Timeless Torah

As the hot summer weather takes hold and school lets out, more is shed than winter clothes and late night homework assignments. It seems as if the kick-back, take-life-easy attitude affects our very behavior. Young people are friskier, the rules of dress (even those of modesty, unfortunately) seem more relaxed, talk is looser, and parents give their children more leeway. No wonder then, that the Sages instituted the study of the ETHICS OF OUR FATHERS during these summer months.  read more »

We live in an age when moral criticism is considered in bad taste and offensive. Of course, this makes most mothers politically incorrect. But they are not in such bad company. Their moral high-ground is shared by Judaism, as the Talmud points out, “All Jews are responsible for one another.”  read more »

The universe is shrinking. I don't mean in the physical sense. Indeed in that matter, science has finally caught up to the Midrash that explains how the constellations and the planets are expanding. What I refer to is how the world-at-large communicates. Until recently, humans in different parts of the globe could not speak to one another. Then, just over a century ago, the first telephones were connecting families and distant communities. Then the Fax machine brought us even closer together. What followed were CNN and its instantaneous on-the-spot reporting, the World Wide Web, then the latest Pony Express, E-Mail, and now cell phones that make us accessible 24 hours a day.  read more »

On this very first Shabbat after the Pesach holiday, with the taste of Matzoh and Maror still lingering, preparations for the next festival are already underway. Soon the two days of Shavuot commemorating the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai will be upon us. We will eat blintzes, listen to the reading of the Ten Commandments and recite the Yizkor prayer.  read more »