There is a biblical mandate to treat all people with equal respect. “Do nothing out of selfishness or conceit, but with humility consider others as more important than yourselves.” (Phil. 2:3) But is this how most of us conduct ourselves?…
Matot – A Place of Refuge
This week’s Torah portion contains a theme that in the ancient world was peculiar to the religion of Israel – the compassion, care and grace of their patron God. A historically popular approach to theology is to bifurcate of the…
Pinchas – Proper Enthusiasm
Listen to an audio version There are always two unseen guests at every bris, neither has been specifically invited, yet the spirit of each is evoked. Of course Elijah is the first unseen guest as he often is…
Chukat – Three Children of Amram, Two Strange Cows, and A Perpetual Living Stream
Listen to an audio version Parashat Chukat is among the most enigmatic in all of Torah. While it gives closure to the lives of Moses siblings, it opens three new mysteries in the fabric of Israel’s, story, a peculiar ordinance,…
Korach – You Say You Want a Revolution
Do you ever have, as one children’s book would describe it, a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”? Well, Moses sure did. In fact, it must have seemed to him like he had fourteen thousand six hundred days…
Shelach Lecha – Monsters, Giants and Other Formidable Obstacles
In the spring of 2002 I went to an art exhibit that was featuring a grouping of pictures painted by a good friend who was beginning the process of leaving the safety of a career as a commercial artist…