A Talmudic passage (Sotah 11a) offers a scenario relating to Pharaoh’s decision to enslave the Israelites and murder their male babies. “Said Rabbi Chiya son of Abba in the name …
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By Rabbi Marc D. Angel
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1/22/19
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At the recent wedding of the daughter of very old friends, I was enjoying the palpable joy at the tisch when the father of the bride asked me to lead Maariv.
I had a moment of angst as I …
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By Rabbi Binny Freedman
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1/22/19
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The concluding section of our parasha, Beshalach, contains the account of our ancestors’ mortal combat with Amalek, the marauding desert tribe that sought to destroy us after our departure from …
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By Rabbi David Etengoff
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1/16/19
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The late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach founded a synagogue in Berkeley during the 1960s in order to reach out to the many young Jews who had drifted away from Jewish tradition. He named it the House of …
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By Rabbi Marc D. Angel
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1/16/19
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Jewish history is a series of encounters with evil rulers. Pharaoh, whom we have been reading about up until this week’s Torah portion of Beshalach, was just the first tyrant who persecuted us. …
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By Rabbi Dr. Tvi Hersh Weinreb
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1/16/19
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On a whim, I checked out the website of a renowned Judaica store to see what’s available these days. That the only Judaica I really buy these days are books, and I felt a little out of …
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By Rabbi Avi Billet
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1/16/19
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May 1948. Tough times for the Jewish people, particularly for Jews struggling to claw out a place for themselves in a land they hoped to claim as their own.
A few months after the United Nations …
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By Rabbi Binny Freedman
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1/16/19
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Rabbi Yitzhak Shmuel Reggio, a 19th century Italian Torah commentator, offers an interesting insight concerning the plague of darkness in Parashat Bo. The Torah states that Egyptians spent three …
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By Rabbi Marc D. Angel
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1/10/19
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On that day, you must tell your child, ‘It is because of this that G-d acted for me when I left Egypt’.” (Shemot 13:8).
This is one of the best known pasukim of both our …
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By Rabbi David Ettengoff
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1/10/19
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One of the most revealing moments in the beginning of Parshat Bo comes when Pharaoh’s officials say to him, in advance of the pending plague of locusts, “How long will this [man] …
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By Rabbi Avi Billet
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1/10/19
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