Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron
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You are Loved!
Don...
Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny
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The Gift of the Given Moment
A Passover Thought from the Portion of Tzav
There are places in this world that are so powerful, so full of meaning that they allow us to tap in to why we are really here. Such a place is Emek HaBacha, The Valley of Tears. In this valley, deep in the Golan Heights, in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, a small group of men held off the might of the Syrian Armored Corps, and saved the State of Israel. There is a power to this place, and if you listen carefully to the wind howling through the hills, you can still hear the cries of the men who fell there.
We took a group of our students there a few years ago on Israel...
Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron
(click here for print version)
Unmasking Nature:
G-d...
Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny
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...
Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron
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Successful People are Unaccomplished
Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of solemn rest to the Lord....
Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron
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Purim: Secrets Behind the Purim Mask
Purim celebrates the salvation of the Jews from the wicked Haman's scheme to exterminate all the Jewish men, women, and children living in thePersian empirein the year 357 B.C.E., which essentially meant all the Jews in the world. Some of the commandments of Purim, such as hearing Megillat Esther, which recounts the Purim story, and enjoying a festive meal, are obvious ways to commemorate this deliverance.
Other commandments and customs have no apparent connection to what happened on Purim. Why are we required to give charity to the poor, send two food items to a friend, and get so drunk that we do not know the difference between Haman, the villain, and Mordechai, the righteous hero of the story? (This last commandment, I understand, is very rigorously kept in college dorms all year round.)
What is behind the customs to dress up in costume and to eat hamentaschen, delicious, sweet tarts named...
Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny
(click here for print version)
Sabra and Shatilla; for most of us, the names of these Arab refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon evoke images of controversy and confusion as the sites where Christian Phalange soldiers massacred over seven hundred civilians: men, women and children in September of 1982. And most people will associate this controversy with the question of whether Israeli troops controlling the area should have or even could have prevented these terrible events....
Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron
(click here for print version)
The Gift of Giving:
Love...