Our natural inclination at this time of the year is to focus upon the phrase, zacher l’yetziat Mitzraim (a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt. This is the case, since one of the major mitzvot … more

There are many steps that we ascend on our journey towards the holiday of Passover, including the special Sabbaths that precede it. holiday. I fondly remember the wise old rabbi whose little … more

One wonders whether the Mashiach and the redemption he is meant to bring still have not come because we are still waiting for him, or because he is still waiting for us. There is a story … more

The Sages understood tsara’at , the theme of this week’s parsha, Metzora, not as an illness but as a miraculous public exposure of the sin of lashon hara , speaking badly about people. … more

T he primary focus of our parasha, Tazria, is the illness known as tzaraat . In his commentary on the Torah, the Rashbam presents the unique nature of this disease: All of the sections dealing … more

I created a program several years ago called ParshaDrama, in which I go to a school and present the weekly Torah portion to different grades through a combination of storytelling and dramatics, … more

There was a time when I would only go out of my way to listen to speakers who were older and more experienced than I. Recently, however, I changed my preferences and began to seek out rabbis and … more

I t was the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, that translated tsara’at, the condition whose identification and cleansing occupies much of Tazria and Metzora as … more

Years ago, I had the opportunity to take a long-overdue vacation with my family in Walt Disney World. For our children, who had just spent the better part of a year dealing with the day-to-day … more

He was an old man, and in many ways came from a very different world than I. And yet he taught me more than anyone else ever did. One of the things he taught me was that no one suffers as much as a … more