There are three fundamental principles of Judaism that are set out in this week’s parsha. 1. The idea of equality and shared...

One of the earliest post-Holocaust stories, “Yossl Rakover Speaks to God” by Zvi Kolitz, is a visceral and raw account of the ramblings...

וְהָיָה, כִּי יְבִיאֲךָ ה אֱלֹקיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-אַתָּה בָא-שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ--וְנָתַתָּה אֶת-הַבְּרָכָה עַל-הַר גְּרִזִים,...

Dara Horn in her bestselling book “People Love Dead Jews” regales the reader with countless stories about the lives of dead Jews or...

לעילוי נשמת מאיר זאב בן מנחם מנדל הכהן In Memory of my maternal grandfather Ze’ev Racker on his 31st Yarzheit It seems an odd way to...

Today we live in a world riddled by conflict on the global, national and communal level. The most pressing question for contemporary...

Last week and this weeks parsha share many parallel themes. As a book whose theme is the growth of the nation it is natural that...

There is the famous adage: 2 jews 3 opinions. There is something quintessentially Jewish about argument. From the moment God invites...

If Bereshit is a book about the road to character of the individual and the family, Bamidbar is a book about the road to growth of the...

Ramban and Rashi disagree on the chronological placement of the Mishkan (tabernacle) narratives in the Torah. At the heart of their...

Dependence to Independence: Donald Winnicott, the renowned British paediatrician and psychoanalyst, presents an important theory of child...

" 8 And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying: It is because of that which the LORD did for me when I came forth out of Egypt. 9 And...

For a printable PDF please click here: parshat Ki Tissa broken tablets 5779 We all live between the first and the second tablets We all...

For a printable PDF please click here:parshat beshalach 5779 As humans we are inclined towards binary methods of seeing the world....

THE LAST KADDISH This shabbat I will say the last kaddish for my father ז”ל. I will stand as I have now hundreds of times and repeat the...

I share a short thought from a very long blog with slight reluctance.  We live in a world where memes and twitters are about the length...

Lecha Lecha – Altneuland (Herzl’s ‘Old New land’) – A musing on Avraham’s journey These words by T.S .Elliot in Little Gidding echo the...

It always bothered me that the whole of Ellul and the entire yom kippur davening was about penitence, shame, guilt and contrition. Still...

For a printable PDF version please click here: parshat chukat – The sound of Silence This article is in memory of אלכסנדר בן אלעזר and in...

For a printable PDF click here:Purim – on Hearing God in a Postmodern world ליעילוי נשמת אלכסנדר בן אלעזר – In loving memory of אבי מורי...