Category: Chumash Bamidbar

(print) From His-tory to Her-story Is G-d male or female? One day my son Ananiel and my two daughters, Leyadya and Ne'ema, burst into my study. They had obviously been fighting over something and were very upset. I could see that I was chosen to be the lucky arbitrator to resolve another case of sibling rivalry. They shouted at each other, "You go, you ask Daddy." "No, no! You go, you go." Finally Ananiel, who was age five at that time, took the challenge and said, "O.K., O.K. Daddy, isn't it true that G-d is a boy?" Ne'ema and Leyadya, ages eight and nine, had tears in their eyes. I could hear them silently pleading with me, "Please no, please no. Tell us it's not true. It's bad enough our brother is a boy. Surely, G-d is really a girl." I said to them, "G-d is not a boy and G-d is not a girl. G-d is beyond that. We may talk about...

(print) What is the greatest problem the Jewish people face today? Some would say assimilation: With thirteen million Jews estimated worldwide, what percentage of them are committed to Jewish tradition and Jewish continuity? According to the recent Pew report, after factoring out the Orthodox community, in North America alone, upwards of 70%of the remaining 4.5 million estimated Jews are or will most probably...

(print) Getting the Divine View on You How to make worlds of a difference And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the picture of the LORD shall he view ...

(print) It was a beautiful Sunday morning in June 1983, and I can still remember everything about that day. Most of us get excited at the prospect of travel to new places, imagining unforetold adventures and magical moments that lie ahead. After a long period of time studying in Israel I was finally leaving the country on a trip, so one would have expected me to feel excited, and in a glorious mood of anticipation. But this was a different type of trip; Israel was in the midst of the first Lebanon war, and, five months into my Israeli army service, we were headed into Lebanon for the first time; and I was anything but excited. After catching a public bus from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv...

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(Print) Prophecy 101: Ego is a Non-Prophet Venture This week we begin to read from the fourth of the five books of Moses. Although this book is referred to in English as the Book of Numbers, in Hebrew it is referred to as Bamidbar because of the opening verse; "And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness (Bamidbar) of Sinai ..." The Midrash, Jewish Oral Tradition, derives a somewhat puzzling insight from the fact that G-d spoke to Moses in the wilderness : Unless one makes himself hefker (open and ownerless) like a wilderness he cannot acquire wisdom and Torah. (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:7) In other words, to be receptive to the revelatory word of G-d you must be like the wilderness completely open and ownerless ...

(Print) Numbers; such a simple concept; too often taken for granted. But every once in a while you get the opportunity to appreciate all over again the significance of each and every number....

(print version) Does G-d Feel Sadness? Many years ago, when I returned from a trip to Israel, my parents picked me up at the airport and sadly told me that we were going to the funeral of my cousin, who had been killed in a car accident. At the funeral, the rabbi said something that angered me very much and challenged my faith in G-d. In his eulogy, the rabbi quoted a Yiddish saying: ...

(print version) 7 a.m.; the news comes on, and everything else just stops. Five names have been released for publication, of the thirteen IDF casualties in the previous day...

(print version) Making G-d's Will Ours...