In this week’s parashah, we meet Korach, for whom this parashah is named. He is Moses’ and Aaron’s first cousin and is known as a rebel, as he amassed 250 Israelites to join him in challenging the authority of Moses and Aaron.  Korach says to Moses...

This week’s Torah portion, Shelakh Lekha (Numbers 13:1-15:41), strings together several episodes. The most famous of these is the story of the Twelve Spies. On God’s command, Moses appoints 12 spies to gather information about the land of Canaan...

It has been decades now since I first heard the late Rabbi Harold Schulweis speak to a rabbinical convention I attended. In this particular talk, Rabbi Schulweis taught that too often, parents viewed their children as “naches producers.” When parents...

This coming Shabbat, Jews the world over will once again initiate the public reading of the fourth of the Five Books of Moses known as Sefer Bamidbar (or more accurately BeMidbar), the Book of Numbers. For me, this Torah portion holds special significance...

People always tell us to count our blessings. Rarely, if ever, does anyone tell us to count our curses. After all, who wants to think about all the bad things that have happened because of our action or inaction, much less all the terrible consequences...

This week’s parasha, Emor (speak of or to), Leviticus 21:1-24:23, continues the directions of the actions of the priests on behalf of the Israelites. It is an excellent postscript to the Holiness Code in the previous parasha as contains specific ways...

It seems as though every Monday and Thursday someone is writing an article or a book in an attempt to answer the question, “Why be Jewish?” This speaks to the pressure to assimilate, on the one hand, and the desire to preserve Judaism and the Jewish...

The taste of matzah was still fresh on our lips as we began the  study of Acharei Mot this year. This gastronomic phenomenon was particularly pronounced for those who read Acharei Mot last Shabbat because they observe seven days of Passover, including...

On Shabbat Hagadol, which immediately precedes Passover, we read from the Haftarah of Malachi in which God promises to send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the “great (gadol), awesome day of the Lord” (Malachi 3:23). On the night of the Passover...

Pull up a chair. I have a story to tell. I was traveling around Mount Ararat near the Armenian border on my way to Kurdistan just after the Turks released their grip on the ancient land. You will recognize Mount Ararat from the biblical account of Noah,...

By now, you would think we would be numb to it. Every day, across the globe, people die of gunshot wounds. In the United States, an average of 100 people a day are killed by guns, more than 36,000 each year. Hundreds more are shot and injured.  Perhaps...

I feel like I’m always walking around my house turning off lights in empty rooms. It bugs me to waste electricity, to waste money, lighting rooms unnecessarily. I do the same thing at my synagogue, too. But there’s one light at synagogue that never...