HEAVY LIFTING When Rachie and I were first married, we lived in Jerusalem while I was studying at the Mir Yeshiva. I remember one occasion when I arrived at an apartment building to visit a friend. At the same time, a van arrived and the driver proceeded to unload a fridge, which was to be delivered to a resident on the third floor. I stood, aghast, wondering how the driver, a middle-aged Russian oleh, who was not much more than five feet tall, was going to get the fridge up all those stairs in an apartment block without a lift!...
FOUR FACES OF LEADERSHIP What does it take to lead under Covid times – or indeed at any times? What are key qualities that are needed by a Prime Minister or President, Chief Medical Officer or Head of NASA’s Mars Perseverance Team, home-schooling parent or community Rabbi? Our mystical text, the Zohar, uncovers a key message from what is absent in this week’s parsha. Moses enjoyed a privilege above all other prophets and sages in our history: G-d spoke directly to him. From the beginning of the book of Exodus to the end of the Torah, his name is mentioned...
WHOLE AND BROKEN Former Prime Minister, Tony Blair spoke very movingly at one of the memorial events for the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. He mentioned how they had studied bible together. I recall Rabbi Lord Sacks once recounting a question that Tony Blair had asked him: Why is there so much detail in the passages dealing with the Tabernacle, when this was only of temporary use? What would you have said? Rabbi Sacks’ answer was stunning in its simplicity. He pointed out that it only takes the bible thirty-four verses to create a universe but it takes hundreds of...
GOING THROUGH THE DOOR There is a curious law that is described at the beginning of our parasha. A Hebrew slave who had served his six-year term and was entitled to go free but chose to stay with his master, was required to have his ear pierced. After the judges decided that this genuinely was the slave’s wish then “his master … shall take him to the door-post … and pierce his ear with an awl; and after that he shall remain his slave forever [i.e. until the jubilee year.]” (Shemot 21:6) In contrast to other ancient societies where slaves...
CALL UP THE FROG(S) The second of the ten plagues, frogs, commences in this week’s parasha with the words: Vata’al HaTzefarde’a Vetchas Et Eretz Mitzrayim (Shemot 8:2) Literally, this means: “The ‘frog’ came up and it covered the land of Egypt.” Hebrew, like English, will sometimes use a word that can have both a singular or plural connotation. ‘Fish’ can mean one fish or many fish. The simple meaning of ‘frog’ in our verse is that it means that the frog plague came up and swarmed over the land. Yet the rabbis of the Talmud (Sanhedrin 67b), sensitive to the...
EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL EGYPTIANS 13th century BCE: Moses leaves the comfort of the royal palace and goes out for himself to see the condition of his fellow Israelites under Egyptian slavery. He is shocked to discover that an Egyptian Taskmaster is beating a Hebrew slave for apparently no reason. To his horror, the slave is being beaten to death. The Torah then says that Moses “looked this way and that; he saw that there was no man, so he struck down the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.” [Exodus 2:12] Rabbi N. Z. Y. Berlin (19th century, Volzhin), author...
