Torah Portion

August 13, 2008

How to comfort and be comforted

By Rabbi N. Daniel Korobkin

Parshat Vaetchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11) God tells Moses that although he's faithfully led His people through the desert these past 40 years, and although the Jews are now standing at the very border of the Holy Land, Moses himself will never be allowed entry, and will die and be buried outside of Israel.

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Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Back to School

By Rabbi Dov Fischer

Parshat Devarim (Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22) Both the story of Bilaam and Targum Jonathan instruct us to see beyond the grand, deep, transformative moments of speech, and realize that each and every time we speak, we are taking advantage of a Divine gift.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Will herstory repeat itself?

By Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein

Parshat Masei (Numbers 33:1-36:13) With the recent on-court fracas of the WNBA, the historic presidential candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton and the real potential for both parties to nominate a woman for vice president, it's probably worth our while to consider where we have been, where we are and where we may go in regard to gender equality, both in Torah and in our time

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Correct priorities

By Rabbi Elazar Muskin

Parshat Matot (Numbers 30:2-32:42). But the question remains: What justification did Moses have that allowed him to denounce them so fiercely? How could he compare them to the scouts?

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The sins of our fathers

By Rabbi Karen Deitsch

Parshat Pinchas (Numbers 25:10-30:1) "God spoke to Moses, saying: 'Pinchas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the Kohen, turned back My wrath from the children of Israel with his zealotry for My sake ... Therefore ... I grant him My covenant of peace....'"

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

The power of speech

By Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky

Parshat Balak (Numbers 22:2-25:9) Both the story of Bilaam and Targum Jonathan instruct us to see beyond the grand, deep, transformative moments of speech, and realize that each and every time we speak, we are taking advantage of a Divine gift.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

The voice of wisdom

By Rabbi Daniel Bouskila

Parashat Chukat (Numbers 20:1-22:1) Who was Miriam? She is the only woman in the Torah who bears the title "Neviah" -- prophetess. So who was she?

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Rare Quality

By Rabbi Haim Ovadia

Parshat Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32) Moses could have stayed in the palace and enjoyed royal privileges, but he chose to commiserate with his brothers and, indeed, tried to save one of them by killing the Egyptian taskmaster.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Meditating spies

By Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater

Parshat Shelach Lecha (Numbers 13:1-15:41)

Why is there so much disillusionment, fear and unsettling behavior in this parsha? And what can we learn from the chaos?

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Gift of unanswered prayers

By Rabbi Dov Fischer

Parshat Beha'alotecha (Numbers 8:1-12:16)

When prayer is not answered, sometimes -- as the country singer Garth Brooks poetically has observed -- one reflects, stunned, and suddenly realizes that some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Craving trust

By Rabbi Dan Shevitz

Parshat Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89)

The good news is that God acknowledges our quest for certainty, even allowing God's holy name to be erased in the Sotah potion to help reconcile this husband and this wife

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Ingredients for a successful marriage

By Rabbi N. Daniel Korobkin

Parshat Bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20)

The prophet Hosea describes the relationship of God and Israel as a husband-wife relationship. Hosea himself did not have the happiest of marriages. God told him to marry a loose, immoral woman, so that he would know God's anguish over having a "wife" like the Jewish people who behaved scandalously in their religious choices during the prophet's era

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Contingencies

By Rabbi Debra Orenstein

Parshat Bechukotai (Leviticus 26:3-27:34)

" ,,,If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it
And -- which is more -- you'll be a man, my son!"

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Big Thinking

By Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater

Parshat Behar (Leviticus 25:1-26:2)

In the few courses that I have taken and books that I have read on management, one of the main components of success is the ability to engage in "big
visioning" or "blue sky" thinking.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Our place in this world

By Rabbi Mordecai Finley

The ancient rabbis were astute psychologists. They reflected on the inner life, not through theories, but through narratives, especially their analyses of and speculations on the narratives in the Torah.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Halacha is just a click away at online yeshiva

By Amy Klein

Like other virtual learning and videoconferencing, Web Yeshiva students see and hear each other and the instructor in the virtual classroom.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

