The great transition is about to take place. Moses’ career as a leader is coming to an end, and Joshua’s leadership is about to begin.
Read these words that are among the most fateful and reverberating in all of Jewish history: Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize
Mark Twain said it most pithily: When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the
And so Moses dies, alone on a mountain with God as he had been all those years ago when, as a shepherd in Midian, he
The Talmud gives an ingenious reading to the line, “Moses commanded us a Torah, as a heritage of the congregation of Israel.” Noting that there
One reason religion has survived in the modern world despite four centuries of secularisation is that it answers the three questions every reflective human being
In a parsha laden with laws, one in particular is full of fascination. Here it is: If a man has two wives, one loved, the
Some commands in the Torah were understood so narrowly by the Sages that they were rendered almost inapplicable. One example is the ir ha-nidachat, the
On 14 October 1663, the famous diarist Samuel Pepys paid a visit to the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Creechurch Lane in the city of
On 27 March 2012, to celebrate the diamond jubilee of the Queen, an ancient ceremony took place at Buckingham Palace. A number of institutions presented
One of the most powerful addresses I ever heard was given by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, on this week’s parsha: the story
David Brooks, in his bestselling book, The Road to Character, draws a sharp distinction between what he calls the résumé virtues – the achievements and
