Hold On to Your Staff: Hold On to Your Dreams Life happens; we get busy, tired, distracted—and many times discouraged. Dreams that we once felt were in our reach slowly fade until, sometimes, we forget we ever had it at all. But in Jewish consciousness there’s a surprising lesson this week about holding on to […]

 Good—or Bad and Ugly: How to ArgueOver thirty years ago Sara shared a story with me she heard from one of the marriage counselors who trained her. He was called late at night by a neighbor in an apartment building who heard a couple yelling at one another and it seemed to be getting progressively […]

Korach felt slighted that Moses didn’t select him for a prominent communal position and found 250 leaders to join him in a rebellion.        And they rose up before Moses with two hundred and fifty men, princes of the congregation. (ibid. 16:2)One of the conspirators was Ohn ben Peles. The Midrash says that his wife convinced him to separate […]

Is common sense all one really needs in life (and Judaism)?   That’s what Annie Oakley said in one of Broadway’s most beloved musicals,Annie Get Your Gun.Folks like us could never fussWith schools and books and learnin’Still we’ve gone from A to Z Doin’ what comes naturally You don’t have to know how to read or […]

The last time a professional sports team from Washington DC won a national championship was 36 years ago when the Redskins won the Super Bowl-but that recently changed when the Washington Capitals defeated the Vegas Golden Knights to win the Stanley Cup. The arena in Vegas erupted the second after the Caps won. While Alex […]

There is no shortage of drama and tragedy in this week’s Parsha. The central narrative revolves around a group of 250 prominent people led by Korach, their outspoken and charismatic leader. He contested Moses and Aaron’s leadership. They gathered together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, ‘It is too much for you! […]

One Sentence Synopsis of this week’s Torah portion: A man named Korach convinced 250 men to join him in challenging Moses’ leadership and accuses him of placing his (Moses’) own interests before the rest of the people [due to his choice of his brother, Aaron, as Kohen Gadol (High Priest)]. The Almighty commands Moses to […]