Mazal Tov to Viviane and Steven Verstandig on the marriage of their son Michael and Allana Kasell.
Mazal Tov to Marcy and Jeff Sackett on the engagement of their daughter Jaime to Ashley Marks.
We are saddened by the passing of Dorothy Weisberg, mother of our member Ellen Kaplan, and widow of our past president, Maurycy Weisberg. The funeral will be on Monday, December 3 at 2:45 pm, graveside at Beth Moses Cemetery in Farmingdale, Long Island. Shiva will be observed at the home of Ellen & Jim Kaplan, Continue Reading »
After 20 years of estrangement, Ya’akov is about to encounter his twin brother, Esav, and he’s not entirely sure what to expect. He hopes for the best, but plans for the worst. Rashi says that Ya’akov prepares for three distinct contingencies: one, to simply give his brother a present; two, he prepares through prayer; and Continue Reading »
Did he really think his crimes would go unpunished? The stories of Sefer Bereshit, the Book of Genesis, are so brilliantly interconnected. That’s evident in this week’s Torah portion, Vayetzei, as Ya’akov the deceiver is himself the victim of a sibling swap. Then he cons the ultimate con-man, his uncle Lavan. No doubt CNN would refer to Continue Reading »
“When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man who stayed in camp” (Genesis 25:27). With this famous verse, the descendants of Ya’akov, the Jewish People, have been painted with one brush as docile, bookish, and weak. And it’s our own fault, for Continue Reading »
Two weeks ago, in Parshat Lekh-Lekha, we read the story of Avraham the Warrior, victorious in the battle that rescued his nephew, Lot. Much has happened to him in the interim, but now, in Parshat Hayei-Sarah, we see him at the end of his life, undertaking one more challenge. It’s time to find a wife for Yitzhak, Continue Reading »
We simply can’t get through difficult times, like these wrought by the winds of Sandy, without the kindness of others. So many of us in this community, which was far luckier than others, have opened our doors to those left without heat, power, or more. We have tried to look in on those who might Continue Reading »
I have always been intrigued by the brief exchange between Avram and the King of Sodom in this week’s parshah, Lekh-Lekha. Avram the man of faith proves to be quite capable as a man of war. After hearing that his nephew Lot has been taken captive when Sodom ended up on the losing side of Continue Reading »
It could not have been easy being Noah. From the moment he was born, he carried the hopes of humanity. He was named with the following prayer: “This one will provide us relief–yenahameinu–from our work and the toil of our hands, out of the very soil which God placed under a curse” (Genesis 5:29). Maybe, Continue Reading »
