It’s difficult to imagine that anyone dreams of becoming a census taker, of going door to door counting the number of inhabitants and recording their ages, their genders, their relationships, and then counting the number of rooms in their homes, even...

Nissan and Tishrei are arguably the most well-known Hebrew months because of Pesach and Rosh ha-Shanah; others like Tish’a b-Av, the 9th of Av, are known by their date, like the 4th of July. As we begin the fourth book of the Torah — B-midbar / Numbers...

When we enter the world of the Book of Numbers, Bamidbar, In the Wilderness, I harken back to the discomfort of my own camping experiences. There was always grumbling from me or my brother. Yet the wilderness is the place of revelation. True, its...

With Parashat B’midbar, we begin reading Sefer B’midbar, the Book of Numbers, which recounts the stories of the people of Israel’s time living in the midbar, the desert wilderness. It is to the midbar that the Israelites go upon leaving Egypt, and...

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...

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,...