Parashat Nasso: The origin of Birkat Yeladim

21 May 2021 | Dvar Torah

This past week, a friend’s son donned his tefilin for the first time. She sent me a picture of her husband lovingly showing him how to wrap the straps over his fingers. It is a special moment that never fails to strike a strong emotional chord within me. Not simply...

Parashat Bamidbar: Creating or own midbar

15 May 2021 | Dvar Torah

None would argue that the past fifteen months have been an incredible trial, a rollercoaster of highs and lows with barely a moment to catch our breaths, with the most recent “low” being the surge of violence in Israel. This has been and continues to be a time of...

Parashat Behar-Bechukotai: The importance of putting in effort

8 May 2021 | Dvar Torah

One of my favorite things to do in my teens was to go through a cupboard in my parents’ room where my mom stored all our childhood keepsakes. From macaroni necklaces to construction paper birthday cards, my parents kept a small collection of these mementos that told...

Parashat Emor: The faults we see in others

30 April 2021 | Dvar Torah

Years ago, a group of friends and I went to Florida for Spring Break. We were nineteen and all excited about going away, alone, for the first time. How sad we were to discover that most places would be closed to us as the legal age in the United States is twenty-one-...

Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim: The many forms of “stumbling blocks”

23 April 2021 | Dvar Torah

When my children were very young, as most young mothers, I did everything I could to protect them: bumpers on coffee table corners, gates on the stairs and locks on the cabinets. There were no limits to the measures I would take to keep them safe. They were little and...

Parashat Tazria-Metzora: Words can destroy

16 April 2021 | Dvar Torah

Reading or sharing the latest titillating bit of news is a guilty pleasure that many indulge in. The celebrity gossip industry alone is a 3 billion dollar a year venture and does not include the online traffic of Twitter, Instagram and other social media networks...

Parashat Shemini: Knowing who we are and who we are not

9 April 2021 | Dvar Torah

Literature, old and new, is filled with fables and tales expounding on the merits and the virtue of humility. But no other personality ever embodied that virtue more than Moshe Rabbeinu himself. Despite all that he accomplished, he never saw himself as great, as...

Parashat Tzav: The value of empathy

26 March 2021 | Dvar Torah

Everyone can probably think of a person in their life whom they turn to in difficult times. What is it about these people that make us willing to open up to them, that lifts our mood and helps us move forward? Upon reflection, most of us would probably say that he or...

Parashat Vayikra: Listening to our inner wisdom

19 March 2021 | Dvar Torah

My mother would often call out to my sister and me to “turn off the stupid box”. For those of you who may be wondering, this is parent-speak of the eighties meaning “turn off the television”. I often wonder what she would say if I were a child of the 2020s. Today, our...

Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei: We cannot compromise on education

12 March 2021 | Dvar Torah

The word “cherub” conjures up the image of a pudgy little baby with wings and a bow and arrow; an image perpetuated by the greeting card industry to the point that it has become the iconic symbol for Valentine’s Day. In the Torah, cherubs, or kruvim, are first...