: The Written Law is there plain to see as it is found in the five Books of Moses. However, from whence does the Oral Law come? I’m not asking as one who doubts its veracity – rather, I would just like to know and not simply follow blindly.
Mark Grosz
Via E-mail
Numbering Our Months by the Light of the Moon
The two chapters he dedicates to Parshat HaChodesh, which is found in this week’s parsha, contain profound and beautiful insights into the nature of the Nation of Israel and our unique relationship to the moon.
Stronger Than We Think
Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz (1873–1936) of the Mir Yeshiva in Belarus told his students: Woe to the one who does not know his weaknesses, for he does not know what to fix.
Swift as an Eagle
An integral component of the exile from Egypt included an unmatched zeal and enthusiasm to flee, so much so that there was not sufficient time for the dough to rise. So too must eagerness and ardor be essential elements in our fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos.
Middah K’neged Middah (Part I)
As we familiarize ourselves with the concept of middah k’neged middah, it should be an incentive for us to adopt certain behaviors and inhibitions to avoid other behaviors.
Bo: The World Catches Up
When slavery began, we were cast as a threat to society. Pharaoh could only sell his genocidal policy to the broader public of Mitzrayim by turning us into a symbol of danger.
Ran Gvili, Iran, and Us
Ran went out to confront absolute evil. And it is the same evil we see today, asserting itself in Iran against its own people and elsewhere against anyone who stands for freedom and truth. We pray that this too will fall, that another hateful regime, another Jew-hating empire, will be thrown onto history’s scrap heap, just as others before it.
Heavenly Hail – Va’eira
The plague of hail involved two opposing forces, water and fire. Under normal circumstances these forces cannot coexist peacefully, they are diametric opposites of each other. HaKadosh Baruch Hu miraculously made peace between them and unleashed them upon Egypt.
Patience
But the people were overworked and under pressure and they had no time for seemingly empty promises... It was hard for them to believe in a vacuum. They needed to see some concrete results.
The Cost of Not Listening
The danger of not listening is not limited to kings, tyrants, or political leaders intoxicated by success. It confronts all of us.
The Mechanics of Prophecy: A Further Exploration
One of the key characteristics we see of Moshe that make him uniquely qualified for prophecy is his attention to detail in the face of the unusual.
Moshe Rabbeinu
In general, Klal Yisrael chooses its great people very differently than does the other nations. Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman, zt”l, zy”a, never ran for office. Rav Pam, zt”l, zy”a, never strutted his credentials. To the contrary, they ran from honor and it was that very humility that knighted them to be the leaders of our people.
I Feel Your Pain
A person who can feel the pain of others is more suited to be a leader. For that reason, Hashem first tested Moshe to verify that he had the sensitivity to be able to share in the distress of his brethren.