Shabbat Bereishit, 5778   From Sukot to Bereishit Shabbat Bereishit [1] is a moving moment in the calendar. The story of the Creation arouses primal feelings and mystical thoughts. The story is about miracle, Garden of Eden, talking snakes and fiery angels. Yet it is also about the rational science, nature and psychology. Science and miracle; an oxymoron? No, I shall argue, a polarity that requires the embracing of both especially when striving to live a spiritual life in modern times. This year Shabbat Bereishit is somewhat eclipsed by the long weekend of Shemini Atzeret and ..

Missed Opportunity I confess; I am a serial procrastinator. When faced with a deadline, I will happily do anything else before attending to the matter at hand. It is amazing how, when facing an urgent time line, I suddenly become aware of countless other things that need my attention; things that when I had the time, escaped my attention entirely. So, as I open the first chapter in the Shulchan Aruch (the four-section 16th century code of Jewish law and practice), I am shocked by the first paragraph in the section dealing with the Yomtov (holyday) of Sukot: “It is a mitzvah to p..

Space and Time change things Sukkot is a time when we are invited as guests into a space that is not our own. The Sukkah is a space that belongs to Hashem, and into which we are invited as royal guests. If you place something ordinary in an extraordinary space, it acquires some of the extraordinariness of that new space. Imagine taking a rather ordinary painting out of the back room of a pawnshop, framing it majestically and placing it in one of the prime halls of an art gallery. Clearly the painting’s new lofty surroundings will uplift its glamour and immediately enhance its value. We..

  Bereishit 22 Halacha: A Multi-Dimensional Reality Imagine how the world would appear to you if you were able to see it only with two dimensions, and had never ever used three. A cylinder seen from its top would look like a circle, and seen from its side would look like a rectangle. How tumultuous life would be if some of us could only see with two dimensions, and others with three! Imagine how the world would look if we had access to an extra dimension or two? Just as the two-dimensional person looking at the rectangle would be incapable of imagining how you or I saw a cylind..