The outcomes of our efforts can exceed anything we thought possible   How superficial! Would you not be shocked if a rabbinic search committee told you the qualities they were looking for in their next rabbi, in addition to wisdom were physical strength, good looks, wealth, and old age? Well, these are the five leadership qualities enumerated by Chazal(Vayikra Rabbah 26:9) that set the Kohein Gadol (Chief Kohein) apart from his team. Really? How superficial! How limiting! What if there was a really good candidate who was saintly, empathetic and decisive ..

One day of Shavuot or seven? We have three festive holydays a year: Pesach, Shavuot, and Sucot. Pesach and Sucot are each seven days long. Shavuot is one day only….or is it? It is interesting that the only holyday that is not a week long, is called Shavuot “Weeks”! This is not only because of the weeks of the Omer. The Gemarra associates the name “weeks” specifically with the festival itself[1]. Two patterns overlay the Shavuot theme: a pattern of days and a pattern of weeks. Shavuot is both a single-day festival after 49 days of Omer counting, and also it is the week after seven weeks..

  A Mitzvah of Time and Place In our last Parsha Insight on Acharei mot-Kedoshim, we discussed the need to live simultaneously in the quantitative specified world ofHalacha and the mystical, immeasurable spiritual world too. We should be capable of functioning in a place unlimited by the three spacial dimensions and in a moment ungoverned by time. It is strange that the very next week in Parshat Emor, we are given the Mitzvah of Sefirat He’Omer that we are currently busy practicing. This is a mitzvah of counting time from a point in the past toward a point in the future. It i..