14th November 2014/21 Cheshvan 5775 Our Torah is “TORAT CHAYIM” –a Torah of Life. It addresses the life of human beings and wastes almost no time on issues such as how angels live in heaven… One of the most basic facts of human life is that all of us are bound to die. Each and […]

weAnochi A’far waEfer – I am (merely) dust and ashes When Abraham learns of the Divine intention to wipe out the entire wicked city of Sodom, he entreats before the Supreme Judge to save the city even for the sake of a small minority of righteous people in it. This back and forth verbal exchange […]

Getting Drunk “Noah, the tiller of the soil, planted a vineyard” [Genesis 9:20]. Was he the first to discover the secret of producing wine? Rashi explains that Noah took with him saplings of grapevines and figs to the ark, but he does not draw a conclusion that before the flood Noah was a drinker. It […]

Why did our tradition assign this time of year as the season of repentence and forgiveness? Rabbinic tradition claims that Moses went down with the second set of Tablets of covenant on the 10th Tishrei, so on that date all realized that the sin of the Golden calf was forgiven. The Biblical text does not mention […]