Parshat Ki Tavo תשפ This week’s Torah portion Ki Tavo is famous for the תוכחה - the Tochacha. (No English word adequately captures the meaning of Tochacha, but its meaning will become clear as we go along.) The Tochacha comprises…
Mirror mirror on the wall, which national park is the most majestic of them all? Its mountains are as green as the verdant forest, Its peaks rise up to graze on the heavens Its waterfalls tumble down from peak to…
Parshat Shoftim תשפ If statistics are correct, Jews comprise .02% of the world’s population. There are over 2.5 billion Christians, almost 2 billion Muslims, billions more people in many other religions, including non-believers. The Torah instructs us to follow the…
Re’eh תשפ Imagine the following scenario: You are sitting in your living room watching the evening news, when suddenly a weird looking fellow appears on the screen. He is wearing a turban, has a spider tattooed on his forehead, and…
For a friendly boy from Fort Wayne, IN, Lou Curdes sure had plenty of fight in him. He fought with the Italians, the Germans and the Japanese. As a fighter pilot in WWII, Captain Lou moved from battlefront to battle…
Parshat Ekev תשפ Ekev is the third portion in the fifth and last book of the Torah,דברים Devarim (Deuteronomy), which Moshe related in its entirety to the Jewish people in the last 36 days of his life, the last three…
ma·chine: noun, often attributive \mə-ˈshēn\ A: a constructed thing whether material or immaterial B : an assemblage of parts that transmit forces, motion, and energy one to another in a predetermined manner (2) : an instrument designed to transmit or…