Reeh

Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.  …Deuteronomy 11:26 The Ben Ish Chai (chief rabbi in Baghdad during the mid-19th century) says that we should not read this verse as if it is saying God is setting both blessings and curses in front of us today.  What the heck, some...
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For the last year and a half I have been struggling with a guilty conscience about what I eat. And I don’t like the feeling. It’s not that I run off somewhere for an occasional secret bacon fix, God forbid. I still follow all the rules – at least the letter of the rules...
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“You are the children of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.” …Deuteronomy 14:1   This week’s Torah reading, Re’eh, cautions us against following the pagan mourning practices of the original peoples of the land of Canaan. We are not to physically...
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Every week we read of large numbers of people killed in Iraq by suicide bombers. One week the death count is 38; another week it’s 47. It happens so frequently that it almost gets hard to take notice. Oh, another few dozen killed in Iraq, what else is new? But the news out of...
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