The Ten Commandments were inscribed on two tablets, on the first tablet, were five statements about the relationship between a person and his or her creator (God and parents). The second five focus on the relationship between a person and his or her peers. The design of the tablets teaches us, that in order to be complete, people must cultivate proper relationships with their peers just as much as they ...
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As different as the Super Bowl and the Siyum Hashas were, they nevertheless shared one thing in common: The desire of the human for connection and unity. It is our belief that since the human soul was created with a similarity to Hashem and with the obligation to increase and cultivate that similarity, it therefore seeks out Oneness. Hashem, as the Shema states, is One – He is uniquely one, ...
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We are now in the month of Shevat and approaching the onset of spring, heralded by TuBishvat. I would like to discuss some of the unique mitzvot that apply in the land of Israel. Many of the various tithes and agricultural taxes follow the seven cycle of the the Sabbbatical year, Shemitta. In the seventh year of the agricultural cycle, Shmittah, no new crops are planted and only maintenance work is ...
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Usually, we classify the mitzvot, commandments, of the Torah into commandments that pertain to our relationship with Hashem and commandments that pertain to our relationship with other people. There are some who had a third category, the commandments that govern the relationship between body and soul, in other relationship with the self. When we think about the commandment to remember the Exodus, we would be inclined to define it as being ...
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One of the famous questions that is asked regarding the Exodus from Egypt and the whole issue of the slavery of the Jews in Egypt is that, indeed G-d had actually told Abraham that his children would be slaves in a foreign land, he predicted the exile, He said the Jews would be enslaved. If so, the commentaries ask, then the Egyptians should not get punished, because they were fulfilling ...
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I recently gave a class on a Thursday night at a shul in Monsey on Forshay Road. Tragically, that was next door to the site of a horrific anti-Semitic attack this Chanukah. I taught using some ideas from two great Rabbis of Prague, the Maharal and Rabbi Yechezkel Landau (Noda BiYehudah). Prague was an extraordinary center of the Jewish community and Jewish learning. In Prague, the Altneu Shul, has been ...
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According to the Getty Museum ancient sculptors used canons—sets of “perfect” mathematical ratios and proportions—to depict the human form. The earliest known canons were developed by the Egyptians, whose grid-based proportions influenced Greek sculptors in the Archaic period (700–480 B.C.). Over time, sculptors and painters sought to create a canon that would allow them to depict the perfect human body—not a body based on a real person but a body ...
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Many people think that Chanukah is type of a festival of political independence, freedom fighters, patriots, something like a July 4th, or whatever, Jews fighting for political independence against the Greek Empire, or something to that effect. In truth, Chanukah is really a clash of cultures. It was the Hellenistic world view versus the Jewish world view. And these two cultures were diametrically opposed. The Greeks were bothered by the very ...
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As a young boy growing up in Melbourne, Australia, fall was almost non-existent and winter only meant that I had to wear shoes when playing outside and, occasionally, a parka. It never snows in Melbourne, and a brutal winter day can sometimes go down to the mid-40s. Immediately after I finished high school (in December, the beginning of the summer in Australia) I left to learn in Yeshivas ITRI in ...
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As we enter the month of Kislev, and the weather turns colder, we start thinking about Chanukah, menorahs, latkes and donuts. Some of us, of the more nerdy variety, start to think of Philo Judeaus, the Septuagint, Alexandria and Greek tragedies. One aspect of the Greek opposition to Torah was their objection to the idea that any one people could be “chosen” or have a Divine revelation. Their campaign against ...
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