Archive for December, 2008

The real test of any leader is what he does when the chips are down — when times are tough. At the start of this week’s Torah reading, Vayigash (Genesis 44:18) the situation is grim.  The youngest son, Binyamin (Benjamin), has been arrested for stealing Joseph’s cup.  Joseph, the #2 man in all of...
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Today, December 29, the 2nd of Tevet, is the last day of Hanukah.  Normally a joyous holiday, a time when on a spiritual level we celebrate bringing God’s light into a dark world.  Today, instead, the world feels rather dark, with hundreds of people dying and many more being injured in Gaza, about an...
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Photo of child injured in rocket attack on Sderot, Israel. If you are tuned in enough to be reading this blog, you are tuned in enough to know that "Operation Cast Lead," Israel’s military response to ongoing rocket attacks from Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has begun.  The operation started earlier today, Saturday, December...
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* Thanks to Rabbi Daniel Goldfarb For Jewish charitable organizations struggling to make ends meet — what with the market down 40% in a year, and for organizations in Israel raising money in the US, a seriously sinking dollar causing the dollars to go less far — the news of Bernie Madoff’s $50-billion dollar...
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The International Herald Tribune had an excellent editorial on the Senate’s recently released report on the use of torture; an excerpt follows: Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President George W. Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain...
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I realized the other day that I have not created any blog entries about my "other job."  All my blogs have been about my rabbinic work, which these days is all done for free (even when I get an honorarium I donate it to charity), about making aliyah, comments on Israel, the weekly Torah...
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