It was in the second or third grade that I began to study Chumash. I remember beginning at the beginning, with Parashat Bereshit. It must have been in third, or perhaps even fourth, grade that we reached this week’s Torah portion, Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23).
This phrase occurs in the very first blessing of the Amidah, the eighteen blessings commonly referred to as Shemoneh Esreh, the centerpiece of the prayer service recited in the synagogue at least three times every day. The blessing praises the Patriarchs, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and calls upon the Almighty to take account of their benevolent deeds and to bring us the redemption that we seek as the descendants of the men whose entire lives were models of exemplary loving-kindness.
Quite some time has gone by since we celebrated the holiday of Sukkot. Frankly, there is much about that holiday that I have already forgotten. But one memory remains etched in my mind, one biblical phrase that was part of the Sukkot service that continues to haunt me.
It is commonly assumed that parents know their children much better than anyone else knows them. After all, parents have had the opportunity to observe their children from their earliest years, from their infancy, and in most instances observed them daily as they grew.
The opening verses in this week’s Torah portion (Genesis 23:1-25:18) inform us of the death of Sarah: “The span of Sarah’s life came to one hundred and twenty-seven years. She died in Kiryat Arba—now Chevron—in the land of Canaan; and Avraham came to eulogize Sarah and weep for her.” (Verses 1 and 2)
I’ve set two goals for myself in writing this year’s series of “Person in the Parsha” columns. One is to focus on a person who is barely mentioned in the parsha, as I’ve done in previous weeks with Nimrod. The other is to discuss the parameters of “Good” vs. “Evil,” as exemplified by the courage of the very young Avram vs. the murderous tyranny of King Nimrod.
I try to focus these weekly columns upon individuals who are barely mentioned in the weekly Torah portion. They often have an important, but insufficiently appreciated, role to play.
Why did I choose the title “Person in the Parsha” when I began to compose these weekly columns many years ago? I hesitate to tell you the truth; namely, that I had several reasons for doing so. But one reason was the fact that almost every parsha has in it a central human figure, Abraham or Moses for example, and often several such figures. Surely, a weekly column must include some comment about that person’s heroic achievements or occasional frustrations.
Imagine a very important project in which you were once involved. It could have been at work, in school, or in your personal life. You gave it your all. You used all the resources at your command, involving many other people, spending quite a bit of money, and investing a lot of your own time and energy. You were confident that you had done everything possible to guarantee the success of this project.
All men are mortal. Yankel is a man. Therefore, Yankel is mortal. You have just read a basic lesson in logic, one that appears in almost every textbook on the subject.
It is a question that I learned never to ask. I first learned this lesson in my training as a psychotherapist, long ago. I was seeing a gentleman for a number of problems, including his marital difficulties.
It seems that war is one of the most common of all human activities. Study history of the human race, and you will not find many years that were not blemished by warfare. Read the literature of the world, and you will find very few books whose pages are not bloodstained. Study the Jewish tradition, beginning with the Bible itself, and you will find very few narratives that do not contain the images of battle.
I love metaphors. An apt metaphor can help stimulate boundless creativity and can lead to a deeper and richer understanding of the concept being studied.
If your child, employee, or colleague asks you that question, you can be sure that he or she is sincere, wishes to learn, and will succeed. The person who asks, "How am I doing?" is asking for constructive feedback. That person is expressing a need to know whether or not he is doing a good job, and if not, what he can do to correct his work.
It is a question with which every religious person has at one time been confronted and been confounded. Even those of us who are not theologically inclined have struggled with this question: Why are my prayers not answered? After all, we do believe in the efficacy of prayer. Why, then, is it so often a frustrating experience?
"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time." We have all heard this phrase, and many of us have used it. It is especially apt when it is used to describe a person with many virtues and talents who just can't use them because of the social or physical circumstances in which he finds himself. That such a person faces profound frustration is, to say the least, obvious.
Every so often, I come across a sentence of another person’s writing which expresses one of my own thoughts in a language far superior to my own. Over the years, I have contemplated and written about the concepts of “honesty” and “integrity” and the difference between the two.
Too often leaders cling to power and become blinded to their own vulnerabilities.
It was at a house of mourning, and she was saying something that I had heard many times before. In fact, I had said it myself when I was sitting shiva for my own mother.
Very often, we think that if a person is especially spiritual, he cannot possibly be very practical. It is as if religious devotion and good common sense just don’t go together.
Imagine standing at a crossroads. We have all been there. We have all experienced moments in our life’s journey when we had to make a crucial choice and decide whether to proceed along one road or along another. (Except for Yogi Berra, of course, who famously said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it.")
I don't usually disagree publicly with lecturers, particularly when they are expressing opinions which are mostly consistent with my own. But there was one time when I felt that I had to speak up and object to one of the speaker's expressions.
Scholars have had a lot to say about the role of aristocracy in the course of human history. Those of us who grew up in the United States of America were taught about the advantages of democracy and thus developed a prejudice against the very word "aristocracy." We were convinced that aristocracy meant government by a select group of people who earned their right to govern by virtue of their birth.
It is good for the body and good for the soul. It helps one lose weight, provides time for contemplation, is a favorite leisure activity, it can be entertaining – even edifying – and it costs nothing. In fact, there is no down side to it at all. It is the act of walking, or more colloquially, "taking a walk."
It is a lesson I first learned in a course I took on the skills of interviewing long ago. The instructor taught us that the way to really size up a candidate for a job is to determine how he uses his time. He taught us that one question designed to assist the interviewer to make that determination is, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”