There is a wonderful scene at the beginning of a recent episode of Hard Knocks featuring Buffalo Bills’ head coach Sean McDermott addressing the team in training camp. He shares a story from his college career at William Mary where…
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Torah Thoughts Eikev – Deuteronomy.7.12-11.25 “Our Burden and Our Joy”
One of the most surprising elements about the new HBO MAX documentary about Billy Joel, “And So It Goes,” is the singer’s Jewish story. His father’s family only narrowly escaped capture in the late 1930s. They owned a successful textile…
Torah Thoughts – Vetchanan – Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11 – “Making a Wish for Moses”
In preparation for her Bat Mitzvah, Lillie Greene and I took a closer look at the story of the sin Moses committed in the Book of Numbers of hitting the rock to produce water as opposed to merely talking to…
Torah Thoughts – Devarim – Deuteronomy.1.1-3.22 – “There Are Simply Not Enough Words”
There are 23,008 words in the book of Deuteronomy that we begin this week. But despite its length, Moses’ final speech to the Jewish people only seems to scratch the surface of what he needs to say. The length of…
Torah Thoughts – Matot-Masei – Numbers.30.2-36.13 – “The Rewards of the Journey”
Twenty-five years ago this summer, I sat down with a group of about fifteen people to plan what would become an unforgettable overnight camp. This would be the first overnight camp specifically dedicated to the philosophy of Mordecai Kaplan and…
Torah Thoughts – Pinchas – Numbers.25.10-30.1 – “The Power of Five”
Biblically speaking, women did not have a lot of power. But when you put five of them together, they could move the world. The five daughters of Zelophehad who star in this week’s Torah portion, Pinchas, are movers and shakers…
Torah Thoughts – Balak – Numbers 22:2-25:9 “Our Big Open Tent”
According to the Torah, the ideal Jewish space is not a bright, airy sanctuary, or a study hall thick with study. It is not an archeological dig, like the Western Wall, or the halls of the Israeli Keneset. The ideal…
Torah Thoughts – Numbers.13.1-15.41 – Sh’lach – “The Good Land”
There was never a question of whether it was good, the Promised Land was always full of possibilities. True it did not have the overflowing waters of the Nile or the Tigris or the Euphrates, nor the wildlife of Africa,…
Torah Thoughts – Beha’alotcha – Numbers.8.1-12.16 – “Time to Sound the Alarm”
When Moses wanted to get the Israelites attention, I mean really get the Israelites attention, he didn’t use the Shofar. No, as described in this week’s Torah portion Beha’alotcha, the instrument of choice was the trumpet, and more specifically the…