For me, the greatest love story is the story of Yaacov and Rachel. It’s on my mind because this is the Torah portion of the week. When you read the story, you get a feel for how much Yaacov loved Rachel. It was a love so deep he was willing to give his life for …
Can you teach someone to understand you? I thought about this for many years and after all this time – I think the answer is no – I don’t believe you can. It doesn’t mean someone can’t come to understand you. But it does mean you can’t teach them to. No matter what you say …
One of the most beautiful things about life is meeting people. I met a guy tonight and asked him what brought him to Israel. He said all his life he was an agnostic – he didn’t believe in anything at all. Back in February, for the first time in his life, he fell in love …
In light of everything going on in the world, I’ve been thinking a lot about the jarring dissonance and incompatibility of a cruel world and a loving G-d. The topic is mind-boggling because it defies understanding. On the one hand, part of existence is incomprehensibly hellish and heartless. Yet, on the other hand, life is …
The greatest journey one can embark on is when you crack open a book; all the more so with beginning the Torah. The Torah contains within it a whirlwind of ideas and insights, hopes and aspirations. It is in essence the story of what it means to be human. In that sense, going through the …
The next 7 days is Sukkah, a time where Jews literally move out of their houses and make a hut-like structure their homes. The thrust of Sukkah is a time to work on being happy. And we do that by living in a flimsy, highly vulnerable, fragile structure, providing only the barest protection from the …
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I wanted to personally work on this upcoming year; I have plenty of personal work but nothing really moved me. But I ended up stumbling upon some family videos, some dating 10-20 years ago. I thought it would have been nice to watch a time that is bygone. …
Yom Kippur, the day that Jews fast and repent, can best be defined by the statement of Socrates that an “unexamined life is not worth living.” On Yom Kippur, we embark on a journey of introspection, and by doing so, we confer meaning and purpose to our lives. The essence and greatness of a human …
Who is man? Is he the one who flew an airplane into the Twin Towers? Or is he the one who gave up his life trying to save people? I don’t think this is a mere philosophical musing. How we understand the nature of man affects if we hope or despair about our fate. And …
Last night for the first time in my life I went to a wedding of an older couple probably somewhere in their 50s and it was freaking awesome. It was soooooo different than a typical wedding of a younger couple. First, I feel like for young people to get married they have to get bamboozled. …