Being busy on Shabbat: “Six days thou shalt work, and on the Seventh day…” you shall be busy! Busy indeed are the people who attend Shabbat program at ‘Beit Warszawa’ in Warsaw. They begin 9:30-10:30 with a study session of Talmud, led by Rabbi Nativ using Hebrew, Aramaic, English, and Polish alternatively. The morning service, […]
Ki Tetze – The Body and the Soul
5th September 2014/10 elul 5774 The mutual influence of the soul on the body and the physical condition of a man on his soul is not a ‘discovery’ of modern medicine. In many issues the Torah expresses this mutual influence. One of them is the Torah’s attitude to skin diseases, which are called by the […]
Bo -5773
“This month is for you the first of months, it is the first month of the year” [Exod. 12:2]. According to our Sages, this was the first mitzvah that the Israelites received as a people, and the legal core of the Torah begins here! Beginning a new calendar by fixing the first month of spring […]
Ekev – 5774
The Hebrew language teaches us much about the logic and the values of our ancestors. Different words and terms share the same three-consonant-stem (in Hebrew: ‘shoresh’ =root) point out the dependence or the common denominator which the ancient Hebrew speakers believed these words and terms have, e.g. the noun ‘Shalom’ =peace, and the adjective ‘shalem’ […]
Shoftim – 5774
Capital Punishment –When and why? In the Torah death is the appropriate punishment not only for murder but also for a series of other crimes: Rape of a married or a betrothed woman, adultery, beating one’s parents, and even deliberate desecration of the Sabbath Day… This weekly portion of ‘Shoftim’=Judges, imposes a restriction on court […]
The Night of the Jewish “Valentine’s Day”
The night of the Jewish “Valentine’s Day” -15th of the month of Av (Tu B’Av, August 11/12, 2014) is a popular day for weddings. It is the night of a full moon. We had no ready- made Chupa and had to build it by ourselves. Three of the people holding the Chupa are Jews by […]
Reeh 5774
There is almost nothing more constant in human life than change. Each of us changes as we move from one stage in life to the next. Societies and cultures change with accumulated collective experience. Even the mitzvoth which were handed to us by former generations of Jews have been transformed radically since they were first […]