Individual and community: who is primary? Is it the citizen or the state; the individual or his community? When should individuals sacrifice their identities on the altars of social expectations and norms?   A Journey Bamidbar is the story of a transformational journey. It is the story of the small, G-d-fearing family that had immigrated to Egypt where they were later enslaved. After being freed they became fused into a mighty nation as they traversed the treacherous Sinai desert. The story however, is not as it might sound, one about the evoluti..

Anyone unwilling to make himself into an ownerless desert, cannot master wisdom and Torah - Bamidbar Rabbah 1: Heroic Courage This week, while training leaders in one of the largest police agencies in the United States, I found myself in the presence of an impressive group of courageous medal-bearing men and women who had placed their lives at risk to protect the communities they serve many times in their careers. Courage was not a challenge to them; rather it was a precondition of their work. Yet time and again during our discussions, these men and women identified and verbalize..