By Chaim Barzel We have all made New Year's resolutions: to eat healthier, to get to sleep earlier, to make up with an old friend, etc. That is because the new year is a time of renewal. A new year means the opportunity to start over, and...
There are many days that are auspicious, commemorated for a powerful event that happened on that date, earning them personal or even national significance. Birthdays and national holidays are like this. The same is true for sad days...
Leviticus (chapter 24) relates the story of a fight between an Israelite man and a half-Israelite man. The half-Israelite man was the son of Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, from the tribe of Dan, and his father was an Egyptian. In the...
In a divine tour de force, God brought the Children of Israel out of Egypt with miracles and wonders including the ten plagues and the splitting of the sea. Never before had men witnessed such direct proof of God’s actions. Nonetheless,...
As part of building the Tabernacle, God instructed Moses to place the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments into the Ark of the Covenant. But, as we know, there were two sets of tablets; the first, inscribed by the finger of God, was cast...
After leaving Egypt and receiving the Torah at Sinai, the Jews were commanded to build a Tabernacle. At the epicenter of the Tabernacle was the Ark of the Covenant into which were placed the stone tablets. What is the Ark of the Covenant?...
After a brief introduction and a review of how the Children of Israel ended up at the banks of the Jordan River ready to inherit the Holy Land at the beginning of Deuteronomy, Moses begins to review some of the laws and commandments that...
Most of this week’s Torah portion involves various civil laws which help govern a kind and generous society. The portion begins with the laws of slavery, which, when compared to the norms of society in Biblical times, are particularly...