In lieu of perfection

By Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky

Leviticus 19:1-20:27

Right there, in the shadow of the ever-popular "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," another mitzvah quietly sits: "Thou shall surely rebuke thy friend." And while this may seem rude or intrusive, the Torah regards the obligation of mutual rebuke as the engine of communal righteousness.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Truth in Storytelling

By Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein

It's too bad, but I didn't know from Pesach until rabbinic school at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Great Reveal

By Rabbi Karen Deitsch

Parshat Acharey Mot (Leviticus 16:1-18:30)

From now on, I'll only go on dates in pajamas.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

To tell the truth

By Rabbi Dov Fischer

Parshat Acharey Mot (Leviticus 16:1-18:30)

The traditional English translation for the disease tzora'at that is eponymous with this week's Torah portion, Metzora, is "leprosy." However, as our commentators explain, biblical leprosy was something very different from the bacterial leprosy of modern times that is attributed to the bacillus Mycobacterium leprae. Biblical leprosy traces to a different kind of disease, an infection permeating the spirit and the soul, the disease of lashon hara (or its Ashkenazic variant spelling, lashon hara): evil talk, tale bearing and gossip.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Cry of the Leper

By Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater

Parshat Tazria (Leviticus 12:1-13:59)

There comes a time, for each of us, when we stand face to face with our demons; it is in our response to this challenge that we often see some of the more beautiful moments in human life. In this week's parsha, Tazria, we find one of those opportunities.


Featured Stories

Arts
Herb Gold, elder statesman of the Beat Generation, writes on

It was at college that he first met Allen Ginsberg. "He was 17. He was a bit crazy, and he was more eccentric than I was," Gold said.

Food
Eating Bambi (recipe included)

Most of the anti-Semitic mail I get these days doesn't concern Israel, Hollywood or even the threat of a nuclear war in the Middle East -- it's about meat.

Israel
Israeli study: As negotiators, man smart, woman smarter

Forget the men when it comes to business negotiations. Women may be more skilled than their masculine counterparts, according to a new study by an Israeli researcher.

U.S.
Justice Arthur Goldberg, baseball’s Joe Berg spied for U.S. during WWII

Several prominent Jews spied for the United States during World War II, newly released documents show

Los Angeles
Ohr HaTorah ends 15-year trip in a walk down Barrington to a new home [VIDEO]

It was a sight Mar Vista doesn't see every day -- a guitar-studded procession of more than 100 Jewish revelers marching jubilantly down South Barrington Avenue with five Torah scrolls.

World
Ancient seal unearthed in Jerusalem; Leiberman reassures Muslims

A 2,600-year-old clay seal impression was uncovered in Jerusalem's ancient City of David. Bearing the name Gedaliah ben Pashur, the seal impression was uncovered intact recently during archaeological excavations just below the walls of the Old City near the Dung Gate.

Weddings
Sweet somethings for that special day

No matter how you serve up your wedding, you ultimately want your guests to leave with a good taste in their mouths

Music
Jazzman Frishberg charts own tuneful territory

One of the great joys of L.A. jazz, from the mid-1970s to the mid-'80s, was the blossoming of jazz pianist Dave Frishberg into a singer-songwriter of quirky, yet warmly satisfying, material.

Los Angeles
Ohr HaTorah ends 15-year trip in a walk down Barrington to a new home [VIDEO]

It was a sight Mar Vista doesn't see every day -- a guitar-studded procession of more than 100 Jewish revelers marching jubilantly down South Barrington Avenue with five Torah scrolls.

Calendar
Calendar Girls Picks and Clicks August 16-22: Politics, dance, education and music

Sports
Mark Spitz: Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympic athlete ever

Former record-holder is gracious as Phelps grabs the glory

Torah Portion
How to comfort and be comforted

Parshat Vaetchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11) God tells Moses that although he's faithfully led His people through the desert these past 40 years, and although the Jews are now standing at the very border of the Holy Land, Moses himself will never be allowed entry, and will die and

Religion
Randy Pausch’s last lecture links morality and purpose

"Brick walls are there for a reason," wrote the late Dr. Randy Pausch, author of the best-selling book, "The Last Lecture."

Opinion
The Great Awakening

The Rev. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church will hold back-to-back public conversations this Saturday, Aug. 16, with the two presumptive presidential
candidates, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. The conversations, on the topic of "Compassion and Leadership," will be