By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz When I rode a motorcycle in New York, I used to hang out at bars that catered to a very rough crowd. It amazed me that biker gangs made no attempt to hide their identity and affiliations. They wore their ‘colors’...
Tisha B’Av is one of the most intense days of the Hebrew calendar. A three week build-up, which ends with nine days of austerity, culminates in this day of crying and mourning. Every year, just before Tisha B’Av, Jews around the world...
The relationship between God and Israel began well before Israel became a nation. God chose Abraham, making promises to him about his descendants that seemed overambitious. But God kept his promises. He redeemed the Jews from Egypt with...
We've all done it; despite all of our good intentions, we make a bad mistake and we hurt someone we love. Full of regret, we apologize. But sometimes, apologies aren’t enough. When a borrowed car is returned with a bent fender, a trip to...
Imagine you walk into a room full of people and as soon as you step in, everybody stops talking and looks directly at you. How does that make you feel, knowing that they were obviously talking about you, saying things they knew you...
If one night, while watching television, a booming voice came down from heaven, identified itself as God, and told you to pick up and move, would you do it? Would you still hesitate if that voice performed astounding miracles, guided you...
Have you ever stood alone, finding yourself in the minority, uncomfortable with the positions and beliefs of those around you? For most of the Jewish people’s history, this has been the status quo. Guided by the Torah, they usually found...
For over 2,000 years, the people of Israel were scattered throughout the world, always vulnerable to the machinations and attacks of their enemies. With the modern miracle of the Jewish people’s return to the Land of Israel, this dynamic...
Leviticus goes into great detail concerning the disease of tzaraat, a spiritual malady that is similar to leprosy in presentation. But the first time this disease is described in the Bible is when Moses first encounters God at the Burning...
Chapter five of Isaiah presents one of the most famous parables in the Bible, known as the song of the vineyard. In it, Isaiah gathers the people together to pass judgment on a disobedient vineyard. Despite the owner’s efforts to care for...
