Tears and hope, fears and resolve, profound sadness and fierce determination – that is the mood in Israel this week. How ironic that this week’s double Torah portion is called “Akharay mot/Kedoshim”, which translates as “After death-Holiness.”

It was one of those difficult weeks where nearly every day I received a phone call about either a sudden death in the community or someone who had just discovered one form of cancer or another and was struggling with the “Why me?” question and the fear of death staring them in the face. It […]

I have thought often about where Didi and I were exactly a year ago, the last time we read this week’s Torah portion – on Safari in Kenya. How incredibly far from this world of ours with it’s hustle and bustle, cars and pollution and gadgets.

This week is one of the least popular bar or bat mitzvah portions in all the Torah. It is filled with laws for how to recognize and treat leprosy when it is found on one’s body, one’s clothes or in one’s home. Most kids are a bit squeamish about skin diseases so they search for […]

“What is your favorite thing to eat on Passover?” I asked a group of religious school kids last week. “Matzah!” they cried almost in unison. And then the voices of clarification began to appear: “Actually, it’s Matzah with peanut butter and jelly that I take to school for lunch,” one child said. “Matzah brei for […]

We are living in scary times. Bombs are being dropped and guided missiles sent to the heart of Baghdad. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, young men and women from across the United States and Great Britain are stepping into deadly combat even as you read these words. They are bravely staring the uncertainty of death […]

One of my favorite stories about parents and children is the one where a mother stands on her front porch watching as her young son struggles to lift a large stone that is obviously too heavy for him to manage. She watches in silence as he grunts and groans and strains to lift this heavy […]