Vaera תשפ"ד In the second verse of this week’s portion וארא – Vaera (Exodus 6:3), Hashem tells Moshe: (ג) וָאֵרָא אֶל אַבְרָהָם אֶל יִצְחָק וְאֶל יַעֲקֹב בְּקֵל שַׁקָי וּשְׁמִי יְדֹוָד לֹא נוֹדַעְתִּי לָהֶם 3) And I appeared to Avraham,…
When we talk about the Big Three here in Detroit, we are generally referring to Ford, General Motors, and what used to be known as Chrysler, but now is called Stellantis. But when philosophers talk about The Big Three, they…
Last week we completed the first book of the Torah, Bereshit – Genesis, and this week we begin the second book Shemot – Exodus. Nachmanides in his preface to sefer Shemot explains that Genesis is called the book of creation,…
The year 1888 was not an uneventful year. The National Geographic Society was founded, and began telling a hungry public about the wonders of people and places all over the world. De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. was founded in South…
Parshat Vayechi תשפד When thumbing through the pages of the Chumash, have you ever wondered what the פפפ or ססס at the end of almost every parsha in the Torah mean? The פ stands for פתוחה, an open paragraph,…
Sixteen years ago, I visited China for the first and so far only time. The purpose of the trip was to attend the dedication celebration of a Torah scroll a friend of mine had purchased for the Chabad of Pudong…
Vayigash תשפ"ד After Yosef revealed himself to his brothers, they hurried home to tell their father 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…
Last night we had a Chanukah party at my house. I was busy preparing for an important lecture, so I was hoping to stay out of the kitchen entirely. But just when I thought I was free and clear, I…