The tenth video talks about why parents should never seek to make their children into their doubles. Transcript How to be an inspiring parent, Rule 10. Listen to this fascinating Midrash. It is a Midrash to the words in Chayei Sarah, the opening line in Genesis 24, V’Avraham zakain ba bayamim v’Hashem bairach et-Avraham bakol. (Bereishit 24:1) Abraham was old, advanced…
…two, Shimon. Number three, Levi. Number Four, Yehudah. If you read the Torah carefully you will see, especially in the penultimate chapter of Bereishit, in the deathbed scene where Jacob, instead of blessing his eldest three sons, almost seems to curse them. His relationship with all three of them broke down. Reuven, b’chori atah… v’pachaz kamayim: you are completely unstable….
…na’aseh shootaf lema’asseh bereishit – Every judge who delivers a true verdict becomes a partner with the Holy One, Blessed be He in the work of creation.” And Peter blushed and said, that was the nicest thing anyone ever said of him. That was a wonderful man who simply wouldn’t allow himself to see himself as a wonderful man. We…
…And as for the hint of evolution in the Torah itself, it is there in the very last word of the Creation story, in the third verse of the second chapter of Bereishit, when it says, “Ki vo shavat mikol m’lachto asher barra elokim la’assot.” [Genesis 2:3] “God finished on the seventh day all that He had created. “La’assot.” [Meaning] “to…
…I have chosen him so that he will instruct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord” (Bereishit 18:19). Moshe repeatedly speaks about education: “Teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit at home and when you travel on the way, when you lie down and when you rise” (Devarim 11:19)….
…the other reasons to observe Shabbat? What benefits do you get form your Shabbat observance? Shabbat in classic Jewish sources Shabbat of creation: Bereishit 2:1-3 Core Questions What does it mean that God ‘rested’? What do these verses (the first mention of Shabbat in the Torah) tell us about Shabbat and how we should keep it? Why did God create…
…Travel about from place to place, so that the greatness of your name will go forth in My world.” Bereishit Rabbah 39:2. Abraham was commanded to leave his place in order to testify to the existence of a God not bounded by place – Creator and Sovereign of the entire universe. Abraham and Sarah were to be like perfume, leaving…
…us. But Judaism never went down that road. That was the one bit of Judaism that Christianity and Islam did not borrow. At the same time, Bereishit (Genesis) is followed by Shemot (Exodus). Not just a family relationship with God, it’s a national relationship with God. And the best way I have been able to explain this is that Judaism is a sustained protest…
This five-part series of mini booklets is all available to download for free. It was created in 2007, following a discussion with student leaders, who were troubled by many of the typical questions plaguing young people today. These booklets are a way of sharing the conversation, the questions and answers, and the ideas discussed on that day. To be a…
Torah is not a book of history, even though its includes history. It is not a book of science, even though the first chapter of Genesis – as the nineteenth-century sociologist Max Weber points out – is the necessary prelude to science: it represents the first time people saw the universe as the product of a single creative will, and…