Using the Right Tools

This is as relevant for us today as it was in the Ramban’s time: That which we consume has the power to consume us. There’s nothing today we consume more than media.
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Heart of a Stranger: The Jewish Historical Memory of Torture

You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt. -Ex. 23:9 You were strangers in the land of Egypt reminds us that we have experienced the great suffering that one in a foreign land feels. By remembering the pain which we...
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Justice for the Land and Its Inhabitants

Commentary on Parshat Behar (Leviticus 25:1 – 26:2) In Leviticus 25, the Torah famously explains the practice of the sabbatical year (shmitah) and the jubilee year (yovel), in which those who work the land refrain from farming in order to let the land rest. It’s not hard to see a connection between the ancient practice...
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A Flood of Unsafe Water

On August 31st, 2005, I sat waiting for a connection in Brussels, coming back from a summer studying in Israel. I was about to begin rabbinical school in just a few weeks. TVs streamed footage of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina; it was the first I knew of it, having been cut off from most...
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