There are not ten Commandments in the Decalogue; there are only nine. There are ten Statements though, which is why we call them the Asseret Ha'Dibrot (Ten Statements), not the Ten Commandments. According to the way we count the Decalogue, the first is not a commandment at all, it merely states: “I am Hashem your Divine Power[1] who removed you from Egypt, from a place of slavery.” (In the Christian version, the first commandment includes:  “You shall have no other gods before me;” but in the Torah this is part of the second statement.) There seems to be no ..

We run the risk of losing the Halachik soul of our Jewishness even as we become increasingly meticulous in the observance of halachik detail. We need coaches and mentors, leaders who live and act as Jewish princes and princesses, and who have the talent and the courage to teach this to the world. Halacha vs. halacha Yes, halacha (with a small h) omits many important principles. These principles are however included in Halacha (with a capital H). What is the difference between Halacha and halacha? What important practices does halacha leave out of..

A common way to manage apparently irreconcilable difference is to find the middle ground, but compromise rarely satisfies either position. There is another way. Imagine the two different positions as offshoots on two branches of a tree. If the tree is large there could be a considerable distance between these two offshoots. Imagine further that all you see is the offshoots, not the rest of the tree. These two offshoots appear to share nothing in common. As soon as you see the context in which these two offshoots live and grow, however, you realize they are part of one tree and share a com..