Why were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed (as we read in this week’s Torah reading)? The Torah calls them wicked and sinners, but other than wanting to have their way with Lot’s visitors, the Torah doesn’t tell us much else. The rabbis offer several different explanations, including, corruption and thievery. But in some ways one...
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Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and I were all born in 1955 (in fact Bill Gates and I were born on the exact same day). All three of us dropped out of school (I beat them to the punch and dropped out of high school; they didn’t drop out until college!). All three of us...
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Seven years ago (!) I wrote the below d’var Torah on people who are opposed to the “two-state solution.” It is really and truly depressing how little progress we have made in the last seven years. Sigh. Hence, this deserves reposting, since no doubt no one remembers it from seven years ago. Reb Barry...
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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Everyone knows the famous words that open America’s Declaration of Independence. But are these truths self-evident? There have been civilizations, such as ancient Egypt, that believed certain people, such as their rulers, were gods. This week we start again the annual cycle...
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As I write this I am at sea, on my way home to Israel from Egypt (via Rome, which admittedly is the long way, but it’s the route that Herod followed as well). It is also the holiday of Sukkot, which the Torah tells us, “That your generations may know that I made the...
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I spent all of Yom Kippur last year in a hospice in Denver, Colorado. In an institution filled with people who were dying, one of whom was my mother. It was the most profound Yom Kippur experience I’ve ever had in my life; more than that, it was certainly the deepest spiritual experience I’ve...
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