In this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach, we read the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18), a poem which was sung by the Israelites after they had crossed the Sea of Reed. Immediately afterwards, we read the following verse: [perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]‘Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a […]
Shall We Sell our Sanctity for Silver?
In this week’s Torah portion, parashat Bo, we read about the death of the Egyptian first-borns, which results from Pharaoh’s unwillingness to let the Israelites go. When I read these verses, I can not even fathom the horror that every Egyptian family must have felt after they had woken up in the morning only to […]
Pharaoh’s hardened heart: the most terrible plague
This week’s parasha, Vaera, deals with one of the most spectacular displays of divine power in the entire Hebrew Bible – with the ten plagues of Egypt. We can only marvel at the scope of divine intervention, which involves a wide variety of animals and (super)natural phenomena unleashed on the people of Egypt. Our focus […]
To Assimilate or Not to Assimilate – That is the Chanukkah Question
Every immigrant would agree that first years abroad are extremely difficult, as one needs to get settled into a new reality. The challenge of these initial years prevents many people from moving to more affluent countries. However, the challenge is even bigger when one never wanted to leave his homeland; when one was forced to […]