The Question of Fracking
Aug 2, 2008 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Masei
Golda Meir famously quipped: “Let me tell you the one thing I have against Moses. He took us forty years into the desert in order to bring us to the one place in the Middle East that has no oil!”
Read MoreFinding Holiness in the Wilderness of Life
Aug 18, 2012 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Masei | Mattot
That life is ever changing makes us curious, grateful, wary. How are we to navigate the uncertainty in a way that makes us feel rewarded?
Read MoreAt Home, Running for Cover
Jul 25, 2014 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Masei
The past month has been a time of great emotion and tension for those of us living in Israel. From the moment that Naftali Fraenkel (z”l), Gilad Sha’ar (z”l), and Eyal Yifrach (z”l) were kidnapped, there was a sense of foreboding that overtook the country.
Read MoreCities of Refuge
Jul 17, 2015 By Tim Daniel Bernard | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
Pu`uhonua O Hōnaunau, the City of Refuge, on Hawaii’s Big Island was functional into the early 19th century, when kapu, Hawaii’s system of ritual taboos, was overturned by King Kamehameha II. Until that time, many breaches of the kapu could result in death, including for an offence as ephemeral as allowing your shadow to fall over a chief’s house. However, by entering a pu`uhonua (a place of refuge), often by swimming across a bay, and performing a ritual facilitated by the priest there, the punishment could be annulled.
Read More“On the Road”
Jul 30, 2011 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Masei
Standing at the precipice of the Promised Land, Moshe looks back with the people and relates their journey with the same sweeping overview that Sal Paradise narrates. “These were the marches of the Israelites who started out from the land of Egypt, troop by troop, in the charge of Moses and Aaron” (33:1). What follows through the first half of the parashah is a virtual Trip Tik of the journeys of the children of Israel.
Read MoreTo Listen and to Discern
Jul 3, 2013 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
Parashat Mattot,the first of the two parashiyot this week, opens and closes with the idea of meaningful and thoughtful communication.
Read MoreLife’s Journeys
Jul 25, 2014 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Commentary | Masei
In a few weeks, thousands of US high school students will leave home to begin college or a gap year of study and/or service before entering college.
Read MoreBoundary of the Wilderness
Jul 10, 2010 By Alan Mintz (<em>z”l</em>) | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
The Torah is replete with lists of every kind: the generations before and after Noah, the enumeration of the tribes and their chieftains in the desert, the catalogs of forbidden foods, the inventories of priestly garments.
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