Mordechai Wollenberg

This week's Torah reading starts with the statement "Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; may the earth hear the words of my mouth." Two different Hebrew words are used for what, at first glance, is the same idea. Regarding the heavens, the verse says ...

In this week's Torah reading, Moses calls the heavens and the earth as testimony to the eternal bond between G-d and the Jewish people. Why not gather ordinary people as witnesses--a somewhat more normal method than using such seemingly abstract ...

This week's Torah reading begins Atem nitzavim, "You are standing here today, all of you... from the heads of tribes... to the woodcutters and water-drawers." The commentaries explain that nitzavim in Hebrew means "standing firm." This verse teaches us ...

Without collective achievement, we cannot achieve individual fulfillment.

If the person is going to fall anyway, why should I have to take reponsibility?

When you go out to war on your enemies, the L-rd your G-d shall deliver them into your hands, and you shall capture from them captives (Deuteronomy 21:10) According to the Torah, a person has two inclinations -- the "good inclination" (yetzer tov) and ...

This week's Torah reading, as its name (Shoftim--"Judges") suggests, instructs us regarding judges and justice. Like everything else in the Torah, however, these ideas are reflected within the human psyche and can be applied to each and every one of us. ...

"I can't understand it," said the coach of the football team. "It was such an important game that I bribed the referee, and yet we still lost." "Terrible, isn't it," the team captain agreed. "It's getting so you can't trust anyone any more..." This ...

One of the birds which is described in this week's reading is the chassidah, the stork, regarding which the Talmud tells us, "she is benevolent toward her own kind." So why isn't thechassidah kosher?

The food we consume affects us on a soul-level, influencing our character and affecting our natural tendencies