PREVENTIVE MEDICINE I grew up in Stamford Hill in a shul known as Grove Lane or Stamford Hill Beth Hamedresh. It was the custom there, every Shabbat, to make a Mi Shebeirach LeCholim – a prayer for the sick, at the end of the layening. We follow this practice as well in St John’s Wood....
HOUSE-BOUND There is a gap between Liberation and Exodus. After the tenth plague struck, Pharaoh implored the Israelites to leave immediately. Nevertheless, the Exodus did not take place untilthe morning. Indeed the Israelites were commanded: “And no person shall leave the entrance of his house till morning.” (Shemot 12:22) The late Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (Festival...
ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE The drama begins. Pharaoh and the Egyptians are smitten by the plagues. Blood, Frogs, Lice, Pestilence, Boils and the rest. But Pharaoh’s heart is hard and he doesn’t let the Israelites go. What is significant about the first three plagues – the water of the River Nile turning to blood, the frogs...
WHY MOSHE? Open a Jewish Encyclopedia and you will find many individuals, over the course of Jewish history, who are called Moshe. Look more carefully, and you will see that apart from the first Moshe or Moses, the name doesn’t occur again for more than two thousand years. It seems that for a long time,...
THE PATRIARCH, PELE, AND THE POPE. From opposite sides of the world, tens of thousands of people have been paying their tributes this week to mourn the deaths of Pope Benedict XVI and football legend Pelé. Both the Vila Belmiro Stadium in Santos, Brazil, and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome were thronged as the faithful...
