Thoughts on parashat Nitzavim-Vayelech.
Human beings are religious beings. This means we have a natural tendency to develop religion or something that metaphysically deals with the problematic mystery of human existence. Every time human beings want to get rid of religion something else fills this gap and becomes
Thoughts on parashat Ki Teitzei.
Human beings are more prone to be preoccupied with the negative aspects of our existence and tend to ruminate more about unpleasant events. In general, there is not much we can do about this: that’s how our brains have evolved throughout millions of years of evolution – this
Thoughts on Parashat Shoftim.
Is it possible to eliminate crime completely? How about at least eliminating the worse crime, murder? It probably is possible. Here is a scenario: We lock all the people in individual prison cells and we construct our societies that way. It would require three social castes: prisoners
Thoughts of Parashat Re’eh
How do you know if those you think are wicked are really wicked? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said that there is no absolutely evil person in the world and no one who is absolutely good either (paraphrasing his famous saying which I quoted in my drasha a few weeks ago). Similarly, the
Thoughts on Parashat Va’etchanan.
Love of God is a basic concept of our faith. Although the idea that the Supreme One reciprocates this love, at all times, is theologically problematic, our history indubitably contains records of the immense love He bestowed upon us – His people. To earn the title of God’s
Thoughts on parashat Devarim.
Prayer is the salient expression of religious emotion and of man’s relationship with God. Presumably every religious person has asked themselves this question: how much prayer do I need in my life and does it make my connection to God stronger? There may be many answers to this
Thoughts on parashat Mattot-Masei.
Recently I re-watched an American classic “Saving Private Ryan”. The main character of the story, Captain John H. Miller, played by Tom Hanks, (spoiler alert) was killed by a German soldier whose life was spared earlier by captain Miller himself, in an act of benevolence and mercy.
Technological progress and the speed of information exchange in the modern world has many advantages. We have at hand basically whatever we need: we can buy almost anything we want within minutes and have it in our hand the next day, we can order tickets to visit countries we have never been and book hotel rooms, we
We live in times that are ideologically polarized. Although this polarization often seems to be more evident and severe in the “virtual world” (internet, media), the “real world” is not immune. It is then we experience its effects much more painfully. This “virtual polarization,”
Refleksja nad paraszą Bahaalotecha.
Van Nuys, jedna z północnych dzielnic Los Angeles, poniedziałek ok. godziny 17. Dziennikarka jednej z telewizji rozmawia z kilkoma osobami zgromadzonymi przed sklepem spożywczym. Wszyscy z nich to Afroamerykanie, dwóch spośród mężczyzn trzyma dubeltówki. Jak wielu innych w okolicy, chronią