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Thomas Friedman is full of himself

Yet Thomas Friedman will play his arrogant scolding parent posture to the hilt. That is the role he plays when he condescendingly declares  that “Israel today really is behaving like a spoiled child.”.He continues it when he pontificates about how “Israel needs a wake-up call”. It continues with the title of his op-ed aimed at all the wrongs of Israel called “Just knock it off,”. Friedman actually descends into an even more pathetic almost pouting stance when confronted with Obama’s deteriorating relationship with Israel . He then plaintively declares without any corroborating facts the following “Please spare me the nonsense that President Obama is anti-Israel…He’s doing his job.”

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Parshat Ki Tissa

Even though G-d knows that the children of Israel have fallen into the sin of the golden calf, He continues to teach Torah to Moshe on the Mount. Why? What special gift is revealed by all these final commandments delivered just prior to the sin.

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True Leadership and Priestly Garments

The word for clothing in Hebrew is “Beged” and its root seems to be connected to the Hebrew word for betrayal and deception, BAGAD, for after all the role of clothing is to hide and conceal. We are living in a time and in a world where falsehood and evil is dressed up in pretty clothing and flourishes unchallenged. The commonly heard phrase is that “the clothes make the man”.

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Egypt, Again

by Rabbi Benjamin Blech

How the country’s turmoil resonates with a striking biblical parallel.

The front-page stories in newspapers around the world today resonate with striking biblical parallel.

The land of the pharaohs is suddenly aflame with a movement of millions crying out for freedom from the oppression of a tyrannical regime. The same Egypt that millennia ago witnessed the rebellion of the Jews against their servitude seems to be replaying the story of the book of Exodus. Freedom is the mantra of the dissidents who want to bring to an end the despotic rule of Mubarak – just as it was the driving force behind the mission of Moses who wanted to bring about a better world for his people.

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, it’s déjà vu all over again.

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The Mysteries of the Acacia wood

We read in the Parsha  (Torah portion) the following:

They shall make an ark of acacia wood ( Atzei Shittim), two and a half cubits its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height.. And you shall overlay it with pure gold; from inside and from outside you shall overlay it, and you shall make upon it a golden crown all around.( Exodus 25:10-11)

The people were being commanded to place the most precious item in the world into this vessel they were to create. The very words of G-d carved into stone were to be placed into an ark made of acacia wood lined with gold. On the one hand the menorah representing   G-d’s light was to be made of pure gold (ibid 25:31) and on the other these precious tablets were to be placed in an ark made of  wood that was simply lined with gold.

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Parshat Teruma

Overview of  Teruma (Exodus 25:1-27:19)

“They shall make for Me a Sanctuary, and I shall dwell amidst them.”

How do we build the spiritual Sanctuary within us, so G-d may dwell within us? How is this related to the third temple?

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Food As Prayer

In the Torah portion of Mishpatim we read of an astounding account:

And Moses and Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel ascended, and they perceived the G-d of Israel, and beneath His feet was like the forming of a sapphire brick and like the appearance of the heavens for clarity.. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He did not lay His hand, and they perceived God, and they ate and drank. ( Exodus 24:9-11)

In the midst of this incredible vision, they “ate and drank” !?!

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