I was a little proud, and a little embarrassed, too, when I realized they had given me the hard part.  I was 18. It was the summer between high school and college, and I was in Jerusalem studying for a month at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies....

Shelach Lecha is the fourth portion in the fourth book of Torah, called Numbers or Bamidbar. God tells Moses, shelach lecha, send for yourself spies to check out what I’ve already told you is a good land. So Moses, at God’s request, deployed 12 sons...

Anyone who has graced the halls of a school knows that the nature of the work within those walls is boundless.  The amount of physical effort, time, and emotional resources that students can invest in learning and that teachers can invest in teaching...

It has been said that beginnings are difficult, and that old aphorism holds a great deal of truth. It has also been demonstrated as a law of physics that a body at rest tends to stay at rest, while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. This week,...

In this week’s parashah, Tzav, we learn that the priest is to “dress in linen raiment, with linen breeches next to his body” when he takes up the ashes from the burn offering. We then learn that he should take off his vestments and put on other...

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, includes the infamous tale of golden calf. While Moses is atop Mount Sinai, the Israelites make for themselves an idol to worship, one that they can see and touch, one made by the work of their own hands.This triggers...

In the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Terumah, Moses has just ascended Mount Sinai after the saying of the aseret hadibrot, Ten Commandments, and G-d now commands Moses to tell the Jewish People to collect funds for the building of the Mishkan...

Parashat Yitro is the ideal reading for a discussion about leadership and delegation. Moses’ father-in-law, Yitro, brings Zipporah and her two sons to Moses in the wilderness. After a reunion that involves sharing the accomplishments made only through...

B’shalach is the fourth of 11 chapters in the Book of Exodus. It describes the Israelites ascent out of Egypt and records the dramatic happenings in the aftermath of the death of Egypt’s first born. B’shalach begins in chaos at the Red Sea and...

Growing up in Denver, one of my favorite places to visit was Cave of the Winds just outside Colorado Springs.Overcoming my claustrophobia, I found the stalactites and stalagmites fascinating, with their beautiful shapes and colors created from dripping...

In 1853, Theodore Parker, an abolitionist and advocate for women’s suffrage and a Unitarian minister, preached these words: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate...