Tag Archives: family

Crossing the Sea (Beshallach 5780)

Our parsha begins with an apparently simple proposition: When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the land of the Philistines, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led the people around by the desert […]

The Story We Tell About Ourselves (Bo 5780)

Sometimes others know us better than we know ourselves. In the year 2000, a British Jewish research institute came up with a proposal that Jews in Britain be redefined as an ethnic group and not as a religious community. It was a non-Jewish journalist, Andrew Marr, who stated what should have been obvious. He said: […]

The Weighing of the Heart (Vaera 5780)

In this week’s parsha, before even the first plague has struck Egypt, God tells Moses: “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and multiply My miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt.” (Exodus 7:3) The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is referred to no less than twenty times in the course of the story of the Exodus. Sometimes it […]