Father of Multitudes
Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"
Remember! Don't Forget!
Parashah Overview
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Moses reviews a wide variety of laws regarding family, animals, and property. (21:10–22:12)
Emor for Teens: Shabbat Sha-raps
The “Close to You” Mystery
All the Jewish endings come together every year. Here we are at the last Shabbat of 5770. We are almost at the end of the Torah, with just five chapters left to go. The old year is coming to an end.
The “Close to You” Mystery
All the Jewish endings come together every year. Here we are at the last Shabbat of 5770. We are almost at the end of the Torah, with just five chapters left to go.
Ain't No Room
In this week's parashah, Ki Tavo, we read: "You shall go to the priest and say to him, 'I acknowledge this day before Adonai your God that I have entered the land that God swore to our fathers to give us.
Torah Lessons My Father Taught Me
I was a student in my father's ninth grade religious-school class. What I remember the most all these years later is learning Torah from him and, most important, the practical ethical lessons we can apply to our lives from our most sacred text.
The Makeshift Sukkah: An Enduring Institution Framing an Eternal Covenant
The relatively brief Torah reading for the first day of Sukkot offers a quick summary of the who, what, when, where, and why of this sacred celebration-the third and final observance in the cycle of three pilgrimage festivals.
Ki Tavo: What Is Success?
"Success" is a song sung by the immigrant Jew, Tateh, in the Broadway play Ragtime. In the song, a father sings to his young daughter that "hope is in the air." They have journeyed to America, the new Promised Land, so that he can give his daughter a better life.
The Fugitive Aramean and You
". . . My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation" (Deuteronomy 26:5).