Parshat Bo 5779
Parshat Bo תשעט The Egyptians have suffered through seven of the ten plagues, and after three more they will send the Jewish people out of Egypt. The time has come to prepare the Jewish people for the holiday of Pesach.…
Parshat Va’eira 5779
Parshat Vaera תשעט Moshe precisely followed Hashem’s instructions, yet things seemed to have backfired: Instead of Pharaoh listening to Moshe to release the Jewish people, Pharoah increased their work load. The Jewish slaves would now have to procure their own…
Parshat Shemot 5779
Parshat Shemot תשעט This coming Shabbat we begin reading the second book of the Torah, Sefer Shemot. The רמב"ן, (Ramban) Nachmanides, calls this second book of the Torah ספר הגאולה - “The Book of Redemption.” It seems easy to understand…
Burn Baby, Burn
Parshat Vayechi 5779
It all started with some bad rubber. On July 23rd, a couple was towing their Grey Wolf Select RV trailer down California’s Route 299 when one of the tires blew out. There was nowhere for them to pull off; the…
Parshat Vayechi 5779
Parshat Vayechi תשעט This week’s portion is the portion of blessings. In it, our forefather Yaakov bestows blessings on Yosef’s two sons, Ephriam and Menashe, and on all of his own sons, the 12 Tribes of Israel. As we look…
The Nuclear Reactor in the Backyard
Parshat Vayigash
Becoming an Eagle Scout, the highest-level Boy Scout, is much like stamp collecting, except that you have to do particular tasks to collect those stamps, or merit badges as they are called in Eagle-speak. There are over a hundred different…
Parshat Vayigash 5779
Parshat Vayigash תשע"ט After Yosef revealed himself to his brothers, they hurried home to tell Yaakov that Yosef was still alive and that he was the ruler of Egypt, second in command only to Pharaoh. Yaakov’s response was to…
The Layaway Angels
Parshat Mikeitz/Chanukah
It doesn’t look like we’ll be having snow angels this Chanukah in our area, but instead we got a different kind of angel, the layaway angel. Like so many good things, layaway angels got their start in the great state…
Chanukah 5579
Chanukah תשע"ט Have you ever wondered where the nameחנוכה - Chanukah comes from and what it means? The Sages who instituted Chanukah as a holiday created the name and it is a combination of two words: חנו כ"ה , which…