The authors of Pandemics and the Great Evolutionary Mismatch discuss a scientific conundrum inherent in social distancing. Although social distancing is effective in slowing the spread of the disease, history and neuroscience have shown that in times of crisis, people do best when they have social interactions as a support system. When you remove that option, people have […]
This week’s Parsha continues discussing the harmful effects of lashon hara, senseless negative speech. Many people don’t take speech seriously, speaking about others without regard for their feelings or the potential damage it can cause. King Solomon wrote, Life and death are in the hands of the tongue. One explanation in the Talmud is that negative talk has the […]
You are about to walk across a bridge and you see a man frantically running toward you. You ask “what’s going on?” He answers, “my life has no hope; I am going to jump off the bridge!” This exact incident happened about 150 years ago to one of the most prominent Rabbis of that time. […]
Here’s the challenge: It’s 1922 and you are a Rabbi in oppressive, human rights violating, Communist Russia. What words of wisdom or encouragement would you give to your flock on Passover? How could you talk about freedom when some of their basic human rights were being denied? R’ Moshe Feinstein was in this situation 99 […]
When someone has to do a task that (s)he isn’t looking forward to, it’s common to hear “it’s not very glamorous, but somebody has to do it.” Which means, “this is really awful and meaningless but I have to do it.” But is there another—more positive—way to view these actions, and it is found in […]
Margin/märjən/the edge or border of something. Although margins are important for books, we don’t talk enough about the need to leave space for margins in life. In The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients, Irvin Yalom, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Stanford, says that he never schedules back-to-back appointments. […]
Unlocking Your Potential without Destroying It[The following idea is from a classic 19th century Chassidic work called Mei HaShiloach (Living Waters) addressing one of life’s great challenges: On one hand we need to realize our significance and that we were created for a unique purpose but at the same time we should realize that our accomplishments ultimately come […]
Smiles are a way of gaining people’s trust. When we meet someone and they have a smile on their face, we are much more likely to trust them than if they have a stern face or some other appearance. The obvious question is, we all know that it is easy to fake a smile; how […]
John T. Molloy wrote the highly popular Dress for Success over45 years ago and its message still resonates. Here is an excerpt from a review written by someone who read it decades ago.“I read Dress for Success when I was a skinny, baby faced teenager. I was so impressed by the book’s research and conclusions that I […]
Wearing a mask was once child’s play but one year ago, the role of masks changed dramatically. We now understand that wearing a mask can be a matter of life and death – for us and those around us. In the book Simple Words: Thinking About What Really Matters in Life, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz devoted an entire […]
The information age has placed a particular emphasis on data. Whatever question we have, we expect that someone already answered our question and posted it online. If we want to know a particular statistic, we expect that it exists and all we need is a google search to find it. A recent article discusses how this trend […]
Imagine a couple standing under the chuppah googly-eyed and in love. The rabbi speaks about the beauty of marriage and the significance of the day. Then, all of a sudden, the bride starts listing her set of rules for the marriage. “Make sure to close the toothpaste, keep the toilet seat down, take out the garbage, pay […]
Last year The Wall Street Journal had an article about a new way companies are reaching their customers: email (The Hot New Channel for Reaching Real People: Email). Yes, the medium that many deem as archaic and on its way out, is actually making a comeback for certain purposes. In fact, recent studies have shown that money […]
Manna makes its first appearance in this week’s Parsha. It is more a concept than a food; it’s actually an ideology. The modern thinker finds it difficult to accept that millions of people were fed each day with food descending from heaven.We look at manna as a miracle because it came in a way that didn’t use […]
Why did it take two years from the beginning of the Civil War for the Union to accept African Americans for full service? Racism still existed but they were able to set it aside for the bigger purpose of defeating the South. By the end of the war, even the South accepted slaves for service […]
