“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 […]

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’ […]

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 […]

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 […]