Reflections from my trip down the memory lanes of a lost world On the surface many of them looked no different from the non-Jewish aristocracy of their time, but when they served Hashem in study and prayer, they were like angels of G-d. Their ways were the ways of pleasantness and all of their pathways were peaceful.   Straight From the Jungle Last Sunday and Monday in South Africa I was tracking leopards in the bush, parked in the middle of a herd of elephant and staring at a large male lion less than twenty feet away. Isolated from the world and immersed in the wonders of ..

  Questioning The Torah embraces questioning. Like a teacher secure in his brilliance, the Torah becomes even more vital by questioning. As long as we encourage questioning the Torah will never become mindless dogma or intimidating fundamentalism. Questioning guards the truth, sharpens the mind, and invigorates our thinking.  We teach our children at our Pesach sedarim to question and challenge. Talmudic methodology is built on question and challenge. No question seems to be out of bounds. Torat Emmet (the Torah of Truth) can withstand any questioning; ..

  The charge of nepotism Almost every year for Parshat Korach I try to understand anew, the underlying core issue of the Machloket (divisive argument). It is not that I am dissatisfied with my earlier interpretations. Rather, I believe part of the purpose of interpreting any Torah, but especially Parsha, is not to just to reach deeper textual understanding, but also to gain insight into very current and contemporary issues. So, when we look at Parsha, we are inevitably looking at it from the angle of our own experiences in the present. That is the meaning of&nb..