The sinking of the Titanic on her maiden voyage was a great nautical catastrophe but the real tragedy is that it could have been avoided. Many mistakes were made but one of the most foolish was that the ship’s radio operators received 21 warnings of ice, all of which were ignored. The Titanic serves a metaphor for Pharaoh, the […]
Imagine a soldier in the U.S. army on kitchen duty who was told by a General to speak with him after dinner about an important covert mission. Would this soldier need permission from his Sergeant? Whether it is the head football coach changing a play or a CEO overruling a district manager, all understand that […]
Mario Zacchini, Sensational Human Cannonball, Dies at 87” was the headline of New York Times obituary for the last survivor of an era of men whose livelihood consisted of being propelled from a cannon across a circus tent into a net. He once said, “flying isn’t the hard part; landing in the net is.” Some people […]
Rabbi O’s Weekly Parsha: Vayigash (Genesis44:18-47:27) imagine the days before photos, fingerprints, and other ways to positively identify someone. If someone came to town claiming he was Person X, how could he prove it? Imagine a man marrying a woman and vanishing a week after the marriage and then showing up many years later. The […]
Pharaoh, the tyrant who would eventually enslave the Jewish people, had two dreams. The first involved seven robust cows emerging from the Nile and pasturing in the marshland. Then, seven emaciated cows emerged from the Nile and devoured them. The second dream involved seven healthy ears of grain growing on one stalk and seven thin, […]
The Talmud tells the story of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa’s daughter being sad one Friday after she had mistakenly put vinegar rather than oil into the Sabbath lamp. Rabbi Chanina responded, “Don’t worry, the One who told the oil to light, will tell the vinegar to light as well.” The lights remained burning the entire […]
The following is based on an address given in the Warsaw Ghetto on November 25, 1939. It discusses the Biblical story of Jacob’s wrestling an angel. This story obviously has much allegory as to the nature of the battle. In classical Jewish wisdom, the angel represents Jacob’s nemesis, his brother Eisav (Esau). Eisav is not only a physical person, […]
hen Jacob was fleeing from a brother who sought to kill him and (Jacob) was also looking for a wife; he had a vivid dream. He saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and angels of G-d were ascending and descending on it … (Genesis. 28: 12-17)He ended up being successful in […]
Abraham clearly left Isaac as his successor but who would take over after Isaac? There were two sons; would it be the upstanding Jacob or the deceitful Easu? Rivka (Rebecca), their mother, took leadership of the situation and knew that Jacob was the rightful heir and was the mastermind behind a scheme, which required deception, […]
Imagine yourself out of town on business. You want to work out in the local gym but don’t have a membership and they don’t sell one day passes. You might say, “I’d like to ask for a special favor. I’m not a member but could you be kind enough to let me use the facilities […]
And he (Abraham) lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold three men stood over him; and when he saw them, he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and bowed down to the earth, and said: ‘My lord, if now I have found favor in your eyes, pass not away, please don’t pass by […]
This week’s Parsha introduces us to the first Jew, Abraham. During one of his early travels, a seemingly insignificant detail is given:And from there he relocated to the mountain, east of Bethel and pitched his tent there… (12:8)There seems to be gratuitous, insignificant details. After being informed of his new location, why do we need to know […]
The story of Noah and his generation needs no introduction. Civilization was collapsing; every sphere of society was crumbling. G-d tells Noah to build an ark and take refuge there with his family; the world was about to be flooded.When did Noah actually go in to the Ark?And Noah went in and his sons and his […]
(Introduction: Cain and Abel were sons of Adam and Eve. Each son brought an offering. Cain’s offering, which was from inferior produce, wasn’t accepted by G-d; Abel’s offering was.)Cain was upset at being rejected; G-d asked,…why are you so angry and why has your face fallen? If you improve yourself, you will be forgiven. But if you will […]
Today is the final day of Sukkot, which will conclude with Simchat Torah and the reading of the final Parsha of the Torah. In it, Moses died alone on a mountain with G-d, just as he had been alone with G-d years earlier when he caught sight of a bush in flames and heard the […]