By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz Israel just held its fifth election in three years. For a while now, Israel has been struggling to find a leader who can form and maintain a coalition made up of different parties, each with their own interests...
The Holocaust, a systematic attempt to exterminate the Jewish people carried out by the German Nazi party during World War II, is a dense cloud of darkness in human history that should never be forgotten lest we descend again into the...
By Rabbi Elie Mischel As we read about the awe-inspiring and history-altering moments of Abraham and Sarah’s life, there is another, parallel story that we read about in the Bible – the story of their relationship. It’s a more subtle...
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz I have a special personal connection with this week’s Torah reading. 31 years ago, I was a chef in a fancy restaurant in Manhattan. I had a cool motorcycle and lots of cash to party and play. I had long hair and...
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz The Biblical story of Noah is probably the most universally known story. Everyone knows that Noah built an ark, brought in the animals and saved his family. But perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of the...
I bought my house a few years ago. I understand that buying a home is serious business but I was totally unprepared for the thick pile of pages I had to sign. When I finished signing one pile of documents, the bank officer produced...
When I went away to college and began dating seriously, with every girl I met I heard that voice in the back of my mind that had been put there since my bar mitzvah; make sure she’s Jewish. It seriously limited my options but greatly...
Who wouldn’t want free real estate? So when God first approached Abraham and said he was giving his descendants the land of Israel, of course, he said ‘yes!’ But why did God make the offer? Was it because the Jewish people were so...
Esau returned home from the field to find Jacob cooking lentil stew. Famished from a tiring day of hunting, Esau demanded that Jacob give him some lentil stew to eat, Jacob agreed on the condition that Esau would sell him his birthright....
The Torah says that Ishmael was a wild child, whose bad behavior caused him to be kicked out of the household of Abraham. Sarah sees Ishmael’s evil practices and banishes him and his mother Hagar out of their home. Ishmael goes on to...
