…ways your life has been enriched by your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents (and beyond). 9. Judaism Asks Great Things of Us and by Doing So Makes Us Great. We walk as tall as the ideals for which we live, and those of the Torah are very high indeed. We are, said Moshe, God’s children (Devarim 14:1). We are called…
…who burned but was not consumed. So long as that vision stayed with him, as it did until the end of his life, he remained full of energy. You feel that in the sustained power of the book of Devarim, the greatest sequence of speeches in Tanach. Ideals are what keep the human spirit alive. They did so under some…
…beginning of the year to its end. Devarim 11:10–12 Israel would not have a regular, predictable water supply like the Tigris-Euphrates valley or the Nile Delta. It depends on rain, and in Israel rain is not something that can be taken for granted. Drought and famine led Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov into exile at some time in their lives. The…
…Bereishit 12:1-3 Core Questions Who was chosen here? What were they chosen for? Why were they chosen? Covenatal Chosenness: Shemot 19:1-6 Devarim 26:16-19 Devarim 4:5-8 Core Questions What does the term “Am Segulah” mean? What does this have to do with Torah, mitzvot, and the Covenant with God? Do you think the chosenness of the Jewish people because an intrinsic…
…to pass Jewish traditions on to your children and the next generation? Why? How do you answer the question ‘Why am I a Jew?’ Why Be Jewish in classic Jewish sources The renewal of the covenant at the end of Moshe’s life with future generations also Devarim 29:9-14 Rashi on Devarim 29:14 Akeidat Yitzchak (Rabbi Isaac Arama) on Parshat Nitzavim…
…to give up hope. Though history is full of man’s inhumanity to man – dog bites cat, stick hits dog – that is not the final verse. The Haggadah ends with the death of death in eternal life, a fitting end for the story of a people dedicated to Moshe’s great command, “Choose life” (Devarim 30:19). Commentary on Chad Gadya,…
…is to be strong, for its strength must come from heaven so that it can never say, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have achieved this wealth for me’ (Devarim 8:17). It is Yishmael’s natural strength that disqualifies him. Yet Yishmael is not vilified. That is the masterstroke of the narrative. Despite the fact that Avraham, Sarah and…
…without stop, in Israel, everyone is going to rest and be free for one day in seven. A society that is the living embodiment of all the values in Torah. Read Torah, read the mosaic books from the beginning of Bereishit to the end of Sefer Devarim, and you will see this is not a code for personal happiness, nirvana,…
There is, on the face of it, a fundamental contradiction in the Torah. On the one hand we hear, in the passage known as the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, the following words: The Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving-kindness and truth … but who does not acquit the guilty, holding descendants to account for the…
This week’s parsha raises a question that goes to the heart of Judaism, but which was not asked for many centuries until raised by a great Spanish scholar of the fifteenth century, Rabbi Isaac Arama. Moses is almost at the end of his life. The people are about to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land. Moses knows he…