This week’s Torah commentary is from Kolel and discusses parashat korach.

Go and study!

Through blogger, I came across a blog called Jerusalem Wanderings. The blogger includes many posts of how the author is living a life of coexistence and peace.

Read and Enjoy!

Shalom. While reading Ha’aretz this morning to stay current on the events in Israel, I read an interesting story on the newspaper habits of Israeli teens. About 80% of Israeli teens read the newspaper daily. Wow! The study is also interesting for what it finds about the reading habits of Ultra-Orthodox, Secular and Non-Jewish kids. You can read the Ha’artez article here.

This week’s Torah portion is Shelach Lecha and you can read a drash on it titled “Tying the Fringes to Be Like Caleb & Joshuah (note this is a PDF file).

Shalom! Sorry it has been so long since I’ve posted. I was away at a conference event this past Sunday learning and networking (with travel before and after) and am still swamped with work.

As you are probably aware, some complicated and significant things are taking place in Israel right now, and I hope to blog about it later.

Thanks for understanding!

L’hitraot.

One of the things that I like about the internet is that amongst the commerce, the blogs, news, corporate and organizational sites on the web are sites where just by clicking a link, you can give tzedakah (a Hebrew word meaning righteouness, the word we use instead of charity) while online. Of course, there are many sites where you can use a credit card and give money to a favorite recipient, but what I am speaking of are sites where you can contribute to others for free without having to do anything more than just click.

There are many such sites for many many causes. Some people have made lists of the sites. For example:

Click to Cure Cancer (See the list at the bottom of the page.)
Help Others for Free (Listed by catagory.)
Care 2 Click to Donate

Go and give tzedakah!

This week’s parashah includes the Torah’s first and shortest healing prayer – El na, refah na la – said by Moses on behalf of Miriam.

While surfing the internet, I found an interesting drash on this prayer by Rabbi Arnold D. Samlan. It is posted at Learn Torah With, a commentary done for a few years by Torah Aura publishers. (By the way, this article is 4 years old, but still relevant [after all, Torah is thousands of years old].)

May your study be sweet.

Shavuah tov. I hope that you had a wonderful shabbat and a nice shavuot. The tikkun leyl shavuot I attended was wonderful and enjoyable and it was nice to be at services the next morning.

Today, my congregation had shabbat morning services and a wonderful young man became bar mitzvah. It wasn’t an easy process for him, and he did well with much pride. Seeing kids who understand what it is really about acheive this milestone gives me joy.

One more piece of personal, catch-up news, a dear college friend is visiting this weekend and it is great to spend time together!

Wishing you a wonderful week!

Happy Shavuot!

Shavuot begins tonight, our ancient pilgramage festival & holiday celebrating one of G-d’s greatest gifts to us – the Torah.

Here are some excellent Shavuot (also called Shavuos) links:
My Jewish Learning articles on Shavuot
Why we read the book of Ruth on Shavuot
Shavuot Checklist
URJ on Shavuot
JTS on Shavuot
The many names for Shavuot

Go, study, learn, celebrate and enjoy!

Good evening.

Over dinner tonight I read part of the latest issue of The Forward and I found myself agreeing with two brief yet well-written editorials:

The Gift of the Law on what to think about this Shavuot.

The Same War on the wars in Iraq and Chechnya.

You will need to make a free online subscription to the Forward to read the artilces, but I believe it is well worthwhile.

Go and Study!
Go and Grow!