This week’s Torah reading juxtaposes two seemingly unconnected mitzvos. The Torah tells us about the Nazir – a person who took a particular oath and then needed to abstain from wine, from cutting ...

How do Moses and Isaac connect to academia and barn dancing? To answer, I’d like to quote my favorite and most oft-cited dvar Torah, which is from this week’s parsha. It starts with a concisely ...

Everybody who knows the Passover Seder knows the famous text of “Why is this night different from all other nights”. Some may even recall that there are four such expressions and even a few of us may ...

I had been engaged in dialogue for two years with an imam from the Middle East, a gentle and seemingly moderate man. One day, in the middle of our conversation, he turned to me and asked, “Why do you ...

Twenty years ago the physician and Zen Master, Jon Kabat-Zinn, wrote a book he called “Where Ever You Go There You Are.” The book’s title has stayed with me and it has helped me to focus not only on ...

In her recent The Watchman’s Rattle, subtitled ‘Thinking our way out of extinction’, Rebecca Costa delivers a fascinating account of how civilizations die. Their problems become too complex. Societies ...

Ha’azinu is the song Moshe sings to the people on the last day of his life. He tells them what he wants them to most remember, as they go on with their lives, and he finishes with these words: For it ...

So much of Torah is metaphor. Indeed, if we read this classic Jewish text only according to its plane meaning we miss the greater truths and the richer opportunities for understanding and ...

Torah IQ by David Woolf is a compendium of riddles on the Torah, holidays, festivals and various halachot that will keep your family riveted to the Shabbos table long after the cholent has released ...