Ki-Tisa 5770 - March 5, 2010
The First News Story Ever
The first news story ever, which happened when everything was new under the sun. The first time someone ate something they shouldn't have.
We've been talking about it ever since. But what really happened? Where exactly is the Garden of Eden? And what kind of fruit grew on this infamous tree? (Did you say apples?)
And what is the nature of the shadow that has been hanging over us for the last 5,700 years? Will we ever escape the effects of Adam and Eve's mistake?
Find out all of this and more by listening to a riveting lecture – one of our many live-streamed offerings – by Rabbi Mendel Kaplan: Original Sin Revisited.
Listen and discover the origins of self-consciousness. The reason why so many cultures have seven-day-weeks. The origins of the myth of the phoenix. And find out who, if anyone, lives in the Garden of Eden today.
Are there people who are too important for the job? A lesson from the story of Purim
A tree, a piece of fruit, the nature of reality fundamentally altered for thousands of year... What really happened in the Garden of Eden on that fateful day?
Gefilte Fish gives an in-depth analysis of the Golden Calf, explains the importance of not worshipping idols, and complains about the lack of Fresca in the IKS studio.
Why the kiss? I had just expressed loving and encouraging words. What made me shift my mode of expression from the verbal to the physical?
Finally, we were there! Amid a cluster of small buildings, the door of the bus opened and a man greeted us with a warm smile. It was Rabbi Danny Cohen, Chabad emissary to Hebron, who serves the soldiers with a strong yet gentle presence...
My two-year-old has huge tantrums and is impossible to control. We are going crazy and don't know what to do. Is there some Kabbalistic formula to get a child to behave?
My daughter has gone to stay with her grandparents after another row between us. She is 16 and I am a non-supported single parent. Our relationship has been fraught, to say the least, over the years and I have said very hurtful things to her...
The Twelve Step Program is one of the most successful self-help models in existence, so successful, in fact, that it has been modified and adapted by other groups. What is it that makes this program so versatile?
Excitement welled up in the small congregation. What had started out as a calamity suddenly seemed fresh, real, and full of wonderment. Miracles could come at anytime. And suddenly there was a bright flashing light!
For two hours every day he would lock himself in his room and no one, not even the King himself, was allowed to enter or disturb him in any way. It was on this condition that he accepted the task of teaching the prince...
Fresh snow covers the ground, thinking I’m too young to know. On the other side of the pit four Russians dressed like railroad or construction workers look me up and down. I try not to look back.
If Torah says that the episode of the Golden Calf is an "uplifting" story, then that is indeed the case. So what is the deeper meaning that lies behind the seemingly deceiving title?
Moses was baffled when G‑d described for him the impurity contracted through contact with a corpse. Why?
Who can make the physical world a holy place? One who remains untouched by its coarseness, or one who has succumbed to its temptations and triumphed over them? And what about the one who is still stuck in the morass of the material?
Fed up with the corruption and immorality he had seen at Pharaoh's palace, Moses had all but given up on bettering the world. He had come to terms with living the life of a private citizen, and began to focus on making local, instead of global, differences. But that was about to change.
I've said it many times and let me repeat: The Master of the Universe not only talks to Himself, He talks to figments of His holy imagination. Not only that, those figments of His holy imagination talk back to Him. And He listens...
I know you asked the school before you left today “if they knew what they were doing to a kid who had really been trying so hard.” And I know they didn’t have a reply for you . . .
The lesson that I needed to learn was that of responsibility. As long as my mother “owned” the results of my actions, I didn’t have to. It was only when I was the one who had to deal with the consequences that something shifted . . .
How can you attain love of an infinite G-d? Through love of your fellow human beings.
As Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa would say, “If people like you, G-d likes you too.”
How did he know?
Because he knew that if people truly like you, it must be that you genuinely like them.
And when you hold genuine love in your heart for ...
