Let’s start with a number: 38,055,354,510,682, also known as, thirty eight trillion, fifty five billion, and change. I’m sure many of you recognize this number as the total US National Debt. But I’m sure none of you know what that…
Lech Lecha תשפ"ו This week's portion introduces us to Avraham Avinu, Avraham our forefather, whose dedication to Hashem was so great that he made it his life’s mission to teach the world about Him. Hashem, in turn, loved Avraham…
Although this coming Shabbat we will read parshat Noach, we will focus here on an earth-changing event that occurred in last week’s parsha, Bereshit, viz, the cold-blooded murder of Hevel by his brother Kayin. The Midrash Rabba (Esther 10) records…
The historical information in this essay is mostly culled from Bill Bryson’s book on human anatomy and physiology, The Body. For most of human history, scratching your arm on a rusty nail could be a death sentence. The scratch wasn’t the…
For most people, the rule of thumb is to stick to what you’re good at. But there are those rare individuals who can’t seem to stick to anything and are good at everything. Joseph Paxton was one of those people,…
It was hot, I was trapped, and it was getting hotter. I fidgeted uncomfortably in my seatfor a few minutes, and then I unbuckled myself and starting moving around my littleprison. Inevitably, as a normal seven-year-old, I soon found myself…
Moskva, Moskva, Moskva… The 900-year-old city sitting astride the Moskva River, with its torturous and at times glorious history, is now the most populated city in Europe. The capital of the largest country in the world, it is the cultural,…
We crossed into Egypt at the Taba Border Crossing around midnight. I was exhausted, dirty, and bone weary after two utterly crazy days in Jordan, but I trudged up to passport control with resigned indifference. If it were up to…
“Good fences make good neighbors,” goes the saying.[*] Visible and clearly defined boundaries and limitations make it easy to respect the property of others. People run into trouble only when it is unclear to them where their domain ends